Sigmund Freud’s Family Tree

Translated by Alejandro Landman and Norbert Porile

Sigmund Freud’s parents were born and lived in Buchach. His father, Jacob Freud, was born in 1835. He married at age 19 but his wife died prematurely. At age 42 he got married a second time, to Amalia Nathanson. They had 2 sons and 5 daughters, one of whom was Sigmund.

According to the accompanying family tree, the surname Freud is derived from Freide. This was the name of an important woman and the family adopted her name.

In 1812 an Austrian government official arrived in Buchach in order to fulfill a law requiring that all inhabitants have official surnames. Thus was born the surname Freud.

The accompanying family tree was prepared in 1914 on the basis of the gravestone inscriptions in the Buchach cemetery and other documents. Its preparation took several years and the genealogy was approved by the Freud family.

Translator’s (NP) note. The above account contains numerous errors:

  1. Sigmund Freud’s parents were not born in Buchach and there is no evidence that they lived there. His father was born in Tysmenitz and his mother in Brody, towns in eastern Galicia Freud’s grandfather, Schlomo Freud, was born in Buchach but moved to Tysmenitz as a young man. Schlomo’s ancestors, going back at least 4 generations, lived in Buchach.
  2. Jacob Freud was born on December 18, 1815.
  3. Jacob Freud married Sally Kanner in 1832. Thus he was 16 or 17 years old at the time of his first marriage. Sally died in 1852.
  4. Jacob Freud married Amalia Nathanson on July 29, 1855. He was thus 39 years old at the time. There is unconfirmed evidence that Amalia was actually Jacob’s 3rd wife. He may have briefly been married to a woman with the first name of Rebekka between 1852 and his marriage to Amalia.

    Sigmund Freud was actually the oldest of Jacob and Amalia’s children. He was born May 6, 1856.

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    Freide was the name of Schlomo Freud’s great-grandmother, a resident of Buchach.

The above information comes from “Freud and his father” by Marianne Krull; translated by Arnold Pomerans. W. W. Norton, New York, 1986. It is confirmed in additional biographical accounts of Freud.