Goldfoot Genealogy

My hobby of genealogy has led me to find that my genes connect my family to a Rabbi Samson Wertheimer (1658 in Worms, Germany)  or his brother, Moshe Wertheimer,  Rabbi Samson died in 1724 in Vienna, Austria.  He was the nephew of Samuel Oppenheimer and they were both financiers of royalty.  They were called  court financiers!  I found this out through taking the familyfinder DNA test with FTDNA and being found by a couple of ladies doing triangulation to find people connected to the surname of Halpern.  Personally, I matched 4 of today's Wertheimers and am either 4th or 5th cousins with them with from 60cMs to 80cMs total over anywhere from 17 to 23 segments of chromosomes.  My sharing a common ancestor could go back as far as 356 years ago, but I would guess someone in his family that was carrying these genes as well, perhaps a Wertheimer.  It's exciting to realize that segments of someone's genes have gone to each generation intact, losing a few cMs along the way till I inherited such segments from my father.

UPDATE: 2/14/18:  
A message from our leader of Halpern & Branches , Andi Alpert  Ziegelman, of 8/26/13 explained that the common ancestor of the group was Zevulun Eliezer Heilprin, and that's where she and others were descendants. 
  We had NO matches from this line.

We had 11 or so Halperns on our list of matches, however, and they come from the non-Zevulun Eliezer Heilprin lines.  We also have almost all the Alperoviches.  She and other Alps also connect to the Zevulun Eliezer line. Their connection and they being on our list means that someone from our Halpern family married the Alperovich family founder because 9 Alps are on our list.  

Heilprin of 1510 was the son of Hilborn Yitzchak of Dampieire.  

Another Heilprin of importance was Jehiel ben Solomon born about 1660 and died in 1746.  He was a scholar and rabbi at Glusk in White Russia (Belorussia) and by 1711 lived in Minsk.  He wrote Seder ha-Dorot which had a chronology to 1696 that was in alphabet order of tannaim (rabbinical teachers of the Mishnah of the 1st two centuries CE)  and amoraim  (rabbinical scholars in Palestine and Babylonia in the 3rd to 6th centuries, recorded in the Talmud).  He also wrote a catalog of post-talmudic Hebrew authors and books.  He was not only a well-educated rabbi, but had a wide secular education and was a student of Kabbalah.  

The latest information I have is that we connect to Wertheimer by 3 different paths.  
                                                                             

Charles b:1906 and Morris (my father)b: 1908 Goldfoot in Portland. I would say that here they are 5 and 3 years old.

My father's parents were new immigrants from Lithuania and couldn't speak English.
                                                                         

1910 at the first St. Vincent's Hospital in Portland. My grandfather died in 1912-probably in this room.  He had hit his head.

  Grandfather Nathan was killed while driving his horse and wagon.  His horse was frightened and ran, careening through the streets of SE Portland, and threw out Nathan who hit his head and never woke up, dying in the ancient hospital that one day his ggrandson would work in as a nurse.  The only difference is that the ancient one was replaced by a new building.
                                                                           

Vintage Portland at Front and Morrison when my parents were babies. Notice the horses and wagons.  Nathan had one like this and went to the docks to get boxes and then deliver them in SE Portland.  Nathan had a one horse wagon and my other grandfather had 4 horses.

 My  father would plotz if he knew his ancestors were court financiers.  He had to come up the ladder the hard way.  Starting as a kosher butcher, he finally owned Silver Falls Meat Packing Co, and was in competition with such places on the Columbia River as Swift and Armour.  There have been a few people that he lent money to in order to give them a start in their own business.

My brother matched 2 Wertheimers, a 4th and a 5th cousin.  Our 1st cousin matched 7 Wertheimers, all 4th cousins a one 5th cousin.  A Goldfoot 3rd cousin, discovered a few years ago, matched 4 Wertheimers with 3 that were 4th cousins and one 5th cousin.