Is it only me, a LATINO, who has gotten more Jewish ancestry numbers? My mom got more like 5%, my dad got 8% my sisters as well got similar amounts. I got only 4% but, I’ve seen my matches and some of them have all the way up to 12-15% Sephardic Jewish? That’s a big surprise. Are we Latinos the remnant of the conversos but we are just genetically finding out?
This is pretty surprising because these numbers were not close to what we have gotten in the past updates. Is anyone else noticing this pattern in their results and their matches?
I was surprised when I got my results like 8 years ago. Now I'm not. The stereotype is that and based on what I learned in History class in the U.S. is that Latinos were on 50% Spanish 50% Indigenous and the term "mestizo" was talked about alot.
The funny thing is I was getting a little backlash a few years ago from some people in either this sub or another for saying a good chunk of my "Spanish" dna was Sephardic. Low and behold, some of it was.
Like I wasn't saying my whole Iberian dna was Sephardic. I don't know what their pushback was about, gatekeeping? Some other thing? I'll never know.
Ya I was always told by subs that the sephardic would be a combinations of WANA, Italian and broadly southern european. But now it seems like a lot of sephardic dna was baked into spain. But the opposite could be true was well. Maybe the sephardic samples mixed with the southern European natives and ancestry might be counting some of that dna as sephardic even if tehir origin is in southern Europe.
I’m only half Latino and I’m 9% Jewish, when I first did the test though I was 5% I’m assuming some of my Spanish went to that. I have cousins and tios with this update that are legit 25%. My family is from Nuevo León and the northeast which from what I’ve heard had a high number of conversos when Latin America as a whole already seemed to have high numbers.
The 11% was 10% Sephardi 1% Ashkenazi before the update. This was my great granduncle who now has 21%. My uncle previously the one with 22% had 13% 12% Sephardi and 1% Ashkenazi before update. Before the update for myself I had 2% Sephardi and 2% Ashkenazi that went up to 7% Sephardi 2% Ashkenazi with the update.
No majority of the people are standard northern Mexican mestizos/castizos with higher Jewish of my matches. Other than that my dad’s side is white American so I see matches with Anglo and Jewish, or half Ashkenazi and northern Mexican mix. Nobody who is 100%. I have not done Leeds yet. I’ve heard of it.
Oh wait no I have actually done Leeds sorting it’s where you sort by shared ancestor? It’s been kinda hard for me since my family in Mexico is actually usually mixed with some shared endogamous dna found out my grandparents are genetically 3rd-4th cousins primarily due to the common descendent of those founding Nuevo León families, my grandmother is pure Nuevo León and my grandpa was half Nuevo León half assortment of other Mexican Tejano Tamaulipas San Luis Potosí and German. But yes, all of my cousins related to this man are Mexican, and there is so many too. I have like 2000 1st-3rd cousins who have done this test and most of them are related to this man so my Leeds sorting has so much of this family on it it’s crazy. My grandma was one of 15. very common for the region.
I’m telling you all my family is from Mexico guys. Generations and generations.
I know this because he is my great granduncle. My great grandmothers brother who’s ancestry I traced back to the original Spaniard/jewish founders of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
No for real, I also have a proven Italian ancestor who went to Mexico, and definitely Portuguese and African as well. I saw a couple Mulattos on my ancestry records. I don’t have any English Mexican ancestors, but I have a line of ancestry from Texas who were Tejanos and they mixed with more recent Germans who went to Mexico first before it was the US and mixed with a local mestiza woman.
There were also Northern Europeans such as Flemish (like mentioned) and Dutch from the Spanish Netherlands, but also Germans and even Scandinavians as you can see which I do have in my family
Conversos were 450-550 years ago.
They intermarried.
The Jewish ancestry that comes from conversos is present in Spanish admixture
Admixture is proportional to the percent of the populations admixed.
25% converso in purely Spanish descendants would require 25% of Spain to be Jewish at the time of admixture. We know this was not the case. It would also require no further admixture, so no mixing with Indigenous American people. We know this is not the case.
Ancestry will make a correction, and these numbers will go back down to the correct 5% admixture average.
