In 1912, Siegfried Mühsam, a pharmacist in Lübeck, published Geschichte des Namens Mühsam -- Zweite Auflage (The Story of the Mühsam Name -- Second Edition) in which he recounts the oral family tradition that King Frederick the Second of Prussia (Frederick the Great) awarded the new family name Mühsam (laborious, painstaking, arduous, with difficulty) to Pincus Seeligmann Pappenheim (1737-1807) in recognition of his efforts rescuing a high-ranking wounded Prussian officer from Austrian captivity in 1757, as well as of his arduous quest, thirty years later, to be allowed to remain in the house he had built in the Silesian town of Pitschen.

Siegfried's Geschichte is not only the story of a family name -- it is also the story of that family -- the Pappenheims and the Muehsams -- and of their hundreds of descendants by many other family names.

The purpose of this website is to bring Siegfried's Geschichte up to date, by allowing the descendants of the Pappenheims and the Mühsams to tell their own stories and post their pictures. The website is a wiki -- an interactive website. Thus any member can edit it, adding and correcting text and images.

Also take a look at the Pappenheim/Mühsam genealogy pages here:PAPPENHEIM. This page links to several others which include detailed genealogies of the various branches of the family.



?Pincus Seeligmann Pappenheim Mühsam (1737-1807)?
(perhaps his brother Simon Pappenheim, or his father Seeligmann
Pappenheim)

The Montclair Portrait

This portrait has been in my possession in Montclair, New Jersey, since the death of my mother MarieRös'chen Neuhaus, née Siegheim (1890-1974). Marie (known as Mieze) was born in Georgenberg, Upper Silesia, and died in Yonkers, New York. Mieze received the portrait at the death of her elder sister Ida Freudenberg, née Siegheim, born in Georgenberg 1887, who died in Basel, Switzerland in 1951. Before Ida, the portrait had passed to Bertha Siegheim, née Berliner (1850-1924), the mother of Ida and Mieze, from Bertha's mother Nanny, who had inherited it from her mother Rös'chen, who had it from her mother Barbara Mühsam, the widow of Pincus himself.

Provenance of Montclair Portrait (oral tradition):

Barbara > Rös'chen > Nanny > Bertha > Ida > Mieze > Geoff

2009 (March) Note: The doubt that the Montclair Portrait depicts Pincus first arose in 2005, since the London Portrait of Pincus (shown on the cover of Die Mühsams, by Christoph Hamann, published that year), though the hat and beard are almost identical, shows facial features that differ markedly. This doubt was reinforced in 2008, when Tammy Samuel sent me a copy of the New South Wales (Australia) Portrait, which appears to be of the same subject as the Montclair and Riverdale Portraits, but not of the London Portrait. Tammy is descended from Simon Pappenheim and from his father Seeligmann Pappenheim, but not from Simon's brother Pincus, whereas I am descended from both Simon and Pincus . Thus, it would make sense for me to have a picture of either Simon or Pincus (or of their father, Seeligmann Pappenheim), but it would not make sense for Tammy to have a picture of Pincus.




Pincus Seeligmann Pappenheim Mühsam (1737-1807)
(Original in London, England.)

The London Portrait

The owner of the London portrait is Professor Esra Bennathan, a descendant of Joseph Mühsam, one of the two sons of Pincus & Barbara.

Pincus & Barbara > Joseph > Abraham Adolf > Jacques > Irma > Esra



Riverdale, New York, portrait. (Barbara E. Neuhaus has the original.)

The Riverdale Portrait

Barbara E. Neuhaus (born 1928) is the sister of Geoff (Gottfried) and the second child of Marie Rös'chen Neuhaus, née Siegheim, and her husband Hugo Neuhaus MD.

The Riverdale Portrait came from Rös'chen/Rösel Mühsam, a daughter of Pincus & Barbara.

Rös'chen may, indeed, have painted it herself. To see two paintings of Rös'chen, click on her page , shown in the list of pages on the left of the Home Page.

Rös'chen > Nanny > Bertha > Ida > Marie Rös'chen > Barbara E. Neuhaus

(This array shows the provenance of the painting, not the line of descent.

Idi -- Ida Freudenberg, née Siegheim -- and her younger sister Marie Rös'chen Neuhaus née Siegheim, are both daughters of Bertha Siegheim née Berliner.)



