Expelled during the inquisition, however– MADRID (Reuters) – From the 15th century on, Spain’s Jews were mostly expelled or forced to convert, but today some 20 percent of Spanish men tested have Sephardic Jewish ancestry, and 11 percent can be traced to North Africa.
“These values are surprisingly high,” the researchers wrote in their report, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
They checked the Y chromosome, a stretch of DNA carried only by men and passed down with little change from father to son. Mutations in this gene can be used to trace ancestry, and some have been clearly linked to Sephardic Jewish and northern African populations..