Comments on: How Ashkenazi Jewish are you?

By: Frances

Frances — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:16:09 +0000

What can anyone tell me about a DNA subject of my family whose results are Haplogroup Q – clearly markers back to Belgium, Rumania, Latvia, etc. Interestingly, he is of Choctaw tribe. There was a Trader Huet/Hewitt documented in MS Choctaw Nation at a specific village as resident trader at the time his ancestor was born c1771. What is his paternal ancestor’s most likely entrance to this country in order to find a young man of Askenazi origins in the Choctaw Nation c1771? By way of LA French colonials early 1700s? By way of Charleston with Palatine Huguenot immigration of approx 75 families by 1700? West Indies?
Results on 12 markers: 13, 23, 13, 10, 14, 16, 12, 12, 11, 14, 15, 30
These results were one marker off from a subject of India. Explanation? Too far apart to count?

By: Bob Bollow

Bob Bollow — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:31:24 +0000

Is there any way to read the data to suggest that the Ashkenazi Jews are not of Middle Eastern descent? I’m wondering if the idea that Ashkenazi are of middle eastern decent is a preferred way to read the information, so is this a theory or certainty?

By: James

James — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:20:26 +0000

Well I propose a toast to hybrid vigor! http://images.allposters.com/images/71/039_35561.jpg

By: Dub Samurai

Dub Samurai — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:44:20 +0000

I apologize for the grammar errors and for some idiot quesitons? The genetic test are credible. It’s the statistical conclusions that seem doubtfull to me. I mean, how large do samples need to be in order to reach a credible conclusion?
By the way my question about an eventual mixture of ashkenazi and persians also leads me to wonder if there is no need for jews to be mixed with europeans in order to see some jews with blonde hair and blue eyes. The reason for this lays in the fact that you have some iranians, afghans, pashtuns and even indians with blonde hair and blue eyes looking pretty much caucasians. Or is it that these blonde and blue eyed people are a product of mixture with european groups (maybe russians)? Perhaps they are direct descendants of some of the ancient indo-europeans tribes.

By: Dub Samurai

Dub Samurai — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:37:08 +0000

I always thought that ashkenazi jews result from the mixture of ancient hebrews with russians and germans, and by such possess a more european look, while sephardi and mizrahi jews have preserved better their middle eastern looks.
I’m not a specialist but i’m guessing 10% of the first ashkenazi getting mixed with germans and russians would be enough to change the physcal aspect of the rest of the ashkenazi population in the centuries to come, even if the intermixing process became marginal or even null untill today.
On the other hand, when i see iranians and afghans with blonde hair and blue eyes i wonder if some of the jews who travelled to central and eastern Europe were not also mixed with ancient persians? The same kind of doubt occurs to me when i look at some people in North Africa, namely tunisians and moroccans who have blue eyes.
Finally i’ve read some studies saying most genetic studies indicate that most jews, according to the Y chromossome analysis fall into the J haplogroups, meaning they’re mostly a semitic people. Is this true? What about mtDNA tests? How credible are these tests?
I would like to see some genetic tests on modern palestinians though. Are they too descendants of ancient hebrews who converted to Islamism? They have a strong arab influence in genetical terms for sure, but i have a strong guess many of them also descend form ancient hebrews, cannanites, jebusites and other ethnic groups who lived in that region before the arab occupation.

By: Pierce R. Butler

Pierce R. Butler — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:53:52 +0000

I’d be most interested in reading Razib’s take on this book in light of the above data.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:15:01 +0000

This is fairly tangential, but I’m surprised at the relatively higher position in the north west direction of the sample of “American Whites” relative to Europeans, as well as the fact that American Whites cover more or less the whole area of the European plot, given that the European samples were gathered from virtually across the entire continent and include representatives of Southern European, Central European and Northern European populations. I’m assuming this is just a consequence of different sample size, but it kind of makes me go “Huh?” all the same.

By: Hopefully Anonymous

Hopefully Anonymous — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:00:28 +0000

Ivy, I’ve read that narrative before. But at this stage it seems to me to be a coin toss whether or not that’s a just-so story. I’m hoping for more expert insight on this blog.

By: Ponto

Ponto — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:17:29 +0000

What I see from the world wide diagram is that the Ashkenazim Jews tack onto to the end of the European caucasoid groups as do the Adygei, and the Jews/Adygei are separated clearly from Middle Easterners. What that says to me is Jews are just a bunch of European caucasoids and not Middle Eastern caucasoids.
SNP studies now can separate Norwegians from Swedes as they are that fine. I am sure parents and their children will be separated as effectively on SNPs. It is to be expected that a group of people who separate themselves from others based on a shared mythology and religion would be different from other Europeans on SNPs.
Jews are just a self separating group of Europeans.

