Father's, Father,s, Mother's, Mother

[econnore]

African or "Dark Jew"

Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg (1744-1818 in Pomerania) was believed to be of African descent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlot...rican_ancestry

[lhy]

This "dark Jew" came from Prussia in about 1810 and I have a poor picture of her holding my great Grandmother--her features appear to be African but I don't think there were any Africans in Prussia at that time.

If she is from Prussia, she may have been of Indic Romani descent. Often the Romani can appear to be of mixed "European" and sub-saharan African descent, particularly if you are unfamiliar with their heritage. A DNA test should distinguish between sub-saharan African, Middle Eastern (Jewish), and sub-continental Asian (Romani). Your ancestor may have left some cultural remnants behind within you an your family: phrases, practices, a "different" view towards your current religion. Keep an eye out for that. Best of luck.

[jilski]

What individuals? What are their kit numbers, in which project? Where was their earliest known maternal ancestor born?

Have you studied statistics? Maybe there are one or two examples of "no known Jewish ancestry" K1a1b1a as compared to over a thousand people who are K1a1b1a with known Jewish ancestry. The few counterexamples are statistically meaningless.

my maternal haplogroup (tested at 23andMe) is K1a1b1a. i have no known jewish ancestry. my maternal side (my great great grandparents) were ukrainian greek catholics from galicia. my mom has only about 25 matches or so here on 'family finder'. all are distant or remote. i tested myself at 23andMe and i have about 320 'relative finder' matches and only about 2 or 3 declared ashkenazi jews - all distant. my mother is ukrainian greek catholic on both sides and my father is polish roman catholic on both sides. i am 3rd generation american, all of my great grandparents came from poland or the galicia area in the early 1900's. i've talked about this extensively on 23 and me's 'forum' and most seem to think that i probably have a very distant jewish maternal grandmother. any thoughts?

[Osiris]

This is an old thread but not all DNA from the family finder test is passed equally. If you can find a daughter of a son of a daughter of a son of her then potentially you could have a quarter of her X chromosomes. Four times more then the rest of her DNA. On average of course. You can send the raw data to Dr. McDonald and he runs population painting of that DNA.

[Javelin]

i've talked about this extensively on 23 and me's 'forum' and most seem to think that i probably have a very distant jewish maternal grandmother. any thoughts?

That seems most likely to me too. If this is the case, the Jewish ancestor could have been well before 1800, which would explain the lack of autosomal matches.

[efgen]

i've talked about this extensively on 23 and me's 'forum' and most seem to think that i probably have a very distant jewish maternal grandmother. any thoughts?

Agreed. If you were to take an mtDNA test at Family Tree DNA, you could expect to have tons of Ashkenazi matches (barring any unusual mutations in your own mtDNA). If you want to do this, order at least the mtDNAPlus test -- and the mtFullSequence is even better if you can swing it. The basic level mtDNA test is too broad.

Elise

[Táltos]

QUARTET this is interesting! Did you ever go ahead with the test and find out an answer?

[QUARTET]

mtDNA test

I decided to follow some advice given on this thread and try to use a genealogy web site to track down more information on Margretha. I found some clues in that she came from Prussia but most German records have been destroyed from years of war and destruction. I think this is why many people fled in the first place. I still intend to have my father's cousin tested. Thanks for the interest.

[Táltos]

I decided to follow some advice given on this thread and try to use a genealogy web site to track down more information on Margretha. I found some clues in that she came from Prussia but most German records have been destroyed from years of war and destruction. I think this is why many people fled in the first place. I still intend to have my father's cousin tested. Thanks for the interest.

Thanks for the update. Good luck in your research.