JEWISH BELARUS DNA STUDY - New dual geographical project!

[efgen]

*** NEW *** NEW *** NEW ***

JEWISH BELARUS DNA STUDY

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/JewishBelarus

Project Background

The Jewish Belarus DNA Study invites participation by men and women with patrilineal or matrilineal Jewish ancestry from Belarus. By patrilineal, we mean your father's father's father's (etc) line. By matrilineal, we mean your mother's mother's mother's (etc) line.

Individuals whose Jewish Belarus ancestors are in lines that are not patrilineal or matrilineal are encouraged to identify members of their extended family who are descended from the patrilineal and matrilieal lines and invite them to participate.

This study will focus on the geographical area defined by JewishGen's Belarus SIG: the gubernii of Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev and Vitebsk, as well as the Lida and Vileika uyezds of the Vilna gubernia.

Project Goals

1) Encourage the use of Genetic Genealogy as an additional tool for Jewish genealogical research in Belarus.

2) Study the similarity or diversity of the ancestry of our Jewish ancestors from Belarus.

3) Prove or disprove common ancestry between families with the same surnames, when traditional genealogy research has not yet produced a paper trail connecting the families.

4) Confirm the validity of a paper trail that shows common ancestry between two families with the same surname.

5) Discover common ancestry between families of different surnames.

Participation Requirements

1) Upload a GEDCOM showing your qualifying patrilineal and/or matrilineal ancestry to your myFTDNA webpage.

2) Specify your earliest known patrilineal and/or matrilineal ancestor(s) and which gubernia the ancestor(s) lived in under the Setup Preferences tab of your myFTDNA webpage. Also follow the instructions on this page to specify the town of origin by latitute/longitude so that it'll be marked on the ancestral origins map on the Jewish Belarus DNA Study website.

3) We recommend a minimum of 37 markers for patrilineal lines and HVR1&2 for matrilineal lines for the best results of this study. However, since this is a brand new project, we won't be greedy -- all qualifying individuals are welcome to participate with any test you can (or are willing to) afford.

How to Join

Existing Family Tree DNA customers: From your personal myFTDNA webpage, click the blue JOIN button at the top of the page. Scroll to the Dual Geographical Projects category and click the J link. Then click the Jewish_Belarus link and follow the instructions to submit a join request.

Existing Genographic Project participants: If you have participated in the Genographic Project, but have not transferred your DNA results to Family Tree DNA yet, you must do so before you can join the Jewish Belarus DNA Study. Log in to your personal Genographic Project page and at the very bottom of your results page, you'll find a link to transfer your DNA results to Family Tree DNA. Follow the instructions and once your results have been transferred, continue by following the instructions above for existing Family Tree DNA customers.

All others: If you have never purchased a Family Tree DNA or Genographic Project test kit, please submit a project join request at http://www.familytreedna.com/surname...Jewish_Belarus. Once you are approved to join the Jewish Belarus DNA Study, you will be directed to an order form to purchase your DNA test kit.

We look forward to your participation!

[Judy]

Elise, are you including the part of Vitebsk that is in today's Latvia? My maternal line is from Rezekne, Vitebsk gubernia (latitude,longitude = 56.502,27.338) which is in Latvia.
Judy

[efgen]

Judy,

I'm not familiar with Vitebsk at all, so I didn't know part of it is in Latvia today. Is your town covered by the Belarus SIG also? I don't see it listed on their page, but maybe it's included in one of the listed districts and the town name just isn't listed. Can you check the page and let me know?

http://www.jewishgen.org/belarus/vitebsk.htm

I figured I'd align with the Belarus SIG coverage instead of re-inventing the wheel, but I don't need to be stringent with that. If your town is close and you think it will be beneficial for you to join the project, I'm ok with it!

Thanks,
Elise

[gmg613]

Elise,

Neat idea for a project. Unfortunately, I don't exactly qualify. My maternal grandfather came from Lebedevo, Vileika uyezd, Vilna gubernia. I want to follow your group however, to see if you come across the surnames, ZUCKERMAN or GOLUB. There are no surviving males available to be tested for their Y-DNA.

My other three immediate branches are covered by LitvakSIG and GesherGalicia.

I may follow your model and set up similar groups for those regions!

Shalom,

Gary

[Stevo]

My wife's paternal grandmother was Jewish and lived in Minsk with her Lithuanian husband (my wife's paternal grandfather).

