Hello,
One side of one of my grandmother's family emigrated to the US from Romania in the late 1800s/early 1900s. My grandmother always claimed that some of them were descended from Spanish Jews who fled the Inquisition in the late 1400s/early 1500s, but some of my family never really listened to her. They were from a little north of Bucharest (Ploiesti) and also around Focsani. As I understand it, there actually were Sephardic Jews living in these areas for a time. Learning this made me completely re-consider the fact that should might be correct.
I showed some pictures of this side of my family to my friends from Portugal, Spain, Mexico, etc and they have said they look completely and utterly Spanish and Portuguese. I also often get "mistaken" for Spanish, Mexican, etc (as well as other things like Palestinian, Lebanese, Moroccan, etc) even though I am supposedly Ashkenazi Jewish. We also have a picture of who would be my 4th great grandmother from this line and her name is the Yiddish form of the name Esperanza. I'm not sure if that is a sign or not.
I'm curious if anyone knows the history of Sephardic Jews in these areas I listed above as well as some resources on how to possibly see if it relates to my family as my grandmother claimed.
Thanks!
Before the 19th century most of the Jewish population of Wallachia (the Southern Capital province of Romania, including Bucharest) was Sephardi. Outside of Bucharest the population was negligible and Jews made up well below 1% of the population. Moldova (including Austrian Bukovina and Russian Besserabia) is where the Ashkenazi Jewish population was historically centered, a widespread population by the 18th Century.
The Jewish community in Focşani, a city between Moldova and Wallachia, was founded in the 17th century by mainly Ashkenazi Jews fleeing the Khmelnytsky uprising in Ukraine. That is not to say Sephardic influence was non existent, but unlike Bucharest their was never a dominant Sephardic population.
Given that the Jewish population in Wallachia was predominantly Ashkenazi in the late 19th century/early 20th Century you probably also have Romanian Ashkenazi ancestry, but their were still a significant number of Sephardim so some Sephardic ancestry is perfectly plausible.