Sephardi Genealogy

Thursday 10 March 2022

The Sephardic Archives of Amsterdam in the Dutch Golden Age

Watch Ton Tielen's discussion of "The Sephardic Archives of Amsterdam in the Dutch Golden Age".

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Website of the Sephardic Genealogical Society: https://www.sephardic.world/

Monday 15 November 2021

Are there Ashkenazim with Sephardic ancestry?

Sephardic World’s meeting on Sunday 14 November 2021 discussed Ashkenazi traditions of Sephardic ancestry. This is a fascinating question that pulls together these two streams of Jewish genealogy. You can watch a video of the meeting here.

Obviously, many Ashkenazim and Sephardim have shared pre-medieval ancestry. The question is whether some Sephardim settled in Ashkenazi communities after the Expulsion from Spain in 1492, and were absorbed into those communities.

In the vast archives of Western Sephardic communities (Amsterdam/London/Hamburg) there is no indication of Western Sephardim being absorbed into Ashkenazi communities. So far, y-DNA research by the Avotaynu DNA project has identified just one Ashkenazi family (from Belarus) that appears to have a Western Sephardic patriarch. Western Sephardic merchants who were in cities such as Danzig/Gdansk seem to have gone home.

It is not clear if the non-Ashkenazi Jews in early 17^th Century Zamość in Poland was Italian, Sephardic or a bit of both. It is also unclear what happened to them and whether they left any genetic legacy.

In the area that once formed the borderlands between the Ottoman Empire and the Christendom there are self-identified Ashkenazi families with Sephardic patrilineal ancestry. Possibly these include descendants of Sephardim who had travelled north from places like Constantinople and Salonika, and later found themselves under Hapsburg rule when the Ottomans were driven south.

Claims of Sephardic ancestry made by some Hassidic dynasties are unproven at best. The genealogy of the Horowitz family is questioned. The claim that the Talalay family of Mogilev originated in Catalonia is unsupported by evidence. Talalay is a Slavic surname.

We are left with the question of why so many Ashkenazi families have these traditions of Sephardic ancestry. It is still early days for DNA research, and of course some communities have been destroyed. With exceptions, the best working hypothesis seems to be what John M. Efron has called “the allure of the Sephardic”. 19^th Century German Jewry admired Sephardic history and this may have encouraged people to claim Sephardic ancestry for status reasons.

Sunday 12 September 2021

Meetings on Sephardic genealogy

There is a listing of recordings of past talks on the Sephardic Genealogical Society website. https://www.sephardic.world/sephardic-world

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Thursday 22 July 2021

The Need for a Sephardic Genealogical Society

Sephardic genealogy has taken great steps forward over recent years. Following the pioneering work of Jeff Malka and others, the Sephardic Diaspora Facebook group launched in 2014 to provide a home for serious discussion of Iberian Jewish genealogy. Over the last eighteen months, the Sephardic World meetings have made a useful contribution. Today we announce the creation of the Sephardic Genealogical Society.

Why the need for a specifically Sephardic society? This week we shall discuss the main differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardi genealogy, and some of the rabbit-holes that exist within the world of Sephardic genealogy. These can include the crypto-Jewish movement, ideas around Sephardic settlement in eastern Europe, and fantasies built around 'secret signs', surnames, and 'fleeing the Inquisition'.

The Portuguese and Spanish nationality laws have spawned a whole unregulated industry. The Sephardic Genealogical Society plans to introduce a voluntary Code of Conduct for those working in the field. Join us to discuss the exciting future of Sephardic genealogy.

The meeting is on Sunday 25 July 2021 at 11am in LA, 2pm NYC, 7pm London, 8pm Amsterdam, and 9pm Jerusalem. Patrons can join us on Zoom. The link is shared at our Patreon page at: https://www.patreon.com/sephardi

Everyone is invited to join us for free at: https://www.youtube.com/SephardicGenealogyAndHistory/

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Thursday 17 June 2021

The Gomes da Costa - To Jamaica and Back

To escape poverty in London, four out of five of Aaron Gomes da Costa’s children moved to Jamaica. Did they succeed, and at what price? Along the way, we confront slavery, interracial and Sephardic-Ashkenazi marriages, and the societal pressures that took some of them away from Judaism. Ali Erginsoy returns to Sephardic World to share the incredible story of the Gomes da Costa family.

Ali Erginsoy is a former journalist at BBC television, including working on their flagship news programme, Newsnight. He is also a filmmaker and consultant. He is a regular contributor to the discussion of Sephardic genealogy.

The meeting is on Sunday 20 June 2021 at 11am in LA, 2pm NYC, 7pm London, 8pm Amsterdam, and 9pm Jerusalem. Patrons can join us on Zoom. The link is shared at our Patreon page at: https://www.patreon.com/sephardi

Everyone is invited to join us for free at: https://www.youtube.com/SephardicGenealogyAndHistory/

Please subscribe to the YouTube channel. It helps us a lot and reminds you when we are going live!

Watch Ali's previous Sephardic World talk, on the Gomes da Costa family's migration from Portugal to England, on the Sephardic Genealogy channel on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/SephardicGenealogyAndHistory/

Over the last year, Sephardic World has become the leading forum for learning about Sephardic history and genealogy. We have no commercial sponsorship or public funding. There is no charge to attend our meetings or to view our content. If you are not a patron and can afford it, please consider supporting our work: https://www.patreon.com/sephardi