Sadly, we do not know her maiden name, only her first name, Rachel.

I understand the only way to get any kind of a picture of Baba Raisa (that's what they called her) is to have my wife's uncle (her father died in 1995) submit a mtDNA test.

He lives now in Volzhskiy, right across the Volga from my wife's hometown of Volgograd.

How difficult is it to get tests kits to folks in Russia?

Does FTDNA have materials (test kit instructions, etc.) in Russian?

[efgen]

Stevo,

I'm not sure if they have foreign-language instructions or not -- you may want to email them and ask. If not, they have the swab instructions online....

http://www.ftdna.com/instructions.html

... and you can used an automated translation tool to hopefully get a decent translation. For Russian, I've used this one to communicate with people and it seems to work fairly well (it has a reverse translation too, which is nice):

http://translation.paralink.com/

Elise

[Stevo]

Stevo,

I'm not sure if they have foreign-language instructions or not -- you may want to email them and ask. If not, they have the swab instructions online....

http://www.ftdna.com/instructions.html

... and you can used an automated translation tool to hopefully get a decent translation. For Russian, I've used this one to communicate with people and it seems to work fairly well (it has a reverse translation too, which is nice):

http://translation.paralink.com/

Elise

I guess if it comes down to it we can telephone him and tell him what to do or send a letter. I just thought it would be easier if they had Russian instructions.

[LeoLoS]

How difficult is it to get tests kits to folks in Russia?

You should have ordered one before your wife went there and had it sent and brought back with her the same way, would have been the easiest, cheapiest and most secure way.

At least EU demands duty on the price of the kit, even on the postage expenses. My National Geographic kit had a value of $126,50 and I had to pay 34 Euros extra to get the kit + postage expenses to get the results sent back to USA. Check out how the procedure is with Russia. And be aware that the results might get lost on the way back.

BTW, congratulations to your results!

[Judy]

Judy,

I'm not familiar with Vitebsk at all, so I didn't know part of it is in Latvia today. Is your town covered by the Belarus SIG also? I don't see it listed on their page, but maybe it's included in one of the listed districts and the town name just isn't listed. Can you check the page and let me know?

http://www.jewishgen.org/belarus/vitebsk.htm

I figured I'd align with the Belarus SIG coverage instead of re-inventing the wheel, but I don't need to be stringent with that. If your town is close and you think it will be beneficial for you to join the project, I'm ok with it!

Thanks,
Elise

Rezekne (Rezhitza) was not listed on the Belarus SIG list of shtetls but Dvinsk, which is very close to Rezekne and also falls within Latvia's borders today, is included in the Belarus SIG. If Dvinsk is included, then Rezekne would be also. Another reason it seems okay to include Rezekne: in researching my family history from Rezekne, I found that some of the records were kept in Latvia archives and others in archives in Belarus.
Judy

[Judy]

Elise, I just looked at the public website and it now says it's a dual project for Southwest Belarus; I don't see Vitebsk gubernia listed anymore. If you are eliminating Vitebsk gubernia, let me know and I will opt out of the project.
Judy

[efgen]

Judy,

Yes, upon discussions with some other people, I've decided that the project will be easier to manage with a smaller area, especially since I'm much more familiar with that smaller area. I updated the webpage last night, but hadn't notified anyone yet. Still finalizing exactly what will be covered before I send out a revised formal announcement, but Vitebsk definitely won't be included.

Only a few of the current project members are outside the revised area. It'll be up to the few of you whether you want to stay in the project or opt out -- I'm not going to kick anyone out

I'm hoping that once I advertise to JewishGen, someone will step up and start a project for the areas that I'm not going to cover. One branch on my father's side of the family was from Mogilev, so I'm eventually going to contact some cousins on that side and try to get them to submit their DNA. I would love for someone to eventually start a project that includes Mogilev.

Any interest in starting a project for Vitebsk??

Elise

[Judy]

Judy,


Any interest in starting a project for Vitebsk??

Elise

Not at this time. I administer a small surname project and was thinking of starting a project for Odessa but the people at Ukraine SIG at JewishGen never got back to me about it. Without their cooperation I think I'd have a hard time getting people to participate. The next time I get an inspiration (and some free time) I'll consider starting a project for Vitebsk gubernia
Judy