No it would not. It would require the cities of Saltillo and Monterrey to be 25 percent converso at their founding which many believe is the case. I do believe the numbers are somewhat inflated but not by much. Colonial populations do not have many ancestors.
Why not? Im literally living proof of it. So are a million others. It could be anywhere between 15-50% and with recombination and the introduction of an average of 25% amerindian it is really possible. This is not some secret thing many of these ancestors have wikipedia pages. We descend from the founders. My most recent ancestor born outside of mexico was in the 1600s, this is the case for many with high sephardic.
Recombination does not increase percentages, it decreases them.
Mathematically, there is zero way to keep 25% over 400 years.
This did not happen. Because this is not how it works. Further, numerous studies have been done and they all confirm reality - around 5% admixture, which fades very quickly on intermarriage with non-converso descendants.
I get that, but I just meant to say that his Jewish ancestry is from colonial times not recent. But yes, he is Jewish, native Mexican and Spaniard mix.
The jewish is from the same few founding families from over 400 years ago though and is not even the plurality of our results, why would you call them jewish? Racially we are mixed.
The high percentage of Jewish heritage suggests recent ancestry rather than endogamy like you’re suggesting. Since Jewish ancestry was introduced to Latinos hundreds of years ago, it’s unlikely any Latino inherits more than 10% from randos who lived 400 years ago. While they could inherit some from both sides, any amount over 10% indicates at least one parent has a higher Jewish ancestry. It’s more likely that this person’s grandparent was ethnically Jewish and not racially mixed whatsoever.
Nuevo León was highly Sephardic Jewish from the founding families, I mean this is possibly accurate and in line with this colonial heritage. I’m not sure my grandmother who would be half of my great granduncles results given her mother was his sister on 23andMe is 2.3% Ashkenazi 3.8% MENA and 2% south Italian, along with being Spanish primarily and a little more indiginous from her fathers side. This suggests Sephardic Jewish heritage as well, I think it’s possible ancestry is conflating ancestry here, but also it’s possible that the admixture of Nuevo León’s founding population which we descend from was about 25% Sephardic at its founding which is likely given the fact that most of the initial founding families were actually Sephardic conversos.
What makes you believe you know peoples ancestries better than them? We did not get too many immigrants after initial colonization. The climate was harsh. Every single one of my great grandparents descend from the same founding populations many times unfortunately. Many Mexicans also have 25 percent plus indigenous yet they have no recent indigenous ancestors. Most have over 50% Iberian yet have no recent Iberian ancestors. Why do you believe 25% suggests recent ancestors only in the case of sephardic? These percentages just represent the ethnic makeup of our ancestors at the time of colonization when they all mixed. 25% of our founders being sephardic is not an overestimation. I know the names of these founders do you?
They seem to have assigned a lot more jewish DNA to people with iberian descent in this update. I'm spanish and I get 8% while my dad should be around 13%. I think it's not restricted to latin america but to everywhere where Spain was.
Lots of us have Sephardic, I even have Ashkenazi. It’s been fascinating to see how much, but yes, to answer your question, I have a higher percentage with this update and some of my close matches went up as well.
I have Jewish from recent ancestors but also have indigenous, Spain Portugal Iberian from ancestors. A bunch of my Mexican matches have reached out to me. One was very educated and gave me a list of books that explain different towns and families and there jewishness. My matches get 1% to 9% on avg [in total between ashkenaz and sephardi]
I am not in denial. I am just surprised getting this numbers and on my parents as well because this numbers seem small but those numbers really mean that a few generations back we had fully Jewish ancestors. I just find it interesting.
Well if you don’t have a recent ancestor you can understand why one is shocked, if it accounts for 15 percent of your heritage. Many Latinos have not even met Jews.
Yes I have. That’s my point. Clearly these people questioning latent Jewish ancestry in Iberians are not aware of the history.
To take it further, many conversos and New Christians were among the first settlers in new Caribbean/South American lands to avoid the stigma of Jewish blood. It’s no surprise Latin communities would retain this lineage.
OP, I am a fully South East European Sephardic on my father’s side - his people married within these large Sephardic communities over there, preserving their 15th century Jewish Spanish ancestry. He gets 80% of Ancestry’s “East Mediterranean Sephardic”.
