On February 22, 1498, Christopher Columbus, in fair weather in the mid-1940s, directed in writing that his estate in the Italian port city of Genoa be preserved for his family “because from it I came and in it I was born.”
Although most historians consider the document to be a complete record of the famous explorer’s birthplace, some have questioned its authenticity and wondered if there was more to the story.
Last year, a decades-long investigation led by forensic scientist José Antonio Lorente of the University of Granada in Spain supported claims that Columbus may not be of Italian heritage, but was in fact born somewhere in Spain to parents of Jewish ancestry.
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The revelation was announced in October 2024 as part of a special program broadcast in Spain to celebrate Columbus’s arrival in the New World on October 12, 1492.
Below is a summary of the investigation’s findings:
It is important to note that science by the media should be viewed with caution, especially when there is no peer-reviewed publication to critically examine.
“Unfortunately, from a scientific point of view, we cannot really assess what was in the documentary because they did not provide any data from the analysis,” former director of Spain’s National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences, Antonio Alonso, told Manuel Ansede and Nuño Domínguez at the Spanish news service, El País.
“My conclusion is that the documentary never shows Columbus’ DNA, and as scientists we don’t know what analysis was undertaken.”
However, historical documents are increasingly being challenged – and supported – by forensic analyzes of biological records, raising the possibility that Columbus’ own DNA may reveal insights into his family history.
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Based on interpretations of records written as an adult, the man known in much of the Western world by the anglicized name Christopher Columbus was born Cristoforo Colombo.
His birth took place between late August and late October 1451 in Genoa, the bustling capital of the northwestern Italian region of Liguria.
It wasn’t until later in life, in his twenties, that he traveled west to Lisbon, Portugal, in search of wealthy patrons who could finance his daring attempt to take a “short cut” to the east, heading in another direction entirely.
Although most historians accept the court documents placing his birthplace in Genoa as the real deal, speculation about an alternative heritage has floated for decades.
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A persistent rumor claims that Columbus was secretly Jewish, born in Spain during a time of intense religious persecution and ethnic cleansing.
Supporters of the claim cite curious anomalies in his will and interpretations of the syntax of his letters.
Now, it seems his own genes may provide a new line of evidence.
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Lorente and his team of researchers claimed in the televised special that their analysis of the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA taken from the remains of Columbus’ son Ferdinand and brother Diego were compatible with Spanish or Sephardic Jewish heritage.
This does not categorically rule out Genoa, of course, nor does it identify any place in Europe as the explorer’s birthplace.
Indeed, Jews were exiled from Spain at the end of the 15th century, just as Columbus was making his landmark voyage, flooding into the Italian city in search of asylum, albeit with little success.
But any merit to Lorente’s findings would make Columbus’ Italian origins a little harder to support, raising questions about how someone of Sephardic Jewish heritage could have been born in Genoa in the 1450s.
For the findings to be widely adopted, the results would need to be scrutinized, if not convincingly replicated in detail.
Even then, an individual’s story is about more than genetics—leaving the case open as to how an individual from a persecuted minority came to truly spearhead Spanish expansion.
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For now, the story of Columbus remains one of an Italian sailor who attracted the attention of Spanish royalty, who came to be both celebrated and despised for the mark he inadvertently made on history, far from that “noble and mighty city by the sea,” the home of Genoa.
An earlier version of this article was published in October 2024.