Emanuel Alvares Lopes Pinto

The Alvares/Lopes Pinto/de Pinto Family from Medina de Rioseco, Valladolid

c.1517

•The family crest above is of Spanish origin. •Spelling variations of the Pinto family name include: Pintado and la Pinto. First found in Granada in southern Spain. •de Pinto: a family of financiers, rabbis, scholars, soldiers, and communal workers, originally from Portugal. Members of it lived in Syria in the beginning of the sixteenth century; and in 1535 there was at Rome a Diogo Rodrigues Pinto, advocate of the Maranos. But its most prominent members lived in Holland, particularly in Amsterdam, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. They were among the greatest financiers in that city; and one of them bequeathed several millions to the Jewish community, to the state, to Christian orphanages and churches, and to the Christian clergy (see his testament in Schudt, "Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten," i. 292). Members of the family were also prominent in South America, namely, in Brazil and in Dutch Guiana, in the beginning of the eighteenth century. About the same time other members settled in the United States, becoming very influential, especially in the state of Connecticut, where they took an active part in the Revolution. The earliest mention of the Pintos in the Connecticut records is under date of 1724; in those of New York, 1736. (The Jewish Encyclopedia)

•The early de Pinto and Israel Pereira families are mentioned extensively in "The Dutch intersection: the Jews and the Netherlands in modern history" by Yosef Kaplan.