There were many families named NEUFELD who had originally lived in Neufeld in Burgenland but they were expelled in 1739 by the feudal lord in our own local version of Fiddler on the Roof. Many of these refugees came to Mattersdorf where they were required to take the name NEUFELD. They were not granted inheritable residency rights in Mattersdorf and their children had to move elsewhere later on.

However, SImon’s grandfather had come earlier to Mattersdorf, married a woman in the SCHISCHA clan, and was granted inheritable residency rights. The descendants of this man were permitted to change their last name to to Österreicher by the 1790s, apparently to differentiate themselves from the other Neufeld families.

Simon was married to Rosalia (Chaya Sara) Holzer and had 7 children. One of them, my great-great-grandmother Regina Österreicher, married Isak Löwy who was a member of the Schischa family.

From the existing records and naming patterns in the family, I knew he had died in the late 1840s.