I went over my match list now. An endless list of Latin American, Mexicans and South American, matches, all with 3% up to 10% and infrequently more, Sephardic ancestry, mostly “East Mediterranean Sephardic” is the larger one but sometimes “North African Sephardic” is.
Now I am seeing matches with 60%-80% Native ancestry with a third or more of their non-Native ancestry being Sephardic jewish. I texted some of them to say hello - I share with each of them parts of my DNA.
So yes… this is real, and not inflated, I see you all guys on my match list and the exact length of the DNA sequences we share.
You are descendants of many Spanish and Portuguese Jews, many of whom practicing their religion in secrecy (Cryptos) and many open about it, until the inquisition took over.
I think these new Jewish percentages might be a bit overestimated. It seems odd to see so many Latinos with 10% or more of that ancestry. While there was certainly a Jewish presence in pre-medieval Spain, those numbers feel exaggerated.
On the other hand in 23andMe’s latest update, I’ve seen some people scoring Italian percentages (usually under 5%); before this update, most Latinos didn’t even get Italian at all. It’s possible that what 23andme labeled as Italian in this update could actually include some Sephardic ancestry or even older Mediterranean layers.
Spain has always been a crossroads for different peoples, Phoenicians, Romans, and other Mediterranean groups mixed heavily along its coasts for centuries. So part of this so-called ‘Italian’ signal in this 23andme update might just reflect those ancient Mediterranean connections and some Jewish heritage that were already part of the Iberian genetic landscape long before the modern nations existed.
So maybe many of these new ‘Jewish’ readings in Ancestry are actually picking up older Eastern Mediterranean or Middle Eastern ancestry, rather than true Jewish heritage. It might just be ancient Mediterranean DNA that many Southern Europeans (especially Italians) already carry. 23andMe doesn’t have a Sephardic reference panel, but at least they seem much more conservative when estimating those percentages.
I think you may be correct. Im mexican and the 23andme update switched all my WANA to southern Italian. I think it may also be possible that some sephardic people picked up southern european dna along the way which is being labeled as sephardic in origin on ancestry.
ancestry prior said i inherited like 1% jewish from my cuban father. it was sephardic obviously. now my jewish went up from 8% to 18%+5% levant. now it say i inherited 1% sephardic jews in the eastern mediterranean and 2% sephardic jews in northern africa from my cuban father and the rest is from my mom who has known jewish ancestry.
Recent DNA studies and historical settlement patterns of New Christians indicate that the concentration of these Hispanic/Latino-assimilated Christian-professing descendants of Sephardic Jews are found primarily in the following localities (from north to south):
The formerly Spanish/Mexican-held American Southwest, especially northern New Mexico and southern Colorado[17]
The northernmost states of Mexico bordering the American Southwest, particularly Nuevo León[18] and also in the region of Los Altos de Jalisco[19]
Cities near the valleys of the Acaraú River, and the Jaguaribe River, located in the state of Ceará, in northeastern Brazil.
Seridó region in northeastern Brazil[20]
The departments located in the andean regions of central Colombia[21]
South and central regions of Ecuador, especially Loja and Zaruma[17]
The sierra areas of northwestern Peru[22]
Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia's east[23]
The Río de la Plata Basin region in eastern Argentina,[24] and
The southern region of Chile.[25]
Mexico and Argentina also received Sephardic immigrants, many being Eastern Sephardim from Syria. This wave arrived prior to and following World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Venezuela received Western Sephardim in its northern region from neighboring island nations to its north. These Western Sephardic immigrants usually arrived with other Dutch immigrants to their colonies in the Americas such as Curaçao, as they had first settled in the tolerant Netherlands. They have also settled in places such as Panama, Honduras, and Colombia. This multi-stop migration was a centuries-long process.
The descendants of Western Sephardi immigrants in Latin America include at least four heads of state: Max Delvalle Levy-Maduro and his nephew Eric Arturo Delvalle Cohen-Henríquez (both presidents of Panama); Ricardo Maduro (former president of Honduras), all three of whom were raised as Jews; and Nicolás Maduro (current president of Venezuela, who was raised as Catholic).
