My last name is sephardic Jewish, but as far as I know, my family has always been Catholic for generations?

Question

How Jewish am I? How can I find out?

Thanks for the very informative details, however my last name is Maltese, not Spanish. It's "Azzopardi" meaning "A Sephardic"...

Answer 1

Well, the answer is that your surname is probably Spanish and heavily associated with many Sephardic families, but it's not a definite that your family was indeed Sephardic...and here's why.

Surnames started developing in Spain in the late 12th/early 13th century. It was common for Latin families, as for families throughout Europe, to adopt their surnames from one of three sources:

1. occupation (Pescador)
2. location/geography (think Ignatius de Loyola, Juan Bosco)
3. adjectives describing the original person (like Delgado, which means "skinny")

So names weren't based on religious things, they were universal to the region and could be taken by anyone who wanted that surname, regardless of religion.

The next part is that most Spanish families took 2 surnames. The "middle" name (as we would think of it) was the father's surname. The final name was the mother's surname. An example is actor Andy Garcia who was born Andrés Arturo García Menéndez. García is his father's surname and the one he passes to his children. Menéndez was the mother's surname and the one passed to her children.

Where this is important is that in Jewish families, the religion passes along maternal lines. But you're researching a paternal surname. There can be conflicts.

Next, the Sephardim weren't forced out of Spain until Isabella issue an edict that everyone in her country would accept Catholicism or face either expulsion or the Inquisition. Even if your ancestors were Jewish at that time, they may have chosen baptism over vanquishment.

How do you find out how many generations of Catholics are in your family? You have to do the research via Church records. They exist back to the 1400s, which is before Isabella's expulsion of the Sephardim, so if you're a good researcher and can find the right parishes, you'll be able to use baptismal, marriage and death records to prove your lineage.

Answer 2

well let me tell you that some jewish family's were forced by the spanish inquistion to change their religion or face the comfort of a very cozy duengeon. some family's fled spain and settled in turkey seeking asylume from the roman catholic church. there were lieing racist tales spread by everyone from the popes to local chriastains. these jews would face lies (baby killers)to they killed christ. they were not allowed to own any land from russia to spain. the only profession they could work was as money lenders and or jewlers,silversmiths. the lies ranged from they were a baby killing cult and drank blood. knights on the way to the holy crusades killed almost 800 jewish peasents in germany. some people believe that the holocost was the last of a long list of horrors visted on the jewish people. a jewish french officer in the french(dreyfus) army was accused of cowardice and was jailled for being jewish.. a baby born in a roman cathilic hospital in italy was taken away from his jewish parents and raised by the church. their crime? being born jewish.the english,french,polish,russians,and hispania found one and only one place for the jew to live. in the midst of a slum,pogram,or harlem. most jews who fled from europe changed their surnames so their children would never have to face pograms again. oddly enough the radical muslisms of today have started telling the same tales that were spread over two thousand years ago. how do you hold a race of people acountable for a crime they were never alive to see? for that matter is not two thousand years of being revilled,murdered and scattered across all of europe enough? as far as how jewish you are you could try DNA testing there are genitic markers for the middle east. or you could do like sammy davis junior and study this religion and convert. you could see if there is a local synagouge and who knows maybe jewishness is not so much genitics as belief?












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