Jewish Descent

[Charli3283]

Hi,

My Grandmother is convinced that we must have Jewish blood on her side somewhere, because she has the surnames Amos, Isaacs, Abraham and Salmon (her maiden name, a derivative of Solomon) in her family.

Does anyone have any information on these names? Does it sound likely? I am very interested.

Thanks

Charli (Uk)

[lgmayka]

It is certainly possible, but since the reasoning is based on surnames (which are generally passed from father to son), the genetic ancestry testing would have to be on the various paternal lines. So you would need to run a yDNA test on at least one male relative still carrying one of these allegedly Jewish surnames.

When attempting to persuade a relative to get tested, the National Geographic brand name is a major asset (FTDNA is still the testing company):

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/participate.html

An important point here is that even if the results do not indicate Jewish ancestry, you will still have gained interesting knowledge about your family's genetic heritage.

[obliviuos]

I just don't clearly understand the DNA taking here http://www.ftdna.com/jgene.html and the DNA taking on National Geographic.

I am ready to take my DNA to check my ancestry via my father, only now I been able to get more info from my past from his side, since I grow up with my granparents from my mother side which I knew clearly they were from China, and I grew up only knowing that side, but now that I am able to talk to my father I see in his genealogy so many sephardites last names on both grandma and grandpha but now I am even more confuse because he knows they are VASQUE immigrants but I am puzzle of the sephardites last names in the whole tree. So I wonder what is the worthest test to do, theone in ftdna or the national geographic.
thanks.

[lgmayka]

I just don't clearly understand the DNA taking here http://www.ftdna.com/jgene.html and the DNA taking on National Geographic.

First, National Geographic's testing is performed by FTDNA anyway. National Geographic is a famous brand name, and so is useful when attempting to persuade relatives and friends to take the test. Otherwise, you may as well order directly from FTDNA, as long as you do so through a project in order to get the best price.

If I understand you correctly, your father believes he is of Basque ancestry, but in your family tree you see plenty of surnames commonly associated with the Sephardic Jewish community. A yDNA test, with a sufficient number of markers, should resolve that issue.

For example, you could order through the Iberian DNA Project:

http://www.ftdna.com/surname_join.asp?code=K66985&special=true

Membership in the project does not require any approval (only an order and payment). I suggest you order at least 37 markers (Y-DNA37, for $189), so that if indeed your patrilineal line (your father's father's father's father...) is Sephardic, your results should find some fairly close matches in FTDNA's database.