New Website Helps Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews Who Have Been Persecuted by the Inquisition and Escaped to the Americas to Reveal Their Past
New Website Helps Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews Who Have Been Persecuted by the Inquisition and Escaped to the Americas to Reveal Their Past
TEL-AVIV, Israel, April 16, 2012/PRNewswire/ --
They were scattered across the globe more than 500 years ago and went to great lengths
to hide their true identities, but now, thanks to a new website powered by an online
database, descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews whose ancestors were forced to
convert or be exiled during the Spanish & Portuguese Inquisitions, might be able to trace
their heritage.
Today, the descendants of these Jews, also known as Marranos, Conversos, crypto-Jews,
Chuetas, Anusim and New Christians, constitute significant numbers in Spain, Portugal,
Latin America, Brazil and the Southwest US. Although many of them have little or no
knowledge of their past, the number of their descendants who are discovering their family
history is steadily growing in these regions.
NameYourRoots [http://nameyourroots.com ] endeavors to inform about their ancestry and
genealogy and to provide them with an array of tools to facilitate their personal journey
of discovery and learning about their past.
The newly launched NameYourRoots.com [http://nameyourroots.com ] website enables
anyone with a Spanish or Portuguese surname to begin their research by looking up in the
records of the origins of their maternal and paternal surnames; site visitors receive a
personalized and printable report about their family names. The report, which is provided
free of charge and in a choice of 3 languages (English, Spanish or Portuguese), includes
search results from hundreds of bibliographical, documentary and digitized records and
sources where the surname is cited with respect to Jews and crypto-Jews. When available,
the report also cites locations where registries of Sephardic or Christianized Jewish
families with the surname have been traced, and other interesting facts.
The personalized family name report as well as the multi-media content available to
users at NameYourRoots.com is the product of ongoing research aimed at maintaining a
unique and extensive database. Visitors to the website can now also view the first in a
series of documentary films which is entitled "What's in a Name
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5-sHZ3xn5c&contextÃdfe99cADOEgsToPDskKuDAGS0jRqYgqdB1BmVhq5 ]
" and that describes the background of the project. The website also provides much
information and many external links to other organizations working with these people.
Working in conjunction with other international organizations active in the historical
fields and backed by private donations, NameYourRoots [http://nameyourroots.com ] strives
to inform, educate, facilitate and assist anyone to discover their past.