This page uses ‘Spain’ as a shorthand for the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. It researches the post-1492 community.
If your Sephardic ancestors left Spain in or before 1492 then it may be impossible to trace your family’s point of origin in Spain. Possibly a surname may be a clue, or a yDNA test may help.
If you are Spanish, and curious about possibly having Jewish ancestry, see the bottom of this page.
Portuguese New Christians in Spain
Officially, between 1492 and 1869 there were no Jews in Spain. This page focuses on the activities of the Inquisition and Portuguese New Christians.
Between 1492 and 1580 virtually every last vestige of Judaism in Spain was extinguished. Portuguese New Christian moved to Spain after the Spanish annexation of Portugal in 1580.
The Inquisition in Portugal was ferocious at that time, while the Spanish Inquisition was quieter. People may have moved to Spain for safety, due to the expanding economy, or possibly because they were offered jobs in state monopolies such as tobacco and salt. The right to run these monopolies was sold to wealthy individuals, some of whom were Portuguese New Christians who possibly imported poor Portuguese New Christians to run the local concessions in Spain.
New Christian families in Spain very often had close relatives in Portugal. It may be helpful to understand them as part of an extended Portuguese family rather than as individuals.
Spanish Archives
A large part of the Spain’s historical archives have been lost over the years. Napoleon took the Spanish Inquisition archives to France. They were later returned to Spain but much was lost or destroyed during the disruption. During the Spanish Civil War, combatants on the Republican side would sometimes set fire to churches, destroying local records. There were other losses and wars over time. What survives is still a vast resource. Most of it is undigitized. Most of it is unindexed. This includes most of the Inquisition archives.
Resources for Sephardic Genealogy in Spain
- PARES (the Portal de Archivos Españoles)
- Guía de los Archivos de la Iglesia en España, edited by José Mª Martí Bonet. The parish records are a valuable resource, but largely unindexed
- Notarial Records (Protocolos Notariales)
- Inquisition Records (Registros de la Inquisición). Our interest is in the Processos, the case files of prisoners
- Provincial archives
- CCBAE
- The Historiography of the Inquisition
Videos
- Spanish archives pre-1750 – Daniel Smith-Ramos
- Anatomy of Torture: Torment as a Tool of the Spanish Inquisition – Ron Hassner
Research Methodology for Spain
You will be lucky to trace ancestry back to Spain unless there is a reference in a Jewish archive of a community such as Amsterdam, or a clue in a Portuguese Inquisition processo. Assuming you are researching a Western/Portuguese Sephardic family, I recommend checking the better indexed and organised Portuguese archives, including Inquisition, for clusters of familiar surnames.
Booklets were published after autos-de-fe stating the names of prisoners, age, place of birth, profession, and sometimes relationships. There is no single resource, but I am working on it. Often it is easier to identify a possible relative in one of these documents and then take matters from there. You can find scans of many of these documents online and in major libraries.
Spanish people researching Jewish ancestry
People of a Spanish Catholic background wanting to research for possible Jewish ancestors face several challenges:
- There are thousands of possible ancestors to research
- Many parishes did not keep records before the 1560s
- Many parish records in Spain have been lost
- New Christians may have tried to hide their background, including by moving location and name changes
- Surnames were not fixed until the late 18th century. The claim that some surnames indicate Jewish ancestry is a recent invention.
- An autosomal DNA test cannot identify relationships from 500 years ago. The Avotaynu DNA Study have a library of yDNA of men of known Sephardic ancestry.
New Christians were officially banned from travelling to the Spanish empire. Presumably some did but if you are a Latin American researching possible Jewish ancestors in Spain, you face an even greater challenge.
Unless you have strong evidence of Jewish ancestry, I would advise against hiring a genealogist, even me! Save your money until digitisation, AI and genetic genealogy is more advanced.
Should you want to research your family tree yourself, you will probably need to trace back to at least the early 18th century before looking for people described as New Christians or accused of judaizing. I suggest joining your local genealogical society for guidance.
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