Portrait of a Man, Said to be Christopher Columbus (born about 1446, died 1506) - Sebastiano del Piombo. (Credit: Wiki Commons/Public Domain)
Posted on 10/14/2024 3:49:35 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I need to start this piece with a confession: I have made — on more than one occasion — decisions that, in hindsight, were rather unwise. But I suppose that's why they call it hindsight, no? I'm not certain, had I fully comprehended the scope and implications of a surveillance state at the time, that I would have so willingly spit into a test tube and sent my DNA off to some lab for testing, but indeed, I did. And the reason I did is rather petty.
Portrait of a Man, Said to be Christopher Columbus (born about 1446, died 1506) - Sebastiano del Piombo. (Credit: Wiki Commons/Public Domain)
I blame Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Actually, I blame myself and my ego and pride and pettiness, but it was her repeated assertions regarding her purported Cherokee ancestry and the subsequent revelation that DNA testing showed her to be 1/1024th Native American that set everything in motion. (Note: Currently available information now says she's between six and 10 generations removed — six generations would be 1/64th, while 10 would be 1/1024th. I am not sure why that has changed since the initial announcement in 2018, but I'm quite certain the 1/1024th was emphasized at that time because that is what prompted what I did in response.)
Upon hearing this revelation, I indignantly thought, "That's dumb — I'm probably more Native American than she is." So, I took a DNA test and discovered that, in fact, I may well be — I'm 1/256th Native American, which I suppose would put my indigenous ancestor eight generations back. Take that, Elizabeth!
In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have so willingly offered up my DNA "to a random website that now has full copyright and unregulated access to my genetic code for the rest of time."
But what's done is done — as I said, hindsight. I will say there was a silver lining to this foolhardy endeavor: Because of it, I discovered that I have two "bonus aunts," I otherwise would never have known — both of whom are lovely people. So there's that.
And since I'm one of the not-so-subtly-alluded-to dumbasses from the above video, I'll also share that, unsurprisingly, I learned that I'm 97 percent Northwestern European (72 percent British/Irish; 24 percent French/German; with a smattering of "Broadly Northwestern European) — your standard Euro-mutt. The other roughly three percent? A dollop of Spanish/Portugese — Tapas! — a dash of West African, and a smidgen of Ashkenazi Jew, Indigenous American, and North African.
What does any of this have to do with Christopher Columbus other than the fact that he's been given the heave-ho for "Indigenous Peoples Day" in some quarters? Well, I'll tell you. I'm not the only one whose DNA has been lab-tested. Columbus' has, too. Of course, he's been dead and gone for half a millennia, so he's probably not terribly worried about the surveillance state or some nefarious plot to use his genetic code for ill.
Nevertheless, the results of said testing show that Columbus may not even be the Italian he's long been thought to be, but one thing he is definitively...is Jewish.
Spanish scientists announced in a new documentary that first aired on Saturday that DNA analysis shows the 15th-century explorer Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe.
The documentary titled, "Columbus DNA: The true origin," which aired on Spain's national broadcaster TVE, showcases the research of a 22-year investigation led by forensic expert Miguel Lorente, Reuters reported.
...
"We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son," Lorente said in the documentary. "And both in the Y chromosome [male] and in the mitochondrial DNA [transmitted by the mother] of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin."
...
Columbus was traditionally believed to have come from Genoa, Italy, though historians also had theorized him as being a Spanish Jew or perhaps Greek, Basque, Portuguese or British. Lorente's study analyzed 25 possible locations, but ultimately could only conclude that Columbus was born in Western Europe, Reuters said.
I feel like this revelation is bound to disappoint my Italian friends. You think you know a guy...
FROM FOX NEWS:
https://www.foxnews.com/world/columbus-remains-verified-500-years-show-he-jewish-documentary
Spanish scientists announced in a new documentary that first aired on Saturday that DNA analysis shows the 15th-century explorer Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe.
The documentary titled, “Columbus DNA: The true origin,” which aired on Spain’s national broadcaster TVE, showcases the research of a 22-year investigation led by forensic expert Miguel Lorente, Reuters reported.
