Carole Vogel asked about a TZILTZ family >from Mattersburg which may have
originated in Prague in the early to mid-1700s.


Like Celia Male and Jan O. Hellmann I loked at different sources e.g.
Alexander Beider: Jewish Surnames in Prague (15th - 18th century) and
1793 Prague Jewish Census and could not find the name Tziltz at first.

Then I saw that Beider mentions a Zuelz (Umlaut for e) which I believe
is the family Carole Vogel looking for as the name is most probably
trancribed >from Hebrew (as it was found in Beit Din documents, spelled
Tzadi yod lamed tzadi)  which can also be read as Tziltz. The name
originally comes >from Zu(Umlaut)lz (Biala in Polish) in Silesia, now
part of the city Bielsko Biala in Poland.
So the Tziltz originally came >from there to Prague. According to Beider
the name first appears in Prague in 1612.

There is a book which was published at the end of the 19th century by
 Simon Hock: Die Familien Prags. Nach den Epitaphien des alten jüdischen
Friedhofs in Prag zusammengestellt.
It is a list of  most of the people burried on the old Jewish Cemetery
in Prague.

We have the book in our University library. I promised Carole to look
for her Zuelz (Tziltz) family next time I am there. I will look up the
names and probably find Aharon Ephraim and Mordechai or Israel (Yisroel)
and others.

Peter Zimmer, Muenster, Germany