Jean Labadie’s trajectory would be Converso (1), Roman Catholic (2), French Reform (3), Anabaptist (4), Walloon Reform (5), follower of Tsabatai Tsvi (6).
Many people are getting their DNA test back and are surprised to discover they have Jewish ancestry. DNA doesn’t lie, but how did this happen? This may happen because their Jewish ancestry is so, so far back in the family tree that all knowledge of it has been lost. Or ancestors did a really thorough job of dissimulating.
Between the 16th and 18th centuries, there was a lot of identity shifting.
Malcolm Stern’s guide to early Jewish immigration to America was titled “Americans of Jewish Descent.” It is a textbook of 600 American Jewish genealogies, from 1654 to present. But Stern’s title is a bit coy. Many of his upstanding Christian families of the 20th century had meticulous genealogies reveal that many families that were Jewish in 1654 were no longer Jewish in the 20th century. They had changed their religious identity one, two, or three times in their 375 years of residence in North America. Sometimes the trajectory was different for different siblings.
Was it Sephardic Jewish? Ashkenazi Jewish? A combination? There is a great likelihood this Jewish ancestry was hidden or “erased” in this period of fluid religious identity between 1500 and 1800. Read this guide to elective identies by Dr. Douglas Schar and you’ll begin to wonder how authorities and neighbors in the past could have been so credulous.
Did we say in the past?
Religious Fluidity in the 17th and 18th century
Jody Back
7 April, 2025 at 5:00 pm
How can I get tested for these. My mother said we were Cherokee but I have 3 full blooded great grandparents of different Indians. I am a female and have no brothers. My mother was raised in a home and the act like they don’t know anyone’s dates and the democrats have been taking trust down and having records sealed this is a crime to keep one from their relatives and culture.
Kate Gladstone
13 April, 2025 at 4:43 pm
Thanks for sharing this VERY useful exploration! I suspect that many of the families involved have themselves forgotten their own past.
Elisha Daeva
25 September, 2025 at 1:42 pm
At Martin Prechtel’s school in New Mexico, our first assignment is to explore our ancestry. He always says that way more people are Jewish than think they are.
JoEllen Villanueva
5 December, 2025 at 11:04 pm
My Aunt had got her DNA done, probably 10 yrs before I got my DNA. My sister got her DNA done 3 yrs before I did, & I was the first to show I had Jewish DNA. Now, since I got my DNA, ancestry DNA has done their 6mth to yearly updates, & since then my Aunt now shows that she has 8% Jewish DNA, & my sister shows 5%. What is very interesting is that I have tracked our genealogy back to several that were in the inquisition. We did not know we were Jewish, much less that we had family that was killed, in the Catholic Churches inquisition, in Mexico. I am shocked to learn that Mexico’s inquisition did not end until 1820. Francisco Rodriguez de Mateo was born in spain, Married in Portugal & killed in Mexico. It looks like his family was running from the inquisition in Spain, to Portugal, then Mexico. His wife & 6 adult children were all killed in the Catholic Churches Inquisition, in Mexico. I am shocked that we were never taught about the Inquisition in school. I have a bachelors of science in Nursing, with a minor in Psychology & I never learned about the inquisition in school. It was through church that I learned about the Jewish people & the Inquisition. It’s mind blowing that the Catholic Churches Inquisition went from Spain, to Portugal, then Mexico, & did not end until 1820.