Ashkenazim as FF matches / Question

[Illumina]

The funny thing is that probably I may have Jewish ancestors from both paternal and maternal sides.

My paternal grandmother who is most of Portuguese descent and in a smaller proportion Spanish has also a significant number of Ashkenazi Jews as matches. Most of them with the longest block bigger than 20cM. Maybe it helps to confirm the theory that many Sephardim fled to Central and Eastern Europe by the time of the Portuguese and Spanish Inquisition.

Thank you all for your insights. This exchange of knowledge and information has been making me learn a lot.

[dna]

@Illumina

You may want to review your hypothesis on two counts.

Ashkenazim and Sephardim tended to keep separate, at least in Poland. Possibly until recently elsewhere too.

You need to account for DNA pool of Ashkenazim living in Central Europe showing up in Portugal. I think your paternal grandmother matches are either a random IBS magnified by relatively large proportion of Ashkenazim among the testers or she truly had a great-grandparent who was Ashkenazim, and you just did not discover him or her (I would look into her non-Portuguese ancestors).

Interesting, Longest Block over 20 cM. Very nice research ahead of you

[Illumina]

@dna I forgot to mention that my paternal grandmother has not only Ashkenazim as matches but also some Jews from Morocco.

[dna]

@dna I forgot to mention that my paternal grandmother has not only Ashkenazim as matches but also some Jews from Morocco.

I do not know much about that area of Europe. However, a piece from yesterday Q&A during the FTDNA conference might clarify that you are not looking into Sephardim:

CeCe mentioned that there could be a problem of missing Sephardic Jew in the myOrigins database. What happens? A: It comes back as Middle Eastern. Next week, Razib will work with a new dataset that contains that population.

Quote is from http://www.ancestorcentral.com/decen...tic-genealogy/

[josh w.]

@dna I forgot to mention that my paternal grandmother has not only Ashkenazim as matches but also some Jews from Morocco.

The Ashkenazi matches may simply be a result of IBS. There has been general separation between Ashkenazis and Sephardis---I am personally familiar with the separation in my synagogue growing up. However, there have been clear instances of Sephardis moving to eastern Europe--- a few of my FF matches have this history. Some Ashkenazi surnames (including rabbinical family lines) reflect Sephardic history, e.g. Charlap, Porges and Wolpe.

[CuriousAdoptee]

I'm new to all of this and in a similar situation. The majority of my matches are also Jewish. I'm trying to figure out if that means my birthfather is Ashkenazi or just has Eastern European and/or Germany ancestry (which is highly likely since he was living in a city with a large German and Polish Catholic population).

I'm adopted, and I am reunited with my birthmom who is of German Catholic decent. I have most of her family tree back to the 1700s for the German side of her family with many Catholic birth records from eastern Bavaria.

My Jewish matches are all 4th cousins or greater, but there are many with longest block of more than 10cM and some over 20 cM. For those matches, I've been trying to put together family trees to find common ancestors but they seem to be all over Eastern Europe and I can't find any similarities.

I saw on the 23 and Me blog that "we estimate that any two randomly chosen individuals who identify as Ashkenazi are on average the genomic equivalent of 4th-5th cousins, because they share many recent common ancestors." (Read more at http://blog.23andme.com/news/announc...IRW7DtahL10.99) So perhaps that could account for all of the matches that seem very random with no common surnames or locations?

What would the best way of figuring out whether my birth father could have recent Ashkenazi ancestors or if these are false positives from my maternal relatives from Bavaria (other than having my maternal birth relatives tested. I'm still trying to convince them to do it)?

[dna]

[----] I am reunited with my birthmom [----]

What would the best way of figuring out whether my birth father could have recent Ashkenazi ancestors or if these are false positives from my maternal relatives from Bavaria (other than having my maternal birth relatives tested. I'm still trying to convince them to do it)?

Can you ask your birthmom to participate in FamilyFinder (while at it, try full mtDNA too) ?

