JewsAndJoes.com

Wonder if you can help answer a quick question for me. I know that my grandmother (my father’s mother) grew up in Moliterno Italy. Her maiden name was Vitali. Her father’s was named Pasquali Vitali. I have been working with an Italian-Jewish genealogist/ researcher named Nardo Braverman who is himself an Italian Jew living in Italy. He assures me that my grandmother’s maiden name “Vitali” is indeed Semitic. He explained to me that the province of Potenza where my grandmother grew up was once a Jewish cultural center prior to the inquisitions in the 1400’s. He explained that there were more Jews in this area than in Russia, Poland, Germany and that the oldest synagogue in Europe was discovered very close to Potenza. He did some tracing and it appears that the name Vitali (literally translated “life”) was the Latinized version of the Hebraic name Chaim from Chai (also meaning “life”). He explained that Jews would often translate or change their names to help them assimilate. He showed me a registry of Italian Jews just prior to WWII with 296 families with the name Vitali. Of course most Jews converted to Catholicism and Latinized their names in the 1400’s in order to avoid persecution. The balance of the Jews that still occupied the region in the 1940’s were shipped up to the camps and murdered when Mussolini finally bowed to Hitler. My question is this: Is there a way to confirm this through DNA testing? If so, how would I go about it? This would be my father’ mother’s father. Or in other words, my father’s grandfather on his mother’s side. I don’t have a clue where to start. Thanks for your help. Garrett Roush This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it