Our Research

We started our research using the work of Miriam Kurzweil from Israel. Miriam is the daughter of Sol Hatchwell, who was the daughter of Sara Laniado and Mass’oud Hatchwell, chief Sephardic Rabbi of Haifa at the turn of the 20th century. Miriam researched and published a book on the family genealogy as a present for her mother. This book can be found in the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem ( http://ybz.org.il ) or at Bet Hatfutsot (http://www.bh.org.il/database-about.aspx?genealogy) in Ramat Aviv. We are grateful to Miriam for her thorough research. Miriam concentrated on the patrilineal line. We have continued her research, added to it, made some corrections, and included the women who married into the family.

It is believed that the Hatchuel family lived in Spain prior to moving to Morocco and Gibraltar. Miriam’s work takes us back to Rabbi Shlomo Hatchuel, who died sometime in the 1700s. Rabbi Shlomo had five sons. We have included a branch of the tree for each of those sons.

We postulate that Rabbi Shlomo had a brother, Haim, who was the father of Solika and Issahar Hatchouel.

We posit that there was also another brother, Moise, whose descendent line leads to the Abecassis-Hachuel, and the Abecassis-Levy-Hachuel branches. We include those branches as well.

We have several broken branches that we are interested in connecting to the core tree. We know that there is the Hatchwell family in Gibraltar, another in Essaouira (Mogidor), Max Hatchwell’s family and Severine Hatchuel’s family in France, and Mauricio Toledano Hatchwell’s family in Spain. We know that there are more of you out there that we are not even aware of.

Major challenges of our research have been:

  1. The repetition of given names from generation to generation. For example, we have many Haim (Hayim, Chaim, etc.); Moises (Moshe, Mose, etc.); Isaac (Itzhak, Itshaac); Abraham (Avraham, Avram, etc.); Shlomo (Shmuel, Samuel) or Solomon (Sol, Solly, etc.); and of course Messoud (Massoud, Masod, Mess’oud, etc.)
  2. The repetition of given names in the same generation from branch to branch.
  3. The geographic movement of family members has made it difficult to tell which branch people belong to. This movement of people started in the 18th century and continues to this day.
  4. The variety of spellings for the surname Hatchuel, which presents difficult challenges to our research.

We have plotted our knowledge in Family Tree Maker and have created a private family tree in Ancestry.com. Recently we discovered a web based genealogical database which we are attaching to this website. In addition, we have a Facebook group called Hatchuel Hatchwell, which we encourage you to join. Our tree is available as a gedcom file. If you want to make any changes, we request that you complete this form. Please be sure of your information and include the source of this information, whether from a family member, a genealogy tree of your own or someone else’s, a book, and so on. If you have a copy of an official record (birth, date, marriage, etc.) it would be greatly appreciated if you would copy or scan it and forward it to us.

Eventually, we would like to include a link that will connect to the family tree on a genealogical web-site. Make sure to tell us whether we can include your information.

Important warning! For ethical and legal reasons related to the personal data protection, we do not reveal any information on living people without their full approval, except their surnames, given names and possibly their photograph, if they agree. If your name appears in these genealogies and you do not wish it to, please inform the owner of the tree in question and if you do not obtain an answer, contact the administrator of the site.

Thank you,

Leora Hatchwell (Chicago, Illinois) and Dina Hatchuel (Mill Valley, California)