I was recently alerted of a book mentioning names of Jewish families living in Spain before their expulsion in 1492: Les Juifs d'Espagne: Histoire d'une diaspora (1492-1992), by Mechoulan, Henry; Abitbol, Michel. To view a synopsis of that book visit the site of Italian Genealogy and search for the surname "Farhi".
I was happy to see another confirmation that some Farhi are on the list of surnames of families expelled in 1492. Thanks to the research of Mathilde Tagger of Jerusalem, we have found a Farhi family who lived in 1465 in Zaragoza, Spain. They were involved in a legal dispute of their inheritance. Two other Farhi (Salomon, Moshe) were documented as living in Avila Spain in 1480 and 1492 respectively. This could be the first documented proof that some Farhi descendants of the two brothers of Ishtori HaFarhi lived in Spain. Ishtori was given "Farhi" as his family name around 1306, he left Spain for Egypt and Eretz Israel. We assume that his brothers used the same family name as well.
Whether today's Farhi can be traced to these families remain to be proven and documented. A DNA test of several Farhi men has shown different Haplogroups and Region of Ancestral Origins. You can download a copy of a paper I wrote for Avotaynu at the following link Preliminary Results of Sephardic DNA Testing
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