Hermanus Tanchum Meinster Issac Itsak Cohen van Beil - Where did name van Beil come from?

Bruce - what may be of interest here is that Dutch family names were not required until 1811 when emperor Napoleon had annexed the Netherlands, prior to 1811, the use of patronymics was much more common.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dutch_family_names

Hermanus died before 1811, but maybe his son took the surname and it has been imputed on the father? Or maybe some surnames were taken earlier.

Do you have any source documents showing what names were used when? If so, can you add them as sources to the profile?

You also asked at http://www.geni.com/discussions/108216 regarding Hermanus' father with last name Cohen. I suggest we combine the two threads.

Can we be sure his last name was Cohen? What was the source? Maybe he was just referred to as on a document as being a Cohen (descendant of Aaron - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohen). Again if you can add sources to the profile, it will be helpful.

David--Thanks for the replies. I haven't been working on the genealogy for awhile, but if memory serves, I used ancestry.com as well as a lot of material from the Jewish Encyclopedia and other material on line about the genealogy of the Balinfante's. I have been stirred to look more deeply into all this due to a recent inquiry from Reena Kitsing (Estonian). I am all for merging discussions, trees, etc. I will look at the wikipedia site you recommend; but I also think some Sephardic sage could clear it all up--so many of these names seem to consist of alternate spellings. But the real question I have is why a brother of a lot of Balinfantes ends up with a last name of Cohen. Today, we might suspect "step-brother" but I am not sure that is valid in the 17/18 century.

Bruce I would not call myself a Sephardic sage, but I have worked on Sephardic trees. You might like to join the project http://www.geni.com/projects/Sephardic-Families-Who-Settled-in-Euro... which I created. There are some discussions there of names, in a different context.

I can't answer in too much detail regarding this particular family, and without research and good sources I can't even verify that the tree as currently documented in this area is correct.

I can however say more generally that you are correct to conclude that different names do not necessarily indicate step-sibling relationships in this area.

In general, the trees from this time are built from multiple sources, including birth, marriage and death records, and it is not unusual for the same person to be recorded with different names in different documents, let alone different spelling variations. Some of the records may be civil, some may be religious. Plus you have here the time of introduction of surnames, and also migration - it seems the family has just moved to Netherlands in that tree - migration is often connected with name changes.

David, I've signed on to follow the Sepharim in Europe. Look forward to it. Thanks for your help.
Bruce