Percentage of European and ME genes within "Jewish Diaspora"

[Lipitzan]

What percentage of Ashkenazic genes, or specifically the "Jewish Diaspora" genotype, are native to Central/Eastern Europe and to the Middle East? It seems on the family finder Ashkenazic Jews come up as 100% Jewish Diaspora, but it doesn't make a distinction between European and Middle Eastern genetic percentages.

[mollyblum]

Yes it does. If you had ME you would have a % of an actual designation of Middle Eastern. If you look at my thread just below yours about "Sephardic ggrandparent" you will see the breakdown of my mother, Uncle and I.

My mother and Uncle have 43% Jewish Diaspora and 11% Middle Eastern which is then further broken down. I have 18% Jewish Diaspora and 3% ME and 3% Central Asian or Afghani/Iranian.

If you do not have Middle Eastern listed then you are 100% Ashkenazi Jew.

[josh w.]

What percentage of Ashkenazic genes, or specifically the "Jewish Diaspora" genotype, are native to Central/Eastern Europe and to the Middle East? It seems on the family finder Ashkenazic Jews come up as 100% Jewish Diaspora, but it doesn't make a distinction between European and Middle Eastern genetic percentages.

Yes, that is a key problem with MO. Only Gedmatch with Oracle provides a more comprehensive view. There are around five studies on this issue (Atzmon;Behar; for example) consistent with Gedmatch's admixture program results. Individuals who are less than 100% Ashkenazi will have other regions listed.

[MMaddi]

I believe the OP's question is what is the breakdown between European and Middle Eastern in Ashkenazi Jews. Once someone has been labeled 100% Ashkenazi Diaspora by myOrigins, they're not give a breakdown as to what percentage of their Jewish ancestry is European and what percentage is Middle Eastern.

If someone has one Ashkenazi grandparent, presumably myOrigins would give that person roughly 25% Ashkenazi Diaspora. If he has two Ashkenazi grandparents, the percentage would be roughly 50%.

But what he wants to know is what percentage of those grandparents' Ashkenazi DNA is European and what percentage is Middle Eastern. The Ashkenazi Diaspora category only exists by itself because Ashkenazi Jews were highly endogamous and basically intermarried so much for so long that they became a true population group of their own. But over the course of several hundred to 2,000 years, there was a mixture of European and Middle Eastern DNA to create the specific group called Ashkenazi Diaspora in myOrigins or any other admixture analysis; it's just called Ashkenazi at 23andMe.

Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to the question posed.

[josh w.]

I believe the OP's question is what is the breakdown between European and Middle Eastern in Ashkenazi Jews. Once someone has been labeled 100% Ashkenazi Diaspora by myOrigins, they're not give a breakdown as to what percentage of their Jewish ancestry is European and what percentage is Middle Eastern.

If someone has one Ashkenazi grandparent, presumably myOrigins would give that person roughly 25% Ashkenazi Diaspora. If he has two Ashkenazi grandparents, the percentage would be roughly 50%.

But what he wants to know is what percentage of those grandparents' Ashkenazi DNA is European and what percentage is Middle Eastern. The Ashkenazi Diaspora category only exists by itself because Ashkenazi Jews were highly endogamous and basically intermarried so much for so long that they became a true population group of their own. But over the course of several hundred to 2,000 years, there was a mixture of European and Middle Eastern DNA to create the specific group called Ashkenazi Diaspora in myOrigins or any other admixture analysis; it's just called Ashkenazi at 23andMe.

Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to the question posed.

Maybe I don't understand the question. I thought OP was asking what regions do the Ashkenazi defining SNPs come from if one has 100% Jewish origins. I could be wrong but I think the Ashkenazi cluster is defined by a unique package of SNPs.The package is uniquely Jewish but some of the SNPs were internalized from other populations. I think that this is the reason why FTDNA had earlier difficulty in separating Ashkenazis from Southern Italians. Research consistently suggests that around 50% come from Asia and around 50% come from Europe. The Asian component is mainly West Asian with some Southwest-Asian-Red Sea origins as well. The European component is mainly Mediterranean along with central -east European origins . If an individual identified as 100% Jewish Diaspora uploaded to Gedmatch this is probably what their individual pattern would show although there is some variation. Is a different question being asked?

[MMaddi]

Maybe I don't understand the question. I thought OP was asking what regions do the Ashkenazi defining SNPs come from if one has 100% Jewish origins. I could be wrong but I think the Ashkenazi cluster is defined by a unique package of SNPs.The package is uniquely Jewish but some of the SNPs were internalized from other populations. I think that this is the reason why FTDNA had earlier difficulty in separating Ashkenazis from Southern Italians. Research consistently suggests that around 50% come from Asia and around 50% come from Europe. The Asian component is mainly West Asian with some Southwest-Asian-Red Sea origins as well. The European component is mainly Mediterranean along with central -east European origins . If an individual identified as 100% Jewish Diaspora uploaded to Gedmatch this is probably what their individual pattern would show although there is some variation. Is a different question being asked?

My post was mainly in response to mollyblum, who seemed to misinterpret the question in the way I described.

I think you've given the poster the answer he's looking for, in the section that I bolded above. I don't know that your answer is entirely correct as far as the European versus Middle Eastern breakdown, but it's probably not too far off. Do you have a citation for a study or two that makes the estimate you're giving?

[mollyblum]

Yes but if the person has Jewish ancestry that is "Mediterranean" in origin that could be labeled as Sephardic.

I am Jewish and I have a percentage of Ashkenazi Jew and also a separate percentage of Middle Eastern that is also part of my Jewish ancestry so for me it is separating them. My mother and Uncle have the same separations.

My previous designation on the Family Finder program was all labeled under Middle Eastern as was my Mother (my Uncle had not tested yet).

