Guide to Sephardic Jewish Genealogy in Portugal: Archives, Inquisition Records, and Research Strategies

Jewish Genealogy in Portugal

Introduction

This is a detailed guide for genealogists and academic researchers. It provides information on investigating Sephardic Jewish ancestry in Portugal. The focus is on historical records, archival resources, and advanced research methodologies, with particular emphasis on Portuguese Inquisition archives.

Historical Context: Jews and New Christians in Portugal

Timeline of Jewish History in Portugal (1492-1912)

Below is a simple timeline for Jews in Portugal from 1492 to the recognition of the Jewish community in 1912.

  • 1492: Expulsion of Jews from Spain. Many Spanish Jews arrive.
  • 1496: King Manuel I of Portugal orders expulsion of Jews. Deadline set for October 1497
  • 1497: Forced mass conversion of Jews in Portugal. Portuguese Jews become “New Christians” or “Conversos”
  • 1506: Lisbon Massacre. Mob violence against New Christians in Lisbon
  • 1531: Portuguese Inquisition established. Pope Clement VII authorizes the Inquisition
  • 1536: Portuguese Inquisition officially begins operations
  • 1540: First auto-da-fé held in Lisbon
  • 1580-1640: Iberian Union. Portugal under Spanish rule.
  • 1649: Creation of Companhia Geral do Comércio do Brasil. Many New Christians involved in Brazil trade
  • 1773: Marquis of Pombal abolishes distinction between Old and New Christians
  • 1821: Portuguese Inquisition officially abolished
  • 1910: Portugal becomes a republic. Separation of church and state
  • 1912: Jewish community officially recognized in Portugal

Tracing Jewish ancestors in Portugal

It can be possible to trace Western Sephardic ancestry back to Portugal through the archives. To give some examples:

  • Early ketubot (marriage records) in London may state that a couple are “Vindos de Portugal” meaning new arrivals from Portugal.
  • Adult circumcisions of men in Western Sephardic communities can an indication that they are recent arrivals from the Iberian peninsula. Bordeaux circumcisions usually state the country.
  • Amsterdam civil marriage banns state where the bride and groom were born.
  • The Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish congregation archives has a file of attestations that applicants for membership are of Spanish or Portuguese Jewish origin, often stating where they were known from.
  • Other documents in congregational, notarial or other archives may contain clues. One touching example is a series of letters from a wife in Portugal to her husband in Amsterdam.
  • Inquisition processos (case files) can reference relatives living abroad, including as public Jews.
  • Looking at signatures is another technique. Someone will have a different given name in Jewish and Catholic communities, but often the same or related surname. Their handwriting style is constant, so it can be possible to identify a person in both worlds.

Portuguese Archival Resources for Jewish Genealogy

Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (ANTT)

The Portuguese archives are being digitised, including the Inquisition archives. The principle site is the Arquivo Nacional da Torre de Tombo. The archive is now physically housed in a building on the campus of the University of Lisbon. Regional archives each have their own sites.

Torre de Tombo, Portuguese Inquisition archives

Torre de Tombo building in Lisbon

Other Key Portuguese Archives

Below is a list of major archives in Portugal. After Inquisition and parish archives, The notarial records may be the most relevant.

Catholic Parish Records and Civil Registration

Portuguese Parish Archives

Parishes were required to keep records of baptisms, marriages and burials by:

  • The Lei da Boa Razão (Law of Good Reason) enacted by the Portuguese king in 1551
  • The Council of Trent in 1563
  • The Council of Lisbon in 1605

Some parishes kept records before these dates, some were lazy in compliance, and some registers have been lost over the years. You can find records on the Torre de Tombo and regional archive websites, but tombo.pt is a good place to start.

Civil Registration in Portugal

Civil registration was introduced in Portugal in 1836. This is too late for virtually all Sephardic research.

The Portuguese Inquisition: A Vital Resource for Sephardic Genealogy

Understanding the Portuguese Inquisition

The nature and goals of the Inquisition is a matter of scholarly debate. There are Catholic apologists at one end of the spectrum. Historian Benzion Netanyahu at the other arguing that antisemitism was a major driver of the Inquisition. An article by Helen Rawlings, The Historiography of the Inquisition, is a good introduction to the debate.

Evolution of the Inquisition

The Inquisition was an institution that existed for hundreds of years, operating in a variety of locations, and under a variety of economic and political circumstances. While the central authorities issued guidance on how to operate, there were differences of approach between tribunals and individual functionaries.

A contemorary Jewish view of the Inquisition

My personal view as a non-academic is that generally – funded by what it confiscated – the Inquisition focused on wealthier individuals of Jewish ancestry, with the Jewish practice or knowledge of the individual being less relevant.

Likely the Inquisition’s ranks included religious obscurantists, extreme antisemites, perverts and psychopaths, so the net will have been cast wider than to just catch the rich. But the Holy Office was funded out of what it confiscated. They needed to pay their bills and salaries, and richer people presented more tempting targets.

A Dominican Catholic View of the Inquisition

I speculate. The Catholic Church believed it had the monopoly of Truth and, that almost literally, it held the keys to Heaven.

Portuguese and Spanish identity was defined by the reconquista, the war against non-Christians. Religion and national identity were intertwined.

Jews were seen as obstinate and Christ-killers. In the Catholic view, Judaism had been supplanted by Christianity and so any continuance of Jewish belief was an insult.

New Christians of Jewish origin remained tainted by their blood and the conversion was possibly seen as insincere. Despite Canon Law (Church Law), after conversion New Christians were still seen as the ‘Other’.