The New South Wales (NSW), Australia, Portrait

The NSW portrait belongs to Tamara (Tammy) Samuel, a descendant of Simon Pappenheim but not of Pincus. (Simon was a brother of Pincus). The Montclair and NSW Portraits are virtual replicas of each other, or of a third, unknown, original. This raises the question whether the Montclair, NSW and Riverdale portraits depict Simon, Pincus or (as Tammy has suggested) their father, Seeligmann Pappenheim, who was believed to have been born around 1710. Comments are invited.

The London portrait, although it shares the hat and the shape of beard and hair with the others, depicts facial features that differ markedly.

G. Neuhaus, 2008 Sept.



Salomon Pappenheim, brother of Pincus and Simon,
rabbi and philologist in Zülz. Picture supplied by
Daniel Kester, a descendant of Pincus through his
daughter Pesse Sorauer.




THE CHILDREN OF PINCUS AND BARBARA

In his 1912 Geschichte, Siegfried Mühsam lists two sons and six daughters of Pincus and Barbara.

SPELLING

Siegfried has made an effort to "modernize" the spelling of names in accordance with the principles of the German Spelling Reform Conference of 1901. Occasionally, he slips up and copies the original spelling from a document that predates the Conference. Thus, while he generally refers to Pincus as Pinkus (K instead of C), he accurately copies the name of Joseph Pincus Mühsam from the 1813 certificate in which Joseph's Prussian citizenship is confirmed.

The other source of information about the descendants of Pincus and Barbara is the 1812 Register of the Jews of Silesia who in that year adopted permanent family surnames as the condition for obtaining Prussian citizenship.

In the 1812 Register, the two sons of Pincus and Barbara are listed as:

- Mühsam, Joseph Pincus, in the town of Pitschen, district of Creuzburg, and

- Mühsam, Seeligmann Pincus, in the town of Lomnitz, district of Rosenberg.

Pincus, their father, had died in 1807 and is therefore no longer listed in the 1812 Register. Instead, Barbara, his widow, appears as:

- Mühsam, Pincus, Wittwe (widow), in the town of Pitschen, district of Creuzburg.

The Register appears to list only the heads of households, not all members of the family. Since both Barbara (as Widow Pincus Mühsam) and her younger son Joseph appear in Pitschen, we cannot tell whether in 1812 , they had separate households or lived together.

Siegfried, in referrring to the first son as Seligmann, not Seeligmann, follows the fashion of 1912, not that of 1812.

I, on the other hand, have used the contemporaneous 1812 spelling in naming Seeligmann's page in this website. But in reproducing Siegfried's list of descendants, I follow his spellings, since for most of them I have no other source than his Geschichte.

Another potential source of confusion is the Umlaut -- three German vowels that do not have independent letters but are represented by A, O and U, with a diëresis -- two dots -- above: ä. ö, ü. The Umlaut was originally represented by an E following the A or O or U. Thus, Mühsam may be written as Muehsam, Rösel as Roesel, etc. When in doubt, check both spellings.

THE TWO SONS

A. Seligmann Mühsam, died 30 April 1831, married to Dorothea Cohn,
B. Joseph Mühsam, died 8 February 1842, married to Channa Pick.

THE SIX DAUGHTERS

1. Maria, married first to Hirsch Jacob, second to Jonas Lax,
2. Pesse, married to Jacob Sorauer,
3. Frommet, married to Benjamin Baginsky,
4. Esther, married first to Samuel Schweitzer, second to Salomon Heilborn,
5. Rösel, married to her cousin Itzig Pappenheim,
6. Charlotte, married first to Abraham Sittenfeld, second to Michael Rechnitz. Charlotte changed her name back to Mühsam after the death of her second husband, when she and her son Pinkus moved into her mother's house in Pitschen in 1817.

It is my hope that for each of the children of Pincus and Barbara who have descendants, a page in this website will provide a guide to their family tree, or a link to a separate site.

G. Neuhaus, May 2008





The eight children of Benjamin and Frommet, listed by Siegfried Mühsam, the pharmacist in Lübeck, are:

1. Pinkus Baginsky, married to Johanna Stern;
2. Abraham Baginsky, married first to Johanna Lustig,
married second to Amalie Lustig,
married third to Mathilde Lustig;
3. Moritz Baginsky, married to Auguste Zehdnicker;
His third child was Amalie Scheyer, Rabbi Scheyer's ancestress. (now spelled Shire.)
4. Salomon Baginsky (unmarried);
5. Adolf Baginsky, married to his cousin Johanna Mühsam;
6. Hanna, married to Julius Zehdnicker;
7. Hinda Guttmann;
8. Rosalie, marrried to David Oelsner.