Hello,
Ive recently ordered a 25-Marker Y-DNA test as part of our AARON surname project. Were just getting started (only one persons results in so far), and while waiting for my results, I decided to start reading up on genetic genealogy to familiarize myself. Initially the project was just intended to see which AARON lines might connect with eachother, but after reading a little about haplogroups and haplotypes, I began to wonder if it might tell us a little more
One of the often discussed topics on the AARON list/message boards is Jewish ancestry. Although people with the AARON surname are often assumed to be Jewish, a great many (in fact most of the AARON researchers on the message boards, myself included) are not Jewish. One train of thought is that these non-Jewish AARONs probably were Jewish many generations ago. Another train of thought is that many of these AARONs transitioned into this surname from something that sounded similar, but didnt refer to Aaron from the old testament at all. For example, in my case (a line that traces back to the mid-1700s in Catholic church records), the name started as ARENT/AREND/ARENDT then transitioned to ARON, and finally to AARON. AREND didnt refer to Aaron, but rather was of Germanic origin from the elements arn (eagle) and wald (rule) at least by definition from Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University (incidently, this same book also notes that the surname AARON isnt always a Jewish surname).
Will haplotype information be able to tell contributors to our surname project, Yes, you almost certainly descend from a Jewish line of AARONs or No, your AARONs were almost certainly not Jewish or will we not be able to definitively ascertain that one way or another because non-Jewish people also belonged to the same haplotype?
As a side note, I noticed there IS one definition of the name ARENDT that says, in a Jewish form, it was an Ashkenazic name. I thought I saw Ashkenazic listed in connection with some haplotypes, but again, if one of our submitters shows up in one of those haplotypes, does that mean he was almost certainly a Jewish AARON, or is that quite a leap to make from there?
Thanks!
Scott
Ive recently ordered a 25-Marker Y-DNA test as part of our AARON surname project. Were just getting started (only one persons results in so far), and while waiting for my results, I decided to start reading up on genetic genealogy to familiarize myself. Initially the project was just intended to see which AARON lines might connect with eachother, but after reading a little about haplogroups and haplotypes, I began to wonder if it might tell us a little more
One of the often discussed topics on the AARON list/message boards is Jewish ancestry. Although people with the AARON surname are often assumed to be Jewish, a great many (in fact most of the AARON researchers on the message boards, myself included) are not Jewish. One train of thought is that these non-Jewish AARONs probably were Jewish many generations ago. Another train of thought is that many of these AARONs transitioned into this surname from something that sounded similar, but didnt refer to Aaron from the old testament at all. For example, in my case (a line that traces back to the mid-1700s in Catholic church records), the name started as ARENT/AREND/ARENDT then transitioned to ARON, and finally to AARON. AREND didnt refer to Aaron, but rather was of Germanic origin from the elements arn (eagle) and wald (rule) at least by definition from Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University (incidently, this same book also notes that the surname AARON isnt always a Jewish surname).
Will haplotype information be able to tell contributors to our surname project, Yes, you almost certainly descend from a Jewish line of AARONs or No, your AARONs were almost certainly not Jewish or will we not be able to definitively ascertain that one way or another because non-Jewish people also belonged to the same haplotype?
As a side note, I noticed there IS one definition of the name ARENDT that says, in a Jewish form, it was an Ashkenazic name. I thought I saw Ashkenazic listed in connection with some haplotypes, but again, if one of our submitters shows up in one of those haplotypes, does that mean he was almost certainly a Jewish AARON, or is that quite a leap to make from there?
Thanks!
Scott
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