Sephardic genealogy is the research of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish family history. This site provides free research guides, records and historical context for tracing Sephardic Jewish families across Europe, the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas — with the sources behind each account set out plainly.
Start here
I know where my family lived
Go straight to the community. Our guides cover some seventy places: browse the communities of Europe, the Americas, or Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
I don’t know where to start
Getting started in Sephardic genealogy explains the six ways Sephardic research differs from ordinary family history, and the order to work in.
I have a family tradition and want to test it
Begin with what “Sephardic” actually means, then read what a surname can and cannot tell you. Our frequently asked questions answer the most common queries, from online family trees to tracing back to the 1492 Expulsion.
Research Sephardic communities by place
The Western Sephardic world was a single network stretching across continents; a family in one port almost always connects to another. Begin with the community your family passed through.
Europe — England · The Netherlands · Portugal · Spain · France · Gibraltar · Italy · Livorno · Greece and more: all European communities.
The Americas — Curaçao · Jamaica · Barbados · Suriname · Brazil · the United States and more: all communities in the Americas.
Africa, the Middle East and Asia — Morocco · Turkey and the Ottoman Empire · Egypt · Tunisia and more: all communities in Africa and Asia.
Key topics in Sephardic family history
- Getting started — what Sephardic family history research involves, which records survive, and the order in which to approach them.
- Genealogical standards — how to research Sephardic families to a defensible standard, and what counts as evidence.
- Sephardic surnames — what a surname can and cannot tell you, and how to use names as evidence rather than assumption.
- Sephardic DNA — what DNA testing offers Sephardic research, and how to read it alongside the records.
- Crypto-Jews and Bnei Anusim — New Christians, hidden descent, and how to weigh a family tradition against the documentary record.
- Ashkenazim with Sephardic ancestry — where the two traditions meet, and how to test the connection.
Free lectures on Sephardic genealogy and history
Since 2020, Sephardic World has hosted a weekly online lecture by archivists, historians, geneticists and genealogists working at the front of this field — among them the Amsterdam city archivist, the librarian of Ets Haim, and the head of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People. More than 190 lectures are free to watch on our YouTube channel, and past talks are listed in the Sephardic World archive.
Hire a Sephardic genealogist
Sephardic records are scattered across countries and languages, surnames vary, and family stories need careful testing. I take on Sephardic family history research — brick-wall problems, archival work, and written family histories — chiefly in the Western Sephardic communities and the Portuguese records. Most enquiries can be answered in twenty minutes, and a fair number end with “you don’t need to hire anyone”.