Long lost heritage

[Adi]

Hi there

I'm new to this genealogy stuff so please bare with me. I've come across this website when I was talking to a friend who's mapping their family tree and thought I should ask about some things just to have a clearer idea.

So here's my story..

I come from Saudi Arabia, however i'm not purely Saudi. I've got mixes that I know of which include Iraqi, and Persian backgrounds. What's interesting is that when my late grandmother was on her deathbed, she whispered to my aunt and told her that we have a jewish heritage and not until then did we even think that we did!

Most of you might think this is almost impossible considering Saudi is a very religious muslim country for the past 1400 years, but in my hometown almost 100 years ago, there used to be a jewish cemetery and obviously there were jewish families living there at some point of time (the eastern region of Saudi, a city called Al-Hasa). The government had the cemetery removed and did not issue any documentation regarding this to people who are involved or related buried bodies.

I'm not sure whether my grandmother was ashamed of being of a jewish background considering she's a very religious muslim, but I do want to find out if I do have a jewish heritage (I'm an atheist anyway but would like to know). Another part that intrigues me is that somewhere along the line of my great great+ grandparents, a split in the family happened where my family had changed their surname and did not associate with the previous original family. This just leads me to think that there is something that started this and i'm interested to know if having a jewish heritage is the reason for this.

I've looked at the kits offered but i'm not sure they look at this and can tell if I do have this heritage.

I just wanted to ask if this is something that can be investigated with the family finder kits and whether I'll be able to know which side (maternal or paternal) i've got the heritage from.

Sorry for the long thread

I hope to get some clarification, and I do appreciate your help!

Kind regards
Adi

[Petra]

Hallo Adi,

indeed it´s an interesting (hi)story you might be able to find with your genetical and paper trail research. Good luck for your new hobby :-)

In your case it would help to order several kits of the family finder to research your family. Best is to test father and mother (and you) and if possible, brothers and sisters of your parents and granduncles and grandaunts (of your decesed grandmother). Through their matches to your father and mother and yourself you might be able to trace the possible jewish (and other) line. But please keep in mind, that the FTDNA data base has mostly ashkenazi and sephardi members and not so many people with arabian, iranian background or jewish mizrahim.

[josh w.]

Hi there

I'm new to this genealogy stuff so please bare with me. I've come across this website when I was talking to a friend who's mapping their family tree and thought I should ask about some things just to have a clearer idea.

So here's my story..

I come from Saudi Arabia, however i'm not purely Saudi. I've got mixes that I know of which include Iraqi, and Persian backgrounds. What's interesting is that when my late grandmother was on her deathbed, she whispered to my aunt and told her that we have a jewish heritage and not until then did we even think that we did!

Most of you might think this is almost impossible considering Saudi is a very religious muslim country for the past 1400 years, but in my hometown almost 100 years ago, there used to be a jewish cemetery and obviously there were jewish families living there at some point of time (the eastern region of Saudi, a city called Al-Hasa). The government had the cemetery removed and did not issue any documentation regarding this to people who are involved or related buried bodies.

I'm not sure whether my grandmother was ashamed of being of a jewish background considering she's a very religious muslim, but I do want to find out if I do have a jewish heritage (I'm an atheist anyway but would like to know). Another part that intrigues me is that somewhere along the line of my great great+ grandparents, a split in the family happened where my family had changed their surname and did not associate with the previous original family. This just leads me to think that there is something that started this and i'm interested to know if having a jewish heritage is the reason for this.

I've looked at the kits offered but i'm not sure they look at this and can tell if I do have this heritage.

I just wanted to ask if this is something that can be investigated with the family finder kits and whether I'll be able to know which side (maternal or paternal) i've got the heritage from.

Sorry for the long thread

I hope to get some clarification, and I do appreciate your help!

Kind regards
Adi

My Origins with FF might be helpful. Also upload to Gedmatch-- use Eurogenes as the admixture program--with Oracle 4 option Check the spreadsheet and see how you compare to Middle Eastern Jewish groups. Since they were the people of the Book, Saudi Judaism had an impact on Islamic thought. However, the possible family Jewish line probably came from outside Saudi Arabia, e.g. Yemen or Iraq.

[nihilsciens]

Is it your maternal grandmother that's of supposed Jewish heritage? You might want to have a person who's matrilinearly or patrilinearly related to the supposed Jewish person to do a Y-DNA or mtDNA test? Interesting, I hope you'll find your answers!