Investigating Chilean Ancestry

[Judahcontreras]

My mother is a sephardic jew from Tunisia, my father is non jewish ( or so I thought) from Chile. I already know my genealogy pretty far back from my mom so its my paternal grandma I am mostly interested in.

There is a rumor my paternal grandma was adopted. She is very light stereotypically jewish not chilean looking at all. Her maiden name was also a very common sephardic name,  bejar(behar). Her family had very jewish esque traditions. Recititations of psalm 23 on Friday night along with candle lighting. Their is also a notable absence of baptismal records with my grandma being the first to be Baptised in the family. In addition my dads great uncle always said the family were jews from Spain.

I had always ignored genealogy in general but since some personal shifts in my relationship to Judaism I have been more interested. How do I empirically research my families history? I obviously want to find something out that may not be true. What are some good resources for chile and spain? In addition what are possible family histories, I am extremely skeptical anybody could preserve any religious traditions for 400 years of converting to Christianity. Any history of sephardim in chile from 1800s?

[Daisypetal]

Hi,

Welcome to RootsChat


Familysearch has some Chilean records, you have to make an account but it is free.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/location/south-america/chile

There are lots of BEHAR and BEJAR record to be found there.


Regards,
Daisy

[Erato]

You need to consider other alternative spellings, as well - such as Bexar, Vejar, Bejarano, Beherano, etc.

[jorose]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-Judaism

I thought this example, while from Bolivia, sounded similar; families who identify as Catholic, but have Jewish ancestry and have preserved some of the Jewish practices.

Several of the oldest Catholic families in Santa Cruz are of Jewish ancestry; some families still practice certain traditions of Judaism. As recently as the 1920s, several families preserved seven-branched candlesticks and served dishes cooked with kosher practices.[44] It is still customary among certain old families to light candles on Friday at sunset and to mourn the deaths of close relatives by sitting on the floor.[43] After almost five centuries, some of the descendants of these families acknowledge having some Jewish ancestry, but practice Catholicism.

Also be careful not to conflate not having found a record with it not existing.
Seeing your grandma's baptismal record is proof she was baptised.
Not having yet found baptismal records for her parents is not proof they were not.  It could be those records were damaged or destroyed, are not online, they came from a different town than you expected, etc.