History
The Jewish and Arab genetic ancestry of the Spaniards
By h.b. - Dec 5, 2008 - 6:56 AM
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A new genetic study has claimed that one in five Spaniards have Jewish ancestors, and one in ten have genes inherited from Muslims. In fact a third of Spaniards have genetic evidence of other cultures with a further one in ten with genes from the inhabitants of the North of Africa.
The study was carried out be scientists at Leicester University in the UK and the Pompeu Fabra University from Barcelona, and led by Briton Mark Jobling.
They studied the Y chromosome of residents of the peninsular and the Balearics and compared them to samples from North Africans and Sephardic Jews to reach the conclusion that one in three Spaniards has Moorish or Jewish ancestors.
The Y chromosome is only present in men and is passed from father to son. They took samples from 1,140 people in Spain to reach their conclusions.
The complete study is published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.