This note concerns the known documentation bearing on Sophie Deutsch and the grounds for identifying the subject of references under several different names with a single person.
First, records bearing on Sophie's origins that do not mention her or anyone who can be identified with her:
(1) The Familiant record of Markus Deutsch (Sophie's husband) attributes only one wife to him: Katharina Schief (a.k.a. Schif and Schiff), whom he married in or after 1789. The record attributes three sons to the pair: Moises, born 1793; Israel, born 1819 (a date that conflicts slightly with the birth record of Israel in 1821); and Pinkas, born 1827. The spread of 34 years between the first and the last of these births makes it virtually impossible that Katharina was the mother of all three. So even though a second wife is not named, the dates of birth of the sons of Markus strongly indicate that Katharina was the mother only of Moises, not of Israel and Pinkas. Sophie must have been the mother of these two.
(2) The index of families in HBMa 1749, compiled in 1787, lists the following persons in the household of Moises "Deitsch":
Moises Deitsch, formerly Moises Rosenberger
Weib Roichel
Sohn Marcus
[Sohn] Wolf
[Sohn] Nathanel
Tochter Ludmilla
As Markus did not obtain a marriage permit until 1790, he appears here as unmarried.
(3) The Radenín census of 1793 lists the following persons in the household of "Markus Teutsch":
Markus Teutsch
Weib Katharina
Tochter Lea
This is the family early in the marriage of Markus and Katharina. If the available sources were more obliging to genealogists, they would offer a record of the death of Katharina and a record of Markus's marriage to Sophie, both betwen 1793 and 1820. Unfortunately, no record of either sort appears in HBMa 1749.
Now to records that do mention Sophie, under various names:
(a) Birth records of her children:
(1) "Izrahel" Deutsch, son of Markus Deutsch and "Zelde, daughter of Markus Pink and Rochl of Radenin," 1821
(2) Samuel Deutsch, son of Markus Deutsch and "Zuzane, daughter of Markus Pink and Rochl of Radenin," 1823
(3) Salamon Deutsch, son of Markus Deutsch and "Elisabeth, daughter of the deceased Markus Pink and deceased mother Rosaria of Radenin"
(b) Birth records of her grandchildren:
(4) Leopold Deutsch, son of Samuel Deutsch ("son of Markus Deutsch and Sophie, born Pink") and Theresia, born Mautner, 1855
(5) Moritz Sohn, son of Markus Sohn and "Theresia, daughter of Markus Deutsch and Sophie, born Löwy," 1851
(6) Sigmund Sohn, son of Markus Sohn and "Theresia, daughter of Markus Deutsch and Sophie, born Löwi," 1861
The discrepancy between the several given names attributed to the wife of Markus Deutsch in (1)–(3) and the given name of "Sophie," consistently attributed to the wife of Markus Deutsch in (4)–(6) invites doubts as to whether all six records bear on the same mother or grandmother, as does the discrepancy between the attirbution of the birth surname "Pink" in the first four and the attribution of the surname "Löwy" or "Löwi" in the last two. But besides the circumstantial evidence of place, time, surnames, and so forth, comparison of records (2) and (4) shows one and the same woman, namely the mother of Samuel, being called "Zuzane" in one record and "Sophie" in the other, thus linking the first three records with the second three. Further, the record of the Pink family in the family index in HBMa 1749 says that Markus Pink was called "Markus Löwy" before 1787. This, I think, resolves any doubt as to whether the mother in records (1)–(3) and the grandmother in records (4)–(6) are one and the same person.
