Introduction
In France, at the beginning of the 19th century, non-Ashkenazic Jews mainly originated from the following two areas:
(1) Southwestern: Sephardic Jews from Bordeaux, Bayonne and a few neighboring localities who lived as Crypto-Jews before 1723
(see
Southwest France)
(2) Southeastern: (French "
Juifs du Pape", that is, Avignon + three communities in Comtat Venaissin [Carpentras, Cavaillon and L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue] who always openly lived as Jews.
The information included in this searchable database was compiled by the French scholarly group "
Nouvelle Gallia Judaica" (http://ngj.vjf.cnrs.fr/BdeD/1808/paca.htm). The area covered by these extracts includes the department Vaucluse (with "
Juifs du Pape") plus communities from other southeastern departments, of which the largest have been Marseille (where Jews mainly came only after the French Revolution) and Nice (taken by France only during the 19th century, numerous names are those of Italian Jews). But for a very few exceptions all people appearing in the name adoption lists from these departments are non-Ashkenazic.