This section covers the history behind the records. It is not method, and it is not community by community. It is the six subjects that come up in every enquiry we receive, and which cause the most confusion when they are not understood.
The six pages
What we mean by “Sephardic”
The word carries at least four meanings, and people use it without saying which they intend. Western Sephardim of Amsterdam and London. Eastern Sephardim of the Ottoman world. Megorashim of North Africa. And the broader use in Israel, where Sephardi came to mean any Jew who was not Ashkenazi, including communities with no Iberian connection at all.
Establishing which one applies to your family determines every other decision you make.
The Inquisition
The Portuguese, Spanish and colonial tribunals, what a case file contains, and why these are the richest genealogical records in Iberia. A prisoner was required to name parents, grandparents, siblings, spouse and children. Nothing else from the period comes close.
The pages on Portugal and Spain explain how to search each archive.
Crypto-Judaism, New Christians and Bnei Anusim
What happened to the Jews who converted and stayed, what the evidence shows about hidden practice across the generations, and how to test a family tradition of secret Jewish observance.
This is the most emotionally charged subject on the site and the one where the gap between what people hope and what the records support is widest.
Ashkenazim with Sephardic ancestry
Whether Ashkenazi families carry Sephardi descent, what the documentary evidence shows, and what the genetic evidence adds. There are documented cases, and there is also a great deal of assertion. The page separates them.
The Dönmeh
The followers of Shabbetai Zevi who converted to Islam with him in 1666 and maintained a separate identity in Salonica and later Istanbul for nearly three centuries. Neither Jewish nor wholly Muslim, and a genuine research problem for anyone whose Ottoman family passes through them.
Spanish and Portuguese nationality
The two nationality laws, what each required, how they have changed, and what evidence is actually accepted. Spain’s scheme closed to new applications in 2019. Portugal’s has been substantially tightened since 2022.
This is the page most people arrive at first, and the one where being current matters most.
Why this section exists
Sephardi genealogy is unusual in that the history is not background — it is the reason the records look the way they do.
A family appears under a Catholic name because of 1497. A family is recorded in Amsterdam rather than Lisbon because of the Inquisition. A community’s records are in Jerusalem rather than İzmir because of what happened after 1948. You cannot use the archives sensibly without knowing why they are shaped as they are.
These six pages are the minimum needed for that.
Help us find records
If you hold material bearing on any of these subjects, please email [email protected].
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