(Jacob) Rodriguez Marques

I, John Frederick Sampson, am a descendant of Isaac Rodriguez Marques who either had a brother, Jacob Rodriguez Marques or his name was actually Jacob. According to our family records Isaac Rodriguez Marques was a descendant of a Portugese family that escaped the inquisition to Norway. Isaac arrived from Norway in New Amsterdam about 1670 - 1680 as a ship owner.

The records indicate that his son Isaac Marques changed his name to Isaac Marks and he was reportedly the first Jew to own real property on the Island of Manhattan of which we have the address on the East River. His son (or nephew) appears to be Private Isaac Marks of the NY Milita whose son Samuel Marks had a daughter Deborah who married the rabbi in Charlston, SC, Hartwig Cohen, and their daughter Esther married Samuel Sampson (whose father came to America from Bury St Edmonds in England).

Esther and Samuel were the parents of my grandfather Arthur Fischel Sampson, father of my father John Jacob Sampson. We have the direct links to Isaac Marks and the abreviated listing in Rabbi Stern's records of early American Jews of Jacob Rodriguez Marques withour showing descendants seems to close the missing link. Bernard Baruch (my father's first cousin once removed) in his autobiography, My Story," also recites the family tree links to Isaac Rodriguez Marques' arrival. However, from my reading of a copy of Isaac's will, dated 1705, it appears Baruch's date of Isaac's arrival is later than it actually occurred.