NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF AMSTERDAM
The story of the Portuguese Sephardic Jews being converted or being expelled is that they went wherever they were welcomed and Holland and Amsterdam was one of those places. (Greece and Italy were also popular and generally you will find that some Sephardic Jews also lived in Germany, Poland, and Russia.) Sephardic means Spanish speaking. Over decades of marrying within their own people, Sephardic Jews sometimes feel they are distinct genetically and culturally from German Jews or Jews of Slavic lands. They may have changed their surnames or used one name as a kind of civic name and another among their brethren.
For genealogists the search is for IMMIGRATION RECORDS.
Within the National Archives of Amsterdam site, you may find the following that will be helpful to that quest.
NAME CHANGES as a means of assimilation to a new culture.
LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION or SPONSORSHIP. Not so different from the requirements of immigrants in the United States during the 19th and early 20th century, you had to know someone who would write that you had a good character or that they would support you financially. Find one of these letters and you may verify where the people came from.
Also within this archives are a huge collection of SURNAME oriented collections. So use the surname, be it Belmonte or Schonenberg, to see what others have given over.
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