Wikipedia
Pazmiño ( or ) is a Spanish language surname of Sephardi judaeo-converso origin, and originating in its present-day form in what is today Ecuador, formerly the Royal Audience of Quito.
The surname is carried by the descendants of members of a family of Sephardi Jews from Llerena, Spain that converted to Catholicism in the late 15th century, at the dawn of the Spanish Inquisition. Sephardi Jewish converts to Catholicism have throughout time been variously termed anusim, conversos and marranos, each with differing connotations, the latter being pejorative.
In the early 16th century, during the first decades of Spanish colonization of South America, the family relocated to colonial Ecuador, along with other Sephardi Jewish converts to Catholicism whose real ethnicity was obscured and hidden from the colonial authorities.
In the last couple of centuries, persons of this lineage have since migrated out of Ecuador into neighboring countries, particularly Colombia, but also Peru. Some have ventured further afield around Latin America, including Chile and Panama. Others yet have more recently migrated to the United States and Australia.
Over the last decade, however, the greatest number have crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Spain in what could be described as a reverse migration of descendants of anusim, some five centuries after their forebears first established themselves in the New World. To this day, the bulk of persons of this lineage—whether Pazmiño or those carrying variants of the surname—are found mainly in Ecuador, and traditionally in the Sierra region of the country.