somebody found some “remains” of someone, somewhere, and decided they must be Columbus’ so they did a “dna test” and, voila.
In fairness, the DNA analysis was of the remains in, well, the tomb of Christopher Columbus in the cathedral of Seville in Spain. Allegedly, the DNA is not inconsistent with *some* Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Whether that’s true, I will leave to the experts. As I understand it, the hypothesis also is built on the notion that many of the men in Columbus’ mother’s line had popularly Jewish first names like Abraham. Does it matter? Columbus himself was a Catholic Christian. Many people around the mediterranean had some Jewish ancestry. It’s interesting, I guess, but isn’t terribly meaningful as far as the man’s impact on history is concerned.