Barnard line pre 1837/1841
All information about Barnard ancestors - in the days before census (1841) and BMD records (1837) - originated from Tony Barnard’s research and has now been backed up by the following evidence, available online. This first section is, however, the most tentative part of the lineage. The full family tree is given above. Names of people in the direct line are highlighted in yellow throughout.
(Although links on this page to external sources are operative, there are other links to documents in my possession which cannot be published here for copyright reasons. Please contact me directly if you wish to see them.)
The source of the information about Solomon Hamburgher is the will of Solomon Barnard (originally obtained by TB from the records office at Kew but now available electronically from the National Archives www.nationalarchives.gov.uk). The will, dated 28th November 1812, is signed with the name Solomon Barnard and then in brackets (Isoschor the son of Solomon Hamburgher). Solomon Barnard is not in our direct line but the will mentions his wife Clara and ‘my late brother’s wife, Golda’. There is no mention of his brother’s name but to his nephews, Moses and Aaron he leaves ‘but one shilling each as they never visited me but in contempt’. (Tony Barnard’s transcript - supplied below in paged sections - is far easier to read than the original.) Solomon Barnard Will
SB last will and testament p1 SB last will and testament p2 SB last will and testament p3
The first record of Morris (Moses) Barnard is his marriage to Betsy in 1803. (This record is available from Synagogue Scribes - SS - http://synagoguescribes.com. I have nor reproduced the originals of any of the records from SS as they may be copyright.) Here his father’s name is recorded as Hirsh. There is also in SS a birth of an unnamed daughter to Henry/Hirsh Barnard recorded in 1794 in the 1791-1813 Birth Register of the Great Synagogue (now available via SS). Her name wasn't given, but the registration gives the father's name (presumably the English one) as Henry and also the Hebrew name as Hirsh b (born) Shlomeh Hamburgher. This is evidence supporting the change of name from Hamburgher to Barnard and hence the claim that Morris's father Hirsh was a brother of the Solomon Barnard who wrote the will.
It is possible that Solomon Barnard had two brothers, Henry/Hirsh and another called Abraham, as two of the nephews mentioned in the will, Aaron and Isaac, appear on SS with father’s name given as Abraham. There is a marriage of Aaron Barnard where the father’s name includes Hirsch - although the full name is Abraham Tsevi Hirsh - and a marriage of Isaac Barnard where the father’s name is simply Abraham. However Tony Barnard writes: I still think Morris (Moses), Aaron and Isaac were all sons of Hirsch. Assuming Hirsch's father (and perhaps Hirsch himself) came from Germany, there would be three linguistic inputs to his name: Hebrew, Yiddish and English. So different combinations of Abraham, Henry, Hirsch, Zvi on different occasions would not be surprising.
Another sibling to Morris is Esther, whose marriage to Isaac Alexander is recorded on SS. Her father’s name is certainly Hirsch. If Hirsch is brother to Solomon Isoschor Barnard Esther would have been his niece but unfortunately she gets no mention in the will. However, her husband and daughter are mentioned as there is a bequest to “the daughter of Isaac Alexander which is Esther”. Esther’s marriage is in the same year as the birth of the unknown female Barnard who would seem to be her sister - see above. This is not impossible but seems puzzling!
Another niece mentioned in the will is Rachel Barnard. There is no record of her on SS. However a favourite in the will, who gets a couple of mentions is Kitty Lee. The birth of Kitty Lee is recorded on SS with the father’s name Isaac and mother’s name Rachel so perhaps Rachel Barnard married Isaac Lee. The marriage of Isaac and Rachel is also recorded but unfortunately for the theory his wife’s name is given as Rachel Phillips. Another daughter of Isaac, Maria Lee, is also mentioned in the will which does suggest a close (possibly family) connection. Isaac Lee married Rachel Phillips on 29 December 1793. Their daughter Kitty was born in October or November of 1794. Their daughter Maria married Philip Phillips on 14 August 1839 and their son Solomon Isaac Lee married Caroline Solomon on 23 June 1841. (There is no mention of Solomon Isaac Lee in the will - perhaps he was not yet born in 1812.) If Solomon Barnard had had a sister who married a Phillips that might work. Solomon B could then have had a niece, Rachel Phillips, who married Isaac Lee. However there is no evidence of any such sister.
There are still a few question marks about the ancestors of Morris Barnard. The name Solomon Hamburgher perhaps suggests that the family originally came from Germany - but there is no specific evidence is for this.