On 22 February 1498, a well-weathered mid-40s Christopher Columbus ordained in writing that his estate in the Italian port city of Genoa would be maintained for his family “because from it I came and in it I was born”.
Though most historians regard the document to be a cut-and-dried record of the famed explorer’s birthplace, some have questioned its authenticity and wondered if there’s more to the story.
Last year, a decades-long investigation led by forensics scientist José Antonio Lorente from the University of Granada in Spain came out in support of claims that Columbus may not be of Italian heritage after all, but was actually born somewhere in Spain to parents of Jewish ancestry.
The revelation was announced in October as part of a special program broadcast in Spain to celebrate Columbus’s arrival in the New World on 12 October 1492.
It’s important to keep in mind that science by media ought to be viewed with caution, especially when there isn’t a peer-reviewed publication to critically examine.
“Unfortunately, from a scientific point of view, we can’t really evaluate what was in the documentary because they offered no data from the analysis whatsoever,” 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’s DNA and, as scientists, we don’t know what analysis was undertaken.”
Nonetheless, historical documents are increasingly being challenged – and bolstered – by forensic analyses of biological records, raising the possibility that Columbus’s own DNA could potentially reveal insights into his family history.
Hellbound and Down 