Sephardic Jewish Ggrandparent?

[Táltos]

Wikipedia answers that question:
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The original Sephardi community [in Zamość] ceased to exist in the 1620s when it assimilated into the fledging Ashkenazi community, following an economic crisis caused by the accumulation of bad debts by Polish debtors.
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Thanks lgmayka for providing excellent information as usual.

[mollyblum]

Hello Táltos!

What's also interesting is that my mom has a match named "Alba" that does not share any one else in common with. That is the only person in her entire 2700 matches like that as they are all Ashkenazi and there are usually like 67 pages incommon with other people. It doesn't say Mark Alba though. Maybe they also tested a female relative as well?

I am not sure if the Sephardic roots come from the Schoenberg line- I can find no match to any of the Belmonte/Belmont's in the book but it could have been a line not in the book (we were tailors, scrap metal dealers and my great-Uncle was religious person in the Shul preparing bodies for burial) as they were wealthy bankers and we were most definitely not! Lol.

Many people are complaining about the lack of Sephardic designations and I agree but in my case I had to test three people to get a more accurate picture and it may be necessary for others to do the same. My test showed the Middle Eastern and Afghani percentage; my mother's showed Middle Eastern and Turkish and her brother's showed Moroccan(N. African and Middle Eastern. In addition we are also Italian. Their father was Italian/Albanian which totally would seem to confuse things. But I think the % are correct as their mother was 100% Jewish and their percentages for Ashkenazi and if you add in the Middle Eastern and Turkish or Moroccan are a little over 50%.

I think you unfortunately have to test several family members to get an accurate picture as you may not be showing the N. African or Afghani or Turkish. As you can see all three of us show different Sephardic designations but none of us share these. Not sure what would happen if I tested my mother's twin brother. Probably come back the same as her. My brother's results might come back with another part of Africa- who knows??

I do hope they are able to work on this though and narrow it down.

And I wish I could have CC Moore look at my results and find my Sephardic roots!!!!!! Lol

[vinnie]

For what it's worth, here are a few numbers from 50 Italian/Sicilian MO results from people who claim all 4 grandparents from Italy/Sicily.

All show Southern Med ranging 34%-71%
All show Asia Minor ranging 8%-53%

74% show North African (ranging 1%-8%)

30% show Ashkenazi (n = 15, ranging from 5%-12%)

Of the 30%, 66% show North African (n = 10). In this small sample, there is a trend between NA and AJ.

Of those showing both NA and AJ (n = 10), 6 people have less than 5% NA. So in this small sample, there's no discernible trend between AJ and the amount of NA.

[Táltos]

Hello Táltos!

What's also interesting is that my mom has a match named "Alba" that does not share any one else in common with. That is the only person in her entire 2700 matches like that as they are all Ashkenazi and there are usually like 67 pages incommon with other people. It doesn't say Mark Alba though. Maybe they also tested a female relative as well?

I am not sure if the Sephardic roots come from the Schoenberg line- I can find no match to any of the Belmonte/Belmont's in the book but it could have been a line not in the book (we were tailors, scrap metal dealers and my great-Uncle was religious person in the Shul preparing bodies for burial) as they were wealthy bankers and we were most definitely not! Lol.

Many people are complaining about the lack of Sephardic designations and I agree but in my case I had to test three people to get a more accurate picture and it may be necessary for others to do the same. My test showed the Middle Eastern and Afghani percentage; my mother's showed Middle Eastern and Turkish and her brother's showed Moroccan(N. African and Middle Eastern. In addition we are also Italian. Their father was Italian/Albanian which totally would seem to confuse things. But I think the % are correct as their mother was 100% Jewish and their percentages for Ashkenazi and if you add in the Middle Eastern and Turkish or Moroccan are a little over 50%.

I think you unfortunately have to test several family members to get an accurate picture as you may not be showing the N. African or Afghani or Turkish. As you can see all three of us show different Sephardic designations but none of us share these. Not sure what would happen if I tested my mother's twin brother. Probably come back the same as her. My brother's results might come back with another part of Africa- who knows??

I do hope they are able to work on this though and narrow it down.

And I wish I could have CC Moore look at my results and find my Sephardic roots!!!!!! Lol

Hi mollyblum!
That is interesting that your Mom's match has the last name Alba. If you test your brother and your Mom's brother you will have results that do differ thanks to recombination. Yes it would be great if we could all have CeCe Moore help us sort out our results!

[Táltos]

For what it's worth, here are a few numbers from 50 Italian/Sicilian MO results from people who claim all 4 grandparents from Italy/Sicily.

All show Southern Med ranging 34%-71%
All show Asia Minor ranging 8%-53%

74% show North African (ranging 1%-8%)

30% show Ashkenazi (n = 15, ranging from 5%-12%)

Of the 30%, 66% show North African (n = 10). In this small sample, there is a trend between NA and AJ.

Of those showing both NA and AJ (n = 10), 6 people have less than 5% NA. So in this small sample, there's no discernible trend between AJ and the amount of NA.

vinnie,
Thanks so much for taking the time to break down these numbers for us.

[khazaria]

Amybeth wrote "I suspected my ggrandmother or a branch of her family was possibly Sephardic as they were very dark and had olive skin as opposed to my ggrandfather who was much paler. [...] My mother's population origins are: 42% Jewish Diaspora and 11% Middle Eastern (Asia Minor-aka Turkey) and her brother's are: 42% Jewish Diaspora and 11% Middle Eastern (9% Asia Minor and 2% North Africa -aka Morocco) [...]

So I was wondering if out of the 50% of my mom's and Uncle's Jewish ancestry, say with a margin of error 11-15% is Sephardic based upon the description (Middle Eastern, Moroccan/Turkish)- [...]

And I wish I could have CC Moore look at my results and find my Sephardic roots!!!!!!"

The answer is yes, Amybeth, you have some Sephardic ancestry. Your mother carries a long portion of the Sephardic Jewish autosomal segment on chromosome 21 that I talked about on these pages:

http://forums.familytreedna.com/showthread.php?t=38829&page=4

http://forums.familytreedna.com/showthread.php?t=38829&page=6

http://forums.familytreedna.com/showthread.php?t=39810&page=2

with Josh W. who has an earlier portion of it, and it is also shared by my mother, other Ashkenazim, and by over a dozen non-Ashkenazic Mexicans and a Costa Rican. The segment triangulates between pairs over their expected overlaps and phases between applicable parent-child pairs.

Your mother inherited the portion from 23.3M to 31.6M with segment lengths shared with the non-Ashkenazim up to at least 11.6 centimorgans.

Does the person named Alba match her in this area or somewhere else?

You and I didn't inherit this segment.