Project Surnames
Abeyta, Aguilar, Alarid, Baca, Barela, Casuas, Chavez, Delgado, Fried, Gabaldon, Garcia, Gonzales, Hernandez, Lopez, Maestas, Marquez, Martinez, Miqueli, Montoya, Munoz, Nieto, Otero, Padilla, Perea, Perez, Preciado, Rael, Rivera, Romero, Romo, Sachs, Saiz, Salazar, Sanchez, Santistevan, Sedillo, Sena, Sephardim, Serna, Tenorio, Toledo, Torres, Trujillo, Werkeiser
The Spanish Inquisition arrived in the Americas and Mexico in 1571; when an estimated 40% of the Spanish Colonists immigrating from Spain were noted to be actually of Sephardic Jewish ancestry. On Saturday, December 8th, 1596, in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City, my mother's Carvajal ancestors faced the cruelist fate for their hidden souls' fidelity; they were burned at the stake. And so, two years later, mostly from Puebla de Los Angeles and Zacatecas, Nuevo Mexico's first Sephardic Jewish Community arrived with the Don Juan de Onate's 1598 colonization; we are the J1's and J2's, many of us 'Cohanim' -of the ancestry of Aaron and Moses.