The methodology of genealogical research is being extended by use of commercially available DNA tests. One of the leading companies in this field is FamilyTreeDNA of Houston, Texas, who offer tests for matching individual Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and autosomal DNA on their substantial data base.

I have recently carried out a comparison of autosomal DNA data with several close cousins and a select handful of more distant relatives. I used the above-mentioned company’s “Family Finder” test, which discovers matches with significant DNA fragments among the 22 out of 23 chromosome pairs that are not related to sex and can thus show up common ancestry, both male and female, on both sides of a family. This “Family Finder” test is still in process of development and its present short-comings make it much more useful for my purpose of comparing related groups of substantially known pedigree than in testing an isolated individual. I understand that the testing company’s algorithms are being developed to make more allowance for the particularity of Jewish endogamy (in-breeding).The test’s calculations of “genetic distance” to a most recent common ancestor will improve and the size of its data base will surely expand to make it a useful tool in genealogical research.

The autosomal DNA matches on the Family Finder database can be compared with those obtained from a similar test offered by another company called “23andme” when both lots of data are uploaded on to the most innovative web site, Gedmatch.Com.

Our Millennial Journey
Most Jewish people searching for their roots find it difficult enough to work back for more than half a dozen generations, particularly when their earlier roots are in eastern Europe where so many records have been lost. However, some of our ancient rabbinic families can trace their pedigrees back to Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes known as Rashi, who lived in the 11^th century and to the Kalonymos who flourished from the time of the Carolingians in the 8^th century. Going back further to biblical times and to the time of King David three thousand years ago one is largely in the realms of myth and legend, which I believe to have great value for our culture but are not amenable to the kind of proof we can expect to have for our later family genealogies.

We have been brought up on the chapters in Genesis that relate our tribal origins. We were told that our patriarch Abraham came from “Ur in the Chaldees”. Ancient writers quote a tale that Aristotle had spoken to a learned Jew who believed his people were descended from Indian philosophers. Such legends might be revisited in the context of recent genetic studies indicating that many thousands of years ago our forebears moved from India and Persia to Mesopotamia – present day northern Iraq and Iran - and that genetic markers of the mixture with the people encountered in these migrations have come down to us. We are all familiar with the biblical account of our forebears in the old Persian Empire, deliverance from slavery in Egypt, settlement in the promised land, King David and his successors. The fall of the kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians and the dispersion of the ten “lost tribes of Israel” to Anatolia and the Caucasus preceded by over a century the conquest of Judea by the Babylonians, the fall of the first temple and the Babylonian captivity.

The establishment of a large Jewish community in Baghdad where descendants remained for over two thousand years was contemporaneous with Jewish settlements all round the Mediterranean littoral. There was substantial Greek influence in Judea during Seleucid rule. The great Diaspora that followed the destruction of the second temple in Roman times saw large numbers of Jews brought to Italy where there was probably considerable admixture with the local population. Later came the rise of Islam, the Moorish conquest of Spain and, in this centuries-long process of conquest and reconquest, conversions and inter-marriage with Moors and Christians. At the same time Italian Jews crossed the Alps and some mixed with Visigoths and Franks.

The era of the crusades from the end of the 11^th century saw the beginning of a millennial persecution that led not only to waves of Jewish migration from western to eastern Europe but also to the segregation of Jewish communities that became increasingly endogamous. From France and the Rhineland and from Italy via Austria and Bohemia our Ashkenazi ancestors came to Poland and beyond, where they met eastern Jews who reached these lands from Anatolia, coming up the river valleys through present day Rumania.

The expulsions from Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15^th century drove many Sefardi Jews to Holland and then to England while others found refuge in the Ottoman Empire, in Salonica, and the Greek Islands, as well as Constantinople, and some were in due course found in the distant corners of that Empire. From the 18^th century Age of Enlightenment the millennial eastern movement was gradually reversed and many Ashkenazi Jews moved back to the western lands where they had lived in the middle ages.

Our Genetic Origins
This history is reflected in our genetic inheritance. Without having to delve too deeply into modern advances in genetics as applied to anthropology, such as bottlenecks, founder effects, and genetic drift, one can now obtain a rough idea of “bio-geographical” background by uploading autosomal data from the “Family Finder” test to the afore-mentioned Gedmatch. Thanks to the work of Dienekes Pontikos towards the construction of this web site facility. DNA is compared with that of select groups characterised as “west Asian”, “south west Asian”, “north west African”, “Mediterranian”, “west European”, “east European”, and so on.

I must emphasise that my comparison of the “Admixture Proportions” for a group of cousins was made in a qualitative way to find out whether the test could provide family researchers with some idea of genetic backgrounds. I and some of my cousins are given a genetic admixture of about 35% middle eastern (west Asian and south-west Asian reflecting earliest times), about 30% Mediterranean (Italian, Greek, Anatolian), 20% west European, about 5% east European and generally less than 5% north-west African.

Results for north-west African DNA, dating from the Moorish invasion of Spain, relate to an admixture which my families share with Sefardi Jews. The low east European percentage might at first sight seem surprising, considering that many of my ancestors were in Galicia, Poland, Lithuania and the Russian Pale for several hundred years. However, we know that during this period they were strictly orthodox and lived in endogamous inward looking communities.

Our history and known genealogy clearly shows that several family lines came from western Europe including Portugal and Spain, France, Italy, and the Rhineland, and so it seems that, at least as far as my Ashkenazi family circle is concerned, the genetic contribution from Khazar or other east European DNA was not significant. In a small number of instances, where known relatives showed higher east European percentages and other deviations from the “norm” for my group of cousins, further enquiry established the presence of a non-Jewish or part Jewish parent or grandparent.

The appended chart shows data for a group who are known or suspected to have some genealogical connections. They appear to have a similar genetic background which is in line with the general conclusions from numerous studies of Ashkenazi DNA (see appended references).

By way of contrast, the chart also shows a cousin from a mixed Russian–Jewish background. Victor Panyarsky (Panyarskij) had a Jewish father and a Ukrainian mother who was believed to have one or two distant Jewish connections. His paternal grandparents were Israel Aron Panyarskij vel Minc from Sokolow Podlaskie near Siedlice in Poland and Berta Altshuler, daughter of Shevel ben Moishe Altshuler from the area of Vitebsk and Rachel bat Gershon Katz from Jaunelgava and Bauska in Lavia. In the previous generation Panyarski were near Brest and in Grodno. The family name stems from a locality in the Vilna area while the epithet Minc may be indicative of early origins in the Rhineland city of Mainz.

Victor Panyarsky has autosomal DNA matches with my paternal first cousin Elsa Schmaus with a total of 92.0 cM and longest shared block 14.4 cM. He shows some DNA matches with several distant cousins. Thus, he has a Halpern match with Elsa Schmaus and myself, Jeffrey Meyerson, Carmel Halperin and others on chromosome 11.The Gedmatch Admixture Proportions test appears to be a sensitive indicator of recent genetic admixture as exhibited by the results for Victor and his mother, wife, and daughter Maryana. The more Russian the higher the west and east European proportions and obviously the less Jewish the lower the middle eastern proportion.

Conclusion
Bearing in mind the problems associated with the selection of comparison groups and other choices and approximations that are involved in arriving at genetic admixtures from the autosomal DNA data of the “Family Finder” and “23andme” tests, the “Admixture Proportions” on GEDmatch do provide a useful rough and ready pointer to bio-geographical origins, at least within a genealogically related Ashkenazi group such as the one under present study. This group exhibits an admixture that is mainly European and Middle Eastern, as expected from a number of recent genetic studies.

References and suggestions for further on line reading