Lorente and his team tested samples of remains buried at Seville Cathedral, long believed to be Columbus’ final resting place, though the claim had been contested. Researchers compared the DNA with those of known relatives and descendants of the navigator who led trans-Atlantic expeditions for the Spanish crown from the 1490s onward, inducing European exploration and colonization of the Americas.
“We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” Lorente said in the documentary. “And both in the Y chromosome [male] and in the mitochondrial DNA [transmitted by the mother] of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.”
Reuters reports that approximately 300,000 Jews resided in Spain before the “Reyes Catolicos,” Catholic monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, compelled Jews and Muslims to convert or face exile. The expulsion of Jews from Spain took place in 1492, the same year as Columbus’ famed first voyage.
The word Sephardic is derived from Sepharad, or Spain in Hebrew.
Columbus was traditionally believed to have come from Genoa, Italy, though historians also had theorized him as being a Spanish Jew or perhaps Greek, Basque, Portuguese or British. Lorente’s study analyzed 25 possible locations, but ultimately could only conclude that Columbus was born in Western Europe, Reuters said.
Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, in 1506, according to Reuters.
His remains were brought to the island of Hispaniola – currently home to the Dominican Republic and Haiti – in 1542, where he wanted to be buried, and later to Cuba in 1795. Authorities long believed Columbus’ remains were ultimately taken back to Spain, to Seville in 1898.
Lorente said his research confirmed that the remains at Seville Cathedral are indeed those of Columbus.
“The outcome is almost absolutely reliable,” Lorente said.
COLUMBUS HATERS ARE ANTISEMTIC.
But are they 4imprint certain? (I've really come to hate those ads.)
I heard he was a thylacine and secretly gay. Its the latest research.
I doubt it
RE: I heard he was a thylacine and secretly gay.
Add another item for fun — He was a cross dresser ( to placate the trans crowd ).
He wanted the West Bank. the West and it’s Bank.
After the Jewish War, many Jews were deported to Italy, and there had been Jews in Rome before that. Jews may have migrated to Italy from other European countries in the Middle Ages. So Columbus could belong to a Y-DNA haplogroup characteristic of Jews without having recent Jewish ancestry.
Because of conversions, forced or otherwise, in the Middle Ages, can anyone of European ancestry say definitively that they have no Jewish ancestors? It could be someone 10 or 20 generations back but still an ancestor.
We still have Amerigo Vespucci. :)
I was not aware that you could detect religious faith by DNA testing. What will they come up with next?
Oh, and by the way, both Peter and Paul were Jewish. Come to think of it, so was Jesus.
My wife probably has some Russian Jewish blood in her bloodline. So what? She's a born-again American Christian.
"For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the ceremony of circumcision. No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by the Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people."- Romans 2:28,29
The author of this article needs to pull his head out his ass and think. Jews are not a nationality, they come in all races and ethnic backgrounds. With the author's logic a Jew living in Dallas, Texas, born in Dallas, Texas is "A JEW" but not an American.
Columbus was an Italian with some or mostly Jewish ancestry. I suspect when he appealed to the King and Queen of Spain to finance his venture to the New World he was not speaking Yiddish! I grow weary of society trying to put us in racial and cultural boxes, it divides us.
PSTUPID!! He was CATHOLIC!!
ALL of the APOSTLES were JEWISH!!! But Columbus was NOT!
I was going to ask, is it a religion or is it a race?
There are large numbers of Shepardic Jews in Latin America, specifically Cuba, Central Mexico in the state of Mexico vis Mexico City, and the DR. They were originally from the Basque region and northern Spain but were driven out in the 1500s right after Columbus showed there was a whole continent between Europe and Asia. There is no denying he lived in Genoa nor that he spoke Italian the Shepardic people were some of the original diaspora from the middle ages. There are also plenty of Mexicans who are Jewish and indigenous peoples too how’s that for irony that’s just how conquest rolls.
People Group.
He self identified as Italian, leave him alone.
RE: PSTUPID!! He was CATHOLIC!!
You can be of Jewish ancestry and Catholic by religion.
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