P.S. A funny side-note, over last weekend I was asked for some help in going through hundreds of FF matches. The person asking was 100% European in myOrigin, however one of their grandparents had a family name essentially designating a Levite, but the Roman Catholic paper trail for that grandparent was ending in the 18th century. I clicked on every single matching profile and there was no one who claimed anything Jewish or Middle Eastern... Clearly an event from 16th or 17th century, beyond Family Finder horizon.

[CuriousAdoptee]

Can you ask your birthmom to participate in FamilyFinder (while at it, try full mtDNA too) ?

She has refused to give me any information about my birthfather, so probably not. I may be able to get another maternal relative to do it.

If I can't, is there any way I can try to separate maternal and paternal relatives?

[Nijuurasen]

Interesting update regarding Sephardic populations in My Origins. No timeline for an MO update, I suppose. It needs one.

Do most Sephardic jews show some % of JD or NA in the MO breakdown?

I do not know much about that area of Europe. However, a piece from yesterday Q&A during the FTDNA conference might clarify that you are not looking into Sephardim:

CeCe mentioned that there could be a problem of missing Sephardic Jew in the myOrigins database. What happens? A: It comes back as Middle Eastern. Next week, Razib will work with a new dataset that contains that population.

Quote is from http://www.ancestorcentral.com/decen...tic-genealogy/

[josh w.]

Interesting update regarding Sephardic populations in My Origins. No timeline for an MO update, I suppose. It needs one.

Do most Sephardic jews show some % of JD or NA in the MO breakdown?

There have been complaints from individuals of probable Sephardic origin that they do not come up as Jewish on MO. This is surprising because Atzmon et al found no difference between Sephardic and Ashkenazi autosomal patterns. To complicate matters, once Jews fled Spain they went to different 'host' countries from Turkey and Greece to Anusim in the Americas. Their current MO may vary dependent on the 'host' country. Note that 23&me also has problems identifying Sephardis.

[josh w.]

I'm new to all of this and in a similar situation. The majority of my matches are also Jewish. I'm trying to figure out if that means my birthfather is Ashkenazi or just has Eastern European and/or Germany ancestry (which is highly likely since he was living in a city with a large German and Polish Catholic population).

I'm adopted, and I am reunited with my birthmom who is of German Catholic decent. I have most of her family tree back to the 1700s for the German side of her family with many Catholic birth records from eastern Bavaria.

My Jewish matches are all 4th cousins or greater, but there are many with longest block of more than 10cM and some over 20 cM. For those matches, I've been trying to put together family trees to find common ancestors but they seem to be all over Eastern Europe and I can't find any similarities.

I saw on the 23 and Me blog that "we estimate that any two randomly chosen individuals who identify as Ashkenazi are on average the genomic equivalent of 4th-5th cousins, because they share many recent common ancestors." (Read more at http://blog.23andme.com/news/announc...IRW7DtahL10.99) So perhaps that could account for all of the matches that seem very random with no common surnames or locations?

What would the best way of figuring out whether my birth father could have recent Ashkenazi ancestors or if these are false positives from my maternal relatives from Bavaria (other than having my maternal birth relatives tested. I'm still trying to convince them to do it)?

With only 4th cousin Jewish matches, your father was probably not Jewish but may have had Jewish ancestry. The pattern you describe was typical---Ashkenazis migrated from country to country. Surnames also varied---surnames changed as Jews migrated from country to country and eastern European Jews usually did not adopt surnames until after 1800. I know of many instances where siblings and first cousins had different surnames.

[CuriousAdoptee]

With only 4th cousin Jewish matches, your father was probably not Jewish but may have had Jewish ancestry. The pattern you describe was typical---Ashkenazis migrated from country to country. Surnames also varied---surnames changed as Jews migrated from country to country and eastern European Jews usually did not adopt surnames until after 1800. I know of many instances where siblings and first cousins had different surnames.

It seems very difficult to do traditional genealogical research for Ashkenazi, so it makes sense so many turn to DNA to find their ancestry.

I've been planning to go to LDS Genealogical Library in Salt Lake once I got all of my DNA matches back from the 3 companies and then try to cross-reference all of my 3rd and 4th cousins' family trees. I'll have limited time there, so I wanted to zero in on specific lines that might be related to my birthfather. Doing research on any Jewish lines seems difficult.