So maybe I am not understanding the question- I mean if we are going back thousands of years all Jews originated in the Middle East so how would that designation help for Ashkenazi's? They started in the Middle East and then spread out into Asia and Europe. So essentially all Ashkenazi are Middle Eastern in origin. My maternal haplogroup is K1a1b1a which is believed to have originated in the Middle East around 2K years BP- it also belong to about 20% of Ashkenazi Jews with origins in Poland/Ukraine.

Also.... I agree that there is an issue in separating the S. Italian or Mediterranean ancestry from the Jewish ancestry but my Population Origins and that of my Mom and Uncle seemed pretty accurate for a change. And in our case it is complex as my mother and Uncle are a little over 1/2 Jewish (primarily Ashkenazi but with 15% Sephardic) and about 1/2 Albanian (Balkan roots- Bosnia area) and 1/2 Italian (Abruzzi). So it can get very mixed up

[josh w.]

Yes but if the person has Jewish ancestry that is "Mediterranean" in origin that could be labeled as Sephardic.

I am Jewish and I have a percentage of Ashkenazi Jew and also a separate percentage of Middle Eastern that is also part of my Jewish ancestry so for me it is separating them. My mother and Uncle have the same separations.

My previous designation on the Family Finder program was all labeled under Middle Eastern as was my Mother (my Uncle had not tested yet).

So maybe I am not understanding the question- I mean if we are going back thousands of years all Jews originated in the Middle East so how would that designation help for Ashkenazi's? They started in the Middle East and then spread out into Asia and Europe. So essentially all Ashkenazi are Middle Eastern in origin. My maternal haplogroup is K1a1b1a which is believed to have originated in the Middle East around 2K years BP- it also belong to about 20% of Ashkenazi Jews with origins in Poland/Ukraine.

Also.... I agree that there is an issue in separating the S. Italian or Mediterranean ancestry from the Jewish ancestry but my Population Origins and that of my Mom and Uncle seemed pretty accurate for a change. And in our case it is complex as my mother and Uncle are a little over 1/2 Jewish (primarily Ashkenazi but with 15% Sephardic) and about 1/2 Albanian (Balkan roots- Bosnia area) and 1/2 Italian (Abruzzi). So it can get very mixed up

As indicated above, I am not happy with MO which fails to give a breakdown of the origin of the sources of Ashkenazi SNPs. The issue of the origin of Jewish K1a1b is unresolved. Richards challenged Behars conclusion by suggesting that the subclade was from Europe rather than the Levant. I thought Behar was going to publicly respond but I have not seen Behar's counter-argument.

[josh w.]

My post was mainly in response to mollyblum, who seemed to misinterpret the question in the way I described.

I think you've given the poster the answer he's looking for, in the section that I bolded above. I don't know that your answer is entirely correct as far as the European versus Middle Eastern breakdown, but it's probably not too far off. Do you have a citation for a study or two that makes the estimate you're giving?

There is very good coverage of the research at the Wikipedia article 'Genetic Studies Of Jews'---autosomal section. There is some variation on Asian vs European percentages. My impression that studies that include a South Italy comparison group yield higher European percentages. Some studies do not find an East European component. There is an outlier study by Elhaik but that has been criticized in terms of poor design and perhaps political bias.

From an anecdotal sample of uploads to Gematch admixture programs, Gedmatch results point in the same direction as published research. At Gedmatch, results depend on how the geographical pie is cut.

[josh w.]

As indicated above, I am not happy with MO which fails to give a breakdown of the origin of the sources of Ashkenazi SNPs. The issue of the origin of Jewish K1a1b is unresolved. Richards challenged Behars conclusion by suggesting that the subclade was from Europe rather than the Levant. I thought Behar was going to publicly respond but I have not seen Behar's counter-argument.

There is a major problem with the simplistic identification of being 100% Jewish Diaspora, unfortunately with some socio-political overtones. If one is unfamiliar with Jewish migration history, it would be too easy to erroneously conclude that all of one's genes (SNPs) came from ancient Israel.

[dna]

Sometimes you are looking for it, and you cannot find it

A non-scientific sample of one individual who has Lewek in Poland as a grandmother.

100% European in myOrigins, and so far nobody among Family Finder matches with the Longest Common Block greater than 9.00 shows anything Jewish...

W.

P.S. Traced that Lewek family to the 18th century, no prior records exist.

[josh w.]

There is very good coverage of the research at the Wikipedia article 'Genetic Studies Of Jews'---autosomal section. There is some variation on Asian vs European percentages. My impression that studies that include a South Italy comparison group yield higher European percentages. Some studies do not find an East European component. There is an outlier study by Elhaik but that has been criticized in terms of poor design and perhaps political bias.

From an anecdotal sample of uploads to Gematch admixture programs, Gedmatch results point in the same direction as published research. At Gedmatch, results depend on how the geographical pie is cut.

To elaborate on my point regarding a South Italy comparison group. Generated MDS space is dependent upon the nature of the input to that generation, specifically the particular groups used for comparison. Imagine two studies, one comparing Ashkenazis with Norwegians and Lebanese, the other comparing Ashkenazis with Southern Italians and Yemenites. The first study will probably show that Ashkenazis are more Asian and the second study will probably show that Ashkenazis are more European. Research consistently shows that Ashkenazis are close to Southern Italians. Any study which lacks a comparison group from that region will tend to underestimate the European contribution to the Ashkenazi composite.

[Lipitzan]

Thank you for the replies. Yes, I was curious as to whether there could be some kind of breakdown on the Ashkenazi population structure, showing relative European and Middle Eastern admixture. But I've never heard of anything so detailed. Still seems like a controversial subject.