Sponsored by Temple Emanuel and JGSGB

Schelly Dardashti will look at Jewish history and DNA, covering the post-1391 and post-1492 migrations from what is today’s Spain and Portugal around the Mediterranean, into the Balkans, North Africa, and the New World. Maria Apodaca will share her family’s compelling personal story. She will demonstrate her genealogical research, the Converso history of northern New Mexico, traditions and customs preserved in families since 1598.

A journalist and genealogist, Schelly Dardashti has written widely on Sephardic Jewish genealogy. She founded the enormously popular and helpful Facebook group “Tracing the Tribe” and has spoken at many conferences on Jewish genealogy, DNA, and other topics. She has traced her family across Eastern Europe, Spain, and Iran and is active in the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies and the Jewish Genealogy Society of New Mexico.

Maria Apodaca’s family was originally Jewish but forcibly converted to Catholicism before they came to New Mexico in 1598. Maria is the first person in her family to return to Judaism. She is active in the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies and the Jewish Genealogy Society of New Mexico, is a leader of Casa Sefarad New Mexico, and coordinates events for the annual Festival Djudeo-Epanyol/Resiliencia Event.