The Church believed it had a responsibility for New Christians’ souls. At stake was eternal salvation or damnation. The Inquisition’s view was the ends justified the means. To torture, or even kill, someone for the end goal of that person’s eternal salvation was not only justified, but an act of compassion.

Navigating Portuguese Inquisition Records

For a simple search for an Inquisition processo where someone is accused of Jewish practice, go to the Torre de Tombo search page and enter the words judaismo and processo and the surname you are researching into the Simple Search box.

An alternative is to go to Advanced Search page and put the words processo and the surname into the Title box. A lot of the answers returned will not be about the Inquisition, but this approach can sometimes work better.

From these searches, you may receive a few pages of results, or hundreds. You can further refine by date, place name, Tribunal, and other know surnames or details.

Surname Clusters

Often I look in Portugal for clusters of surnames connected with the first generation of the family outside Portugal, and from around the time the family first starts appearing in the records of free Jewish communities.

Correlation does not equal causality, but if a familiar cluster of surnames appears in Portugal at the right time, then that collection of processos may be a good place to start digging. Keep in mind that most gold prospectors found nothing and that people can spend three or four years studying a single a single Inquisition processo for their PhD. It can be slow work.

Portuguese Inquisition processos

The Inquisition produced a lot of paperwork. The processos – the files kept on individual prisoners – are probably the most useful. The processos include arrest warrants, accusations, confessions, interrogations, inventories of the prisoner’s property and much more. They can be short, or they can be over 1,000 pages of Portuguese-language manuscript.

Universities can issue doctorates to graduate students who spend years studying a single processo. It is not easy. You will be reading handwritten documents full of abbreviations in an older version of a foreign language.

Genealogia section of Inquisition processos

Most genealogists start by clicking through the processo to find the Genealogia section. In this, the prisoner divulges names of immediate relatives, aunts, uncles, cousins and their spouses.

The genealogical statements are not always true. It is remarkable how many people claim they don’t know their grandparents’ names, or that much of the family seems to have died childless. By cross-referencing different processos you can often get to the truth.

Prisoners of the Inquisition were trying to save their lives and protect their loved ones. Often they were careful in what they say. In some cases there may be sophisticated obfuscation. Unless they think the Tribunal already knows, they may avoid referencing relatives who already appeared before an Inquisition Tribunal somewhere or was living as a public Jew abroad. You are researching in a world of smoke and mirrors.

Statements made to the Inquisitors in processos may be corrected or changed when a prisoner was interrogated at later audiences.

Marginal Notes

Names of people mentioned in the text are normally written in the margins, so keep an eye on those.

Types of Files in the Portuguese Inquisition Archives

For a detailed list, click here. The archives are organized into several different categories, with a degree of overlap. Those listed below are probably the ones of greatest interest to researching Portuguese New Christians:

  • Processos, Processos de Judaísmo, Processos de Fé: These are the Inquisition case files for individual prisoners. When complete, they contain all the documents from a prosecution against an individual. While a large number of these processos are for prisoners accused of judaismo / judaizing, others are for heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, sexual misconduct and other prosecutable offenses. Processos files can contain a wide range of documents, including denunciation letters, interrogations, witness statements, and verdicts. Often there is a list of processos of people connected to the prisoner.
  • Autos-de-Fé: These documents relate to the ceremonies known as autos-de-fé, which were held to punish heretics (including judaisers) and reinforce Catholic orthodoxy. Autos-de-fé files can contain documents such as descriptions of the ceremony, lists of those punished, and sermons preached on the occasion.
  • Processos de Bens: These files contain documents related to the confiscation of the property of individuals convicted by the Inquisition, as well as inventories of their possessions.
  • Processos de Fuga: These are files containing documents related to the escape of prisoners from the Inquisition’s prisons and other facilities.

Most of these documents have been barely looked at since they were created.

Video: Researching the Archives of the Portuguese Inquisition – David Mendoza and Ton Tielen

Research Tools and Technologies

Artificial Intelligence is redefining historical and genealogical research. This includes software that is trained to read manuscripts. Western Sephardic researchers have our own AI model trained on the Portuguese archives of Western Sephardic congregations.

For Inquisition research, I recommended the model below, created by Carla Vieira and colleagues, and specifically trained on Portuguese Inquisition documents.

You can drop the output text into AI software such as ChatGPT or Claude to edit the Portuguese and, if needed, translate.

Advanced Research Strategies

Cross-Referencing Archives

As more archives are digitised and indexed, including Church vital records in Portugal, using AI we shall likely start identifying people born and perhaps married in Portugal but not buried there. In some cases it will be possible to match these missing people to people of the same or related surnames

DNA

Still living in Portugal, or with known ancestry in Portugal, there are descendants of relatives who never left to join Jewish communities. As more people take tests, using y-DNA it will be possible to match patrilineal Sephardic Jewish lineages with those that were left behind. The left behind lineages will hopefully be able to reveal where the ancestors were living in the 17th and 18th centuries.

It is possible that new techniques and better use of computers will make mt-DNA and autosomal DNA more useful for deep historic research.

Sephardic genealogy has travelled a huge distance in a short time, starting with the establishment of The Sephardic Diaspora group on Facebook on 14 November 2014. Once it was unimaginable to be be able to trace Jewish ancestry back to Spain and Portugal. For Western Sephardim at least, it is increasingly possible. As a Sephardic genealogy community, we are now familiar with Inquisition archives, but are only starting to get to grips with other archives in Portugal.

Additional Research Resources

Sub-Pages of this site for Portuguese Inquisition and Probate Research

Books for Portuguese Research

Other Resources for Portuguese Genealogy

Sephardic Genealogist

Do you need a professional genealogist to work on your Sephardic genealogy? Click here.

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