But what I'm wondering is are those Jewish matches showing up because my birthdad has Jewish ancestry or because there are so many people of Jewish ancestry on Family Tree DNA and they have German ancestry?

There are very concentrated genes for those of Ashkenazi, but in the US there were German Catholic communities that remained very insular. My maternal grandmother is 100% German Catholic. Her ancestors arrived in the US in the early to mid 1800s but her parents (my great-grandparents) spoke German at home. Their obituaries were in German language newspapers despite having been in the US for 2 generations.

I compared in the chromosome browser a 5+ cousin who I can trace back to a common ancestor who was a German Catholic in the US in the early 1800s and that person shares similar exact genes in the chromosome browser with people who's ancestors in the early 1900s were Jewish rabbi in Europe. I wonder how much the FTDNA algorithm is accurate with the 4/5th cousins when you have small communities of concentrated genetics.

I must have 1000s of 2nd cousins since there are so many large Catholic families on my mom's side, but none of them are doing DNA testing so my closest matches are almost all Ashkenazi.

So are those matches very biased toward being Jewish because of the volume of those of Jewish decent being test and it's just matching us because of the common German genes and trying to track down Ashkenazi family trees is a waste of time?

If my birthfather was also a German Catholic or a German/Polish Catholic (which is reasonable considering where I was born), then would it just look like he has Jewish ancestry because of common German and Polish dna? My MyOrigins report shows 100% European ancestry, which makes it sort of strange that my 2nd and 4th closest matches show 2% and 4% European ancestry. Are there so few people who not Jewish using DNA testing that it's only picking up those common European genes?

[josh w.]

It seems very difficult to do traditional genealogical research for Ashkenazi, so it makes sense so many turn to DNA to find their ancestry.

I've been planning to go to LDS Genealogical Library in Salt Lake once I got all of my DNA matches back from the 3 companies and then try to cross-reference all of my 3rd and 4th cousins' family trees. I'll have limited time there, so I wanted to zero in on specific lines that might be related to my birthfather. Doing research on any Jewish lines seems difficult.

But what I'm wondering is are those Jewish matches showing up because my birthdad has Jewish ancestry or because there are so many people of Jewish ancestry on Family Tree DNA and they have German ancestry?

There are very concentrated genes for those of Ashkenazi, but in the US there were German Catholic communities that remained very insular. My maternal grandmother is 100% German Catholic. Her ancestors arrived in the US in the early to mid 1800s but her parents (my great-grandparents) spoke German at home. Their obituaries were in German language newspapers despite having been in the US for 2 generations.

I compared in the chromosome browser a 5+ cousin who I can trace back to a common ancestor who was a German Catholic in the US in the early 1800s and that person shares similar exact genes in the chromosome browser with people who's ancestors in the early 1900s were Jewish rabbi in Europe. I wonder how much the FTDNA algorithm is accurate with the 4/5th cousins when you have small communities of concentrated genetics.

I must have 1000s of 2nd cousins since there are so many large Catholic families on my mom's side, but none of them are doing DNA testing so my closest matches are almost all Ashkenazi.

So are those matches very biased toward being Jewish because of the volume of those of Jewish decent being test and it's just matching us because of the common German genes and trying to track down Ashkenazi family trees is a waste of time?

If my birthfather was also a German Catholic or a German/Polish Catholic (which is reasonable considering where I was born), then would it just look like he has Jewish ancestry because of common German and Polish dna? My MyOrigins report shows 100% European ancestry, which makes it sort of strange that my 2nd and 4th closest matches show 2% and 4% European ancestry. Are there so few people who not Jewish using DNA testing that it's only picking up those common European genes?

It might be impossible to get a definitive answer. FTDNA clearly has an over-representation of Ashkenazi members. (It also has an over-representation of people from northwest Europe- Ireland and Great Britain). Have you tried Gedmatch with Oracle. My guess is that you probably have some Jewish ancestry but it is just a guess. Gedmatch should show if you have high ranked matches with Jewish groups. Actually among Ashkenazis central Europe makes significantly less of a contribution than the European Mediterranean. Some Ashkenazi autosomal studies did not even find a central-east European component.