By: ivy

ivy — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:53:17 +0000

Not sure if you’ll read this Hopefully Anonymous, but I’ll give it a try. (I’m an engineer so excuse the biological glibness).
I believe the Middle Easterners who immigrated to Europe were likely no different than other Middle Eastern ethnic groups. Following significant inter-breeding with Southeastern Europeans, the Jews, probably for religious reasons, broke off and engaged in almost exclusive in-breeding. I believe around 200 A.D., Jewish culture turned intellectual. The reason was probably just random but masculinity turned from the dominant Roman paradigm of laborious physical work, to being able to withstand long hours of Talmud study. So it was clearly an almost artificial selection process rather than the natural ones that resulted in the racial disparities we observe today.
Did you read this? If someone posts on an old thread and no one’s around to read it, does it make a sound?

By: dumbirish

dumbirish — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:17:53 +0000

Hopefully Anon- “It’s not like the two smartest non-ashkenazi populations have been known to be Italians and Arabs” You must be half Italian and half Arab.
I always thought big foreheads denoted intelligence until I saw Pat Robertson and his biggerheaded son on tv; biggest heads,stupidest people on the planet.
We need to get some of these ashkenazi guys to go down to Wall Street and straighten this stuff out.

By: Hopefully Anonymous

Hopefully Anonymous — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:06:09 +0000

Surprised this hasn’t been asked yet. Does this give any insight into the IQ differential? It’s not like the two smartest non-ashkenazi populations have been known to be Italians and Arabs (to my knowledge).

By: patrick

patrick — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 05:36:01 +0000

What razib said about southeastern Europeans being close to AJ’s on PC1 was interesting. That could explain a Sicilian like me being mistaken for Jewish (more than a few times). LOL.

By: Huxley

Huxley — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:03:16 +0000

I always thought that Ashkenazi Jews look like a cross between Armenians and Europeans.

By: razib

razib — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:34:28 +0000

Strangely enough, in previous studies on the Y chromosome, Jews (including Ashkenazi and Roman Jews) were strongly clustered with non-European Arabs…
http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2009/01/shared-genetic-heritage-of-jews-and.html
the authors above allude to that finding. they assume that hybridization occurred through male jewish + female gentile pairings.
How do the claims of a Khazar origin for Ashkenazis fit with the research? Would people from the historic area of Khazaria test as Middle Eastern?
the proper response to the first question would be to look in wikipedia khazars were turkic.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:23:52 +0000

I forwarded this to a friend of mine whose mother was adopted by a Jewish family and raised Jewish. There is some speculation in his family that his mother’s biological mother was also Jewish and the adoption was arranged through religious channeles, but no one surviving knows for certain. Also, there’s some speculation that his father’s family converted to Christianity during the 1930s, when all that… unpleasantness… in central Europe was going on, but again, no one alive seems to know definitively.
Anyway, he wants to know if there’s now a commercial genetic test he could do to see if he has any actual Jewish ancestry?

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:32:38 +0000

How do the claims of a Khazar origin for Ashkenazis fit with the research? Would people from the historic area of Khazaria test as Middle Eastern?

By: toto

toto — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:35:21 +0000

Strangely enough, in previous studies on the Y chromosome, Jews (including Ashkenazi and Roman Jews) were strongly clustered with non-European Arabs... http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2009/01/shared-genetic-heritage-of-jews-and.html

By: David Boxenhorn

David Boxenhorn — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:06:05 +0000

Joshua,
This seems to go against the common sense version of Askhenazic history. As it is normally told, one would expect a lot of bottlenecking. It isn’t obvious to me how to reconcile them.
Here’s how. You have to take into account the small long-term effective population sizes of Europeans. For the most part, Europeans have been living in the same place breeding with their neighbors for a long time. I bet if you calculate Ne over the past 20,000 years for Europeans it would be pretty small.
In contrast, Ashkenaz is a hybrid of two widely separated populations, so a small population would be relatively heterogeneous.
Henry,
Here is the scenario that I’ve never understood how you explain away: Part of the population underwent a bottleneck, then mixed with a population which didn’t undergo a bottleneck.
If for example, 50% of the current population’s ancestry descends from a bottlenecked population, rare recessives would be half of what they originally were – a high number, but overall heterogeneity in the genome would still be high due to the 50% non-bottlenecked ancestry.

By: Mencius

Mencius — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:48:03 +0000

Quadroon Jews! I’m glad to see the subject raised, because my daughter is one – though I usually shorten it to “Jewroon.”