# Why is Spain offering citizenships? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 25, 2014, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565 "2014-03-25T23:50:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565/21 "2014-03-26T07:48:33Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > I mean Spain’s offer is admirable, but what’s the practical benefit of the citizenship offer to Spain? Sometimes one makes a mistake that can’t really be unmade and all you can do is say “sorry”. Spain’s offer carries as much and as little benefit as saying “sorry” ever has. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565/22 "2014-03-26T13:16:02Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > This offer raises a lot of questions. I mean Spain’s offer is admirable, but what’s the practical benefit of the citizenship offer to Spain? Especially if these citizens need not reside in Spain. It’s basically modern Spain saying “sorry, we were complete dicks back then”. Which they were. > [@Aspidistra](#): > > Still … 500 years? How many people can really trace their ancestors back that far? My spouse can trace part of his father’s family back to Scotland and the 1100’s… not that that does anything of benefit for us, it’s just interesting trivia. Some people can, some people can’t. Remember that the Jews have been literate for 3,000 years or more, and have valued learning at all levels of society. There are a LOT of written records of Jews, like records of marriages, for the past several thousand years. Aside from places where those records have been utterly destroyed in deliberate acts (looking at _you_, Nazi scum) I’m sure quite a bit of genealogy could be reconstructed. Really, any time you combine a fair level of literacy with some government bureaucracy you’ll get extensive records. Plenty of Christian villages have records going back centuries, as do places like Japan and China were there was at least a literate class making the records the government considered important, like births, deaths, marriages, legal contracts, court cases, etc. There are probably millions of people of Sephardic Jewish lineage, who are clearly Sephardic Jews, but who can’t _prove_ a lineage leading back to Spain in the 1490’s. Not sure what level of proof Spain would require to take advantage of the offered citizenship. I gather that’s one of the things they still have to work out. > [@](#): > > Maybe the Sephardic community is more into that kind of thing, but I know I wouldn’t have the least idea where by ancestors may or may not have been living in the late 15th century I’m pretty sure my father’s family was living in Northern Russia at the time… but I can’t _prove_ it, which seems to be your concern here. Likewise, I’m pretty sure on my mother’s side part of the family was in Ireland at that time and the rest were in broad region of Germany/France/Italy. I just can’t _prove_ that. Likewise, my spouse’s family is pretty documented in North America, including the Native side, back to the early 1800’s (when the Cherokee alphabet came on line and they started writing this sort of thing down) and to a lesser extent back to the mid-1700’s, but before that the North American contingent were certainly here, but you can’t _prove_ anything about individuals or families. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565/23 "2014-03-26T13:41:02Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > There was this little thing called the Spanish Inquisition, but I guess you didn’t expect that. Huh. I don’t remember “good record-keeping” among their many weapons. But we never got a complete enumeration, so I guess it’s possible, down there after “ruthless efficiency” and “nice red uniforms”. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565/24 "2014-03-26T16:14:17Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > It’s basically modern Spain saying “sorry, we were complete dicks back then”. Which they were. > My spouse can trace part of his father’s family back to Scotland and the 1100’s… not that that does anything of benefit for us, it’s just interesting trivia. Some people can, some people can’t… > Really, any time you combine a fair level of literacy with some government bureaucracy you’ll get extensive records. Plenty of Christian villages have records going back centuries, as do places like Japan and China were there was at least a literate class making the records the government considered important, like births, deaths, marriages, legal contracts, court cases, etc. > …Likewise, my spouse’s family is pretty documented in North America, including the Native side, back to the early 1800’s… Good points. Records can be hit and miss depending on where your ancestors were living. I can trace my family to the Mayflower on one branch, but another branch simply ends in Kentucky hill country circa 1820, land of illiterate moonshiners and other rustic, rural folk. Where were they from? New York? Germany? French Canada? We really can’t figure it out. Where do I get my Certified Hillbilly Passport? ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565/25 "2014-03-26T19:22:46Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Huh. I don’t remember “good record-keeping” among their many weapons. But we never got a complete enumeration, so I guess it’s possible, down there after “ruthless efficiency” and “nice red uniforms”. Not perhaps a weapon, but the inquisitors were \*\*extremely \*\*good about keeping records. Check out [http://cullenmurphy.com/gods-jury](http://cullenmurphy.com/gods-jury). The book is well worth a read. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565/26 "2014-03-26T19:39:20Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Isn’t it very very likely that ALL Sephardic Jews alive today have at least one and possibly many ancestors who were expelled from Spain in 1492? > . I would guess it’s probably true for _anybody_ living roughly somewhere around the Mediterranean Sea. This is silly. Not only if you begin to right all 500 yo wrongs it’s going to be…interesting…not only there’s no obvious reason to restrict it to Sephardic Jews (or Jews generally speaking), but someone arguing that it makes sense will have to explain why it doesn’t apply to the descendants of Marranos too (just joking… I know why. They don’t want to see some millions of Arabs/Berbers applying for citizenship). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565/27 "2014-03-26T23:36:22Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > but someone arguing that it makes sense will have to explain why it doesn’t apply to the descendants of Marranos too (just joking… I know why. They don’t want to see some millions of Arabs/Berbers applying for citizenship). I believe you mean of _**[Moriscos](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriscos)**_. “Marranos” were the Jews who stayed as putative converts (and many eventually left anyway). ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565/28 "2014-03-28T14:07:11Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > ETA: the list initially linked appears to be fake, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs link above references other previous lists of Sephardic names used for legal purposes: It might be interesting to see how that list compared with common names in New Mexico, where a lot of [crypto-Jews](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-Judaism) still live. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565/29 "2014-03-28T17:54:02Z")
> [@Cognoscant](#): > > _Taborda, **Taco** , Tagarita, Tagarró, Tal, Talavera_ > > Taco?! Now that’s what I call a Sephardic Jew! What? No _Matzo_? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-spain-offering-citizenships/684565.md?page=1)