Thanks for the good wishes, William. By the way, where did you get the information about Yehovah?

Best wishes,

Titus

Hi William,

Thanks for your extensive reply.

I did know the story of a knight affilliated to El Cid.

However, I find it hard to believe that all the Rivas/Ribas families would be related. As far as I know, one or more families are Christian, non-Jewish families of possible Basque ancestry. Other, Castillian, Gallician and Aragonese probably are of Jewish descent, the families either being Jews (for example in countries such as Mexico, Colombia or Morocco) or converts (conversos), especially in Spain, the Canaries and the Spanish Americas. For example, it has been established that in Mexico there are converso families named Rivas. One of the conquistadores who accompanied Columbus on his second trip to the Americas, one Inigo de Rivas, was known to be a converso.

Best wishes,

Titus Rivas

Esther, is there verified proof that Diego Montemayor (1) ever had a first wife, that (2) her name was Ines Rodriguez Carbajal, and that (3) Baltazar Castaño de Sosa was a cousion of Luis de Carbajal?

Can you please list your sources?

JRC

I did see a photocopy of the baptism of his daughter for this first marriage. The baptism was recorded in Mexico City. She was actually born in Tampico but the baptism was recorded in Mexico City. I forget what year 154? or 155?
That is part of database where the baptisms and marriages for Mexico City were recorded and indexed. This work was not done by the LDS. I have been waiting for the CD rom to be made available to the public. The researchers spoke only spainish. I saw a demo of the database at a genealogical conference in Corpus Christi. That was one of the records displayed for the conference. They flipped the record up for display. You could see tht the parents were Diego Montemayor and Inez Rodriguez.

As to to the Castano de Sosas being cousins of Luis Carabjal. I don't know. I know of a researcher Art? Bloomer that has done a lot of research on the these lines. His genealogy on www.rootsweb.com show this relationship. I know there are alot ot repeative names between the Carbajals and the Castano de Sosa decendants. Israel Cavazos Garza, historian of Monterrey, has written histories that claimed Diego Rodriguez was the grandson of Diego Montemayor and the son of Baltasar Castano de Sosa and the daughter of Diego Montemayor. That the families came to the new world together can be signifant. Family groups often traveled together. The passenger lists for the voyage to the new world shows these families together. The University of Texas has a copy of the passenger list of the Carbajal voyage that landed at Tampico.

I hope this helps.

Esther

By now maybe you don't need answers, anyway I just saw your post. At sephardim.com they have MEDINA and similar names, along with the data base references. When you do go to sephardim, or avotaynu sites, you need to scroll way down for their actual names search engine. The search engines at the top is ancestry.com
Medina de(7)(13)(15)(18)(23)(31/4/12) MEDINA Rico de(13)
Medina y Merida(6a) MEDINA(*)(2)(3)(6a)(11)(14)(23)(27)(29)(30)(37) Medina-Aluf(31/2/5)

I am not sure about the other Surnames you have mentioned, but I have done research on the last name Saenz as that is my last name.

It originated in the La Rioja region of Spain. This region meets the Way of St. Peter or the Route of St. Peter, which is a traditional route many religious persons have traveled when going into Spain. Back then a group of Semitic families settled in the La Rioja region after traveling on this route and took the name Sanchez (meaning Son of Sancho) and one of their own names (most likely Hienz) and made them into the hybrid name Saenz. This was used to better assimilate with the native Spaniards. After the 1478 Alhambra Decree, a lot of the Jewish/Muslim practicing Saenz families were forced to leave Spain and they traveled to various lands such as Turkey, Germany and North Africa. Eventually some of the Saenz families traveled to New Spain, which is now parts of Mexico and the U.S.

My own branch of the Saenz family tree live throughout the San Diego and Kingsville sections of Texas. I do know that before settling in these areas that the families were part of northern Mexico, but alas I do not have any record of where in Mexico they came from. Myself, I live in Los Angeles, but my father (Pedro J. Saenz) was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and my grandfather (Pedro F. Saenz) was born in Kingsville, Texas. His father was a native of Mexico (Liandro Saenz) but I have no record of where.

- Peter

It isn't the Way of St. Peter or the Route of St. Peter, but actually the Way of St. James or the Route of St. James. I got my saints confused. LOL

- Peter

Hello,

Just wondering if you were ever able to obtain the birth record of Inez Rodriguez for yourself.

A Sephardic Jew is not Jew by religion - you are Jew by blood. Semite, Hebrew, Jew can be found as part of who you are by blood. You can test a Jew in Israel and a Sephardi and they will both test positive for Semetic DNA. That's why you're confused. You're looking for the wrong origin.

My great grandfather is a saenz - my great grandmother is a velazguez. That's a Sephardi-Jew double feature!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardi_Jews

Dear Mr. Almaguer:

Many Jews (the descendants of Abraham) emigrated from their lands when the Greeks destroyed the 2nd Temple of Jerusalem. There are some migrations patterns very well defined from Anatolia, to Italy, Sicily, North of Africa and certainly Spain amongst many others. They settled in almost all Iberia, with concentrated populations in Galicia, Toledo, Sevilla, Cantabria, etc. By that time there were also the Moors still dominating what we know as Spain nowadays. Political and economic circumstances obligated the Kings of Spain to force the Jewish people to leave the country, this was by 1490, many of them emigrated to Portugal and very few to the Americas. At this point it must be said that surnames became to appear latter in Spain related to the father's first name, the site they were living, their works they performed or their physical features.

Jews officially adopted surnames just to the beginning of the 17th century, many of them were known by a Spaniard surname and by his Jewish family name, just like Ben (son of) or Bar (daughter of) the father of the family, thus, they had names such as Luis Lopez de Medina (Spanish name) but actually he was David Ben Zacharias.

Certainly many of them conserved their Spanish surnames and converted to Catholicism and remained as Catholics just to our days. Frequently, surnames as you mentioned in your message appear related to families that conserved their Jewishness and all their linage. Thus it's very difficult to determine with a Spanish surname whether is Jewish or not, without trial papers, a defined lineage and practicing Judaism.

In this same thread, few months before, I cited some criteria to define a Jewish Sephardic Ancestry. But without any other evidence that only the surname, it's practically impossible to precisely determine if a person is a Jew. Historians and Anthropologists go further when they say that being a Jew is a religious-cultural issue more than an inherited ethnicity. Despite the Torah establish the contrary, and Genealogists try to clarify an output.

Hope this lines may clarify your doubts or answer at least partially to your questions.

Sincerely

Jesse