The Jews of Tàrrega

The call of Tàrrega was home to a flourishing Sephardi community — families who had lived in Catalonia for generations, woven into the town's trades while keeping their own faith and identity. In July 1348, amid the terror of the Black Death, the community was attacked and some three hundred of its members killed, a catastrophe mourned in the Hebrew chronicle called The Valley of Tears. They were laid together in the hillside cemetery of Les Roquetes — children, women, men and elders of the whole congregation. Their genomes, the first ever read from a medieval Iberian Jewish community, blend deep Levantine roots with generations of Iberian neighbours, and show an open, connected community — less endogamous than the Jewish communities of Erfurt or Norwich, and sharing with them the maternal lineages that endure in Jewish families today. This entry remembers them.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in Uncovering a Medieval Pogrom: Genetic History of a Jewish Community in Catalonia (Spain).

Every Ancestrify Global25 report includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances — that is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Jews of Tàrrega are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about the full G25 analysis.

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  Who were the Jews of Tàrrega?

  The Jews of Tàrrega (1348 CE, Tàrrega, Catalonia, Spain) are one of the Iconic discoveries entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 10 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "Uncovering a Medieval Pogrom: Genetic History of a Jewish Community in Catalonia (Spain)".

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  What does "matching" the Jews of Tàrrega mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

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  Are they my ancestor?

  No — and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

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  How do I see my own distance to the Jews of Tàrrega?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestrify Global25 report — never sold separately. Order the G25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers — browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

• The Black Death Londonersc. 1330–1360 CE

• The Jews of Medieval Erfurtc. 1270–1400 CE

• The Medieval Bosnians13th–15th century CE

• The Retainers of Machu Picchuc. 1420–1530 CE

• The Christians of Norman Segestac. 1120–1320 CE

• The Albanians of Arbëriac. 1400–1700 CE

• The Norse of Greenlandc. 950–1400 CE

• The Roma of Barçc. 1500–1700 CE

• The Muslims of Segestac. 870–1170 CE

• The Medieval Docleansc. 800–1100 CE

• The Gaels of Kilteasheenc. 700–1300 CE

• The Christians of Sigtunac. 900–1050 CE