Jewish DNA?

[efgen]

To echo both Josh's and cacio's comments, it's quite common for people with European ancestry to match people with Jewish ancestry at the low marker levels (such as 12 markers and even 25) -- that's because matches at the low levels are very broad and can be very distantly related. Everyone is related if we go back far enough

However, if you still have those Jewish matches at the 37-marker level or higher, then you would want to consider the possibility that you have Jewish ancestry as well.

For more information about DNA testing and Jewish ancestry, see the following article written by Bennett Greenspan (President/CEO of Family Tree DNA) and published in Avotaynu (a Jewish genealogy journal):

Can DNA Testing Confirm Jewish Ancestry?
http://www.familytreedna.com/PDF/Spr...1Greenspan.pdf

Elise

[cacio]

As Josh was saying, it seems unlikely. First, it depends on the number of marker, a mismatch of 1 can be very large, and even a perfect 12 markers match need not mean anything. If you are R1b, then it's likely the regular European R1b.

cacio

[josh w.]

Without more information, my guess is that Jewish origins are not that likely. It depends on whether your matches appear to have Ashkenazi surnames---these surnames are often difficult to separate from non Jewish German surnames. Not all Ashkenazi Jews identify themselves as such at FTDNA. It is not uncommon for someone who is not Jewish to have a small number of Jewish matches. This is because Ashkenazi Jews are over-represented in FTDNA's sample compared to US and world populations.

I got my results back and found in the Y-DNA-Ancestral Origins that in the "perfect match" Germany has the highest Match Total of 4. Then under it in the Genetic Distance-1 it says Germany Match Total 23. In the same line to the far right in comments it says Ashkenazi (1) and North Rhine-Westphalia (1). I am assuming that this indicates that with this being listed in my Ancestral Origins that I have Jewish ancesters. Can someone please tell me if this is correct that I am assuming or not? I don't have a clue how to read my results though I have alot a numbers and letters to look at now and even though I have read and listoned to tutor stuff on this it is all still greek to me. I do not care who looks at my information. To me it isn't a big secret. My email is [email protected].