Shames - ha Levi?

I have seen numerous family trees on ancestry that state Isaac Shames, a Colonist, was Levite.

So my curiosity was aroused.....mostly because his 2 brothers never show that indicator.  His headstone on his grave does not say that he is, nor does it have the Levite symbol.

Could he be of the tribe of Levi?  Could he be Kohane - a descendant of Aaron?

Isaac Leib M Shames - his parents are Menashe Milstein and Ester Baer.   Flora Satt's thesis gives us this genealogy about Esther's relationship to Isaac Baer Levinsohn:

9. German Jew, author of Nathan der Wiese, leader of 18th Century Enlightenment. Although more famous for his literary and educational ideas than for his social or political theories, Baer Levinsohn is considered the fount of the Russian Neo-Hebraic Renaissance and the figurehead of the 19th century Jewish enlightenment. One of his nieces, Esther Baer, married Menashe Milstein of Brest Litovsk and proved to be a great influence in her husband's home city, a center of Hasidism. In turn, their son Jacob married Malka, the daughter of Rabbi Zalman of Zhitomir, 

So, going up from Isaac Shames we have:

Jacob Milstein (died 1861)
   married to Malta Zalman

Jacob's parents were:

Menace Milstein and Esther Baer

from there, I began googling books on Isaac Baer Levinsohn.  Also spelled Lowensohn.  He was a known as the "father of Haskala" - a form of Judaism.

I found this:

Isaac Baer Levinsohn was born September 2, 1788, in Kremenets, Volhynia into a well-to-do, prominent family.  His father Jehudah Levin, who carried on extensive business with the Polish landowners, knew Polish quite well.

So now, we know that Esther Baer is his niece and Jehudah (Judah) Levin is his father.   And I start filling in a blank family tree....sort of like a story board.  I use pink and blue stickies, write the names on them, and arrange them on a foam core board.  Then I plug it into a tree just like any gentile genealogist would do:

The same book tells me that Jehudah had a brother, Hayyim.

In another book, I find this:

Jekuthiel Solomon, the great-grandfather of Isaac Bar Levinsohn, who acquired considerable weath was a native of Kremenetz.  Levinsohn's grandfather, Isaac, his father-in-law, the wealthy and learned Zalman Cohen, and his father, Judah Levin, who also was a wealthy merchant and was equally popular among Jews and Gentiles, likewise lived there.

But I have a problem with how this is worded.  Levinsohn's father is Judah.

His grandfather is Isaac, who's father-in-law is Zalman Cohen.  But I need to verify that!

Found this at Wikipedia:

His father, Judah Levin, was a grandson of Jekuthiel Solomon, who settled in Kremenetz and acquired considerable wealth, and a son of Isaac, who had married the daughter of Zalman Cohen, famed for his wealth and scholarship. 

which shows us that Levinsohn's father is Judah Levin.

Judah Levin is the grandson of Jekuthiel Solomon.

Judah Levin's father is Isaac and Isaac married the daughter of Zalman Cohen.

This then becomes even more frustrating!  You only have 2 male grandparents and if his mother is the daughter of Zalman Cohen....that is one of his male grandparents.

Thus, his father's father would be Jekuthial Solomon - different surname from his father, Isaac.

And this does happen in Jewish genealogy.  Now, my stickies have been moved, and my "tree" looks like this:

The only way to make Esther Baer a niece of Isaac Baer Levinsohn is that he had a sister.  We don't know her given name and we will assume her maiden name is Levinsohn, so here is her ancestry, tying her into Isaac Baer Levinsohn's father, Judah Levin:

Thus we see that Isaac Lieb Milstein Shames descends from Judah Levin who descends from Isaac Levin, married to a Cohen.....and could well be a Levite.

But it would also mean that Saul Baruch Milstein and Benjamin Z Milstein also descend from the Levites and Cohens as well.  Right now, DNA can only test for Kohane...and there are many questions about the accuracy of the results.

This is how you put together a "family tree" when you don't have all the names.  And while this is perhaps not enough to say that this family is Kohane....I think we can safely say that "ha-Levi" is correct!

Sometime down the line, we'll look at Isaac Baer Levinsohn and his religious views and the possible impact on the Cotopaxi Colonists.  But I needed to do the family tree before I take a look at his influence on their beliefs.

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