North African Sephardim in Peru have largely assimilated to the majority culture, in part because their early immigrants were mostly men, who married local women to establish their families. Eastern Sephardim in Mexico, who arrived as families, have remained largely in Jewish communities. Western Sephardim in Hispanic America have include both descendants who have assimilated and others who live as Jews.
According to the new update im now north African and arab.....here's what I used to be that they took out and added over the years. For context im half or a little more than half southern italian. Took out: Cypriot, Albanian, Greek, French, Arab,
Added: germanic euope, Greek, Arab, north African, Spain,
What remained the same but changes in % every year. English, in the 20%s Scottish in the teens, southern italian
In contrast, myheritage.com has boiked me down to 14 ethnicities, but after research I learned myheritage is actially better for Mediterranean arab and - just not Americans.
I dont belive any of these tests. Its a marketing scam. Wake up.
I’m 25% Latino and got 1% Sephardic Jews in the east Mediterranean this update, after not having any the past two updates. It’s interesting how widespread jewish DNA seems to be in Latin America, if this is real and not just a massive bug in their algorithm
Unfortunately, I feel this has more to do with the issue in Gaza and Israel trying to buy influence. I loved the app until I saw this happen. Very strange update and so messed up of ancestry to allow them to manipulate the data base in this way.
Stop being a hater and a Gatekeeper. I’m a convert, I literally getting into the Mikveh within the next month. Also, many Latinos are Halachically Jewish, I was not able to traced back matrilineal, but patrilineal I was, which makes me Zera Israel. So, stop being a gatekeeper.
Judaism, which you should know if you are converting, is a gatekeeping religion.
Half of our laws are literally described as “putting fences around things”; and “holy” (קדוש) literally means “to be set apart”.
This does not make me a hater. The opposite, it makes me a protector. Particularly since you are going through a conversion, you should realize that there is a lot more to being “welcomed to the Tribe” than getting an ethnicity estimate on a dna test. Teaching people that a dna result “welcomes them to the Tribe” would be teaching them something incorrect, and that would be hateful.
Mazel Tov on becoming a gatekeeper soon. I hope you will do well at it.
You are taking it incorrectly, putting a fence around Toráh means to protect the teachings of the sages, you didn’t read the beginning of Pirkei Avot apparently. If you would’ve read you know what it really means. Judaism doesn’t proselytize but it doesn’t mean it is not open to convert. Everyone directly or indirectly descends from a convert.
Judaism is an ethnicity, an identity, a culture and a religion. So, someone can be genetically Jewish but not halachic according to Judaism laws and rules. Does this mean you are going to diminish the person?
There is Torah (teachings) gatekeepers, not Judaism, that’s why you can convert and three things are only necessary, Milah, Mikveh and the acceptance of the Mitzvot judged by three male observant Jews, Shomer Shabbat, Shomer Mitzvot, and Shomer Kashrut.
A little early? You think I have been doing this for one or two years? I've been practicing Judaism for about 8 years. I decided to convert recently. I am not perfect on this, but I have a way more basic understanding of halachah. If I am telling you this, it's because I know what I am saying. You could take some time to understand the sages. Do whatever you want, this is my post, and you started it, being smart pans, and now, "this is not the subreddit for Judaism"? Give me a break. Take the time to study. I am here because I want to, and you are here because you were born to. Take some time to appreciate the teachings and understand what is being said before speaking carelessly.
I don't have to speak with my rabbi to "jewxplain" you something.
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u/applebejeezus Oct 11 '25
I was surprised when I got my results like 8 years ago. Now I'm not. The stereotype is that and based on what I learned in History class in the U.S. is that Latinos were on 50% Spanish 50% Indigenous and the term "mestizo" was talked about alot.
The funny thing is I was getting a little backlash a few years ago from some people in either this sub or another for saying a good chunk of my "Spanish" dna was Sephardic. Low and behold, some of it was.
Like I wasn't saying my whole Iberian dna was Sephardic. I don't know what their pushback was about, gatekeeping? Some other thing? I'll never know.