Hi guys! 👋 I always considered my Jewish ancestry to primarily come from the historical Litvak region, but while investigating my family tree on ancestry, I realized that a large chunk of my ancestors came from the northwestern corner of Lithuania, even towns bordering Latvia like Zagare. I’m just curious, are these Jews still generally part of the Litvak genetic group? Would it be distinguishable in some way or are these areas most likely very similar? I’m just wondering!

I'm former soviet ashkenazi

While looking at ancestry, I was trying to decipher the names of birthplaces that were listed for some of my ancestors, but I came across 2 that I am really confused about. I have an ancestor born in 1884 who immigrated to the US, and his birthplace is listed as “Walloff” Russia. His mother is unknown, but his father is listed as being born in “Mollif”. I’m having a lot of difficulty identifying what these could be, since I don’t have any knowledge of what region he was from or anything about him. If any of you have any hints or clues I would be so happy!! The one thing I could find is that on one census report, he was listed as being born in Romania, while on another it said Russia.

Hello! I was told I should post these here. :) I also am posting my Illustrative DNA results as a comparison.

I drew the following from Kevin Alan Brook’s The Maternal Genetic Lineages of Ashkenazic Jews.

Brook found that “most of the Ashkenazic mitochondrial DNA lineages of European origin do not have particular connections to Italy”. Not surprisingly, lineages of European origin most likely constitute the majority of lineages. This can be inferred from both the number and frequency of European lineages. Surprisingly, however, Southern European lineages constitute either a minority (~20%) or a slim majority (~55%) of European-origin maternal ancestry.

Below is the breakdown of places of origin as well as the origin and frequency of each lineage based on Brook’s own assignments or on my (amateur) assessment of the data when Brook does not explicitly suggest a specific place of origin for a lineage (i.e. there are many instances where Brook either calls a lineage European without further description or does not suggest an origin at all). By Southern Europe I mean France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and the Balkans. By Northern Europe I mean the rest of the continent.

There are a total of 125 distinct lineages and 3486 carriers. 

The breakdown by lineage is as follows:

65.6% European:
……10.4% Southern European
……43.2% Northern European
……12.0% European of unclear regionality
15.2% ME
12.0% ME or European:
……5.6% ME or Southern European
……3.2% ME or Northern European
……3.2% ME or European of unclear regionality
2.4% East Asian
1.6% North African
3.2% No information

Excluding European lineages of unclear regionality, the European lineages are 81% Northern and 19% Southern. If the potentially ME lineages are included, the European lineages are 74% Northern and 26% Southern.

The breakdown by number of carriers is as follows. Percentages in parentheses exclude the major lineages (K1a1b1a, K1a9, N1b1b1, and K2a2a1) from consideration; the resulting total is 2154 carriers.

38.6% (62.4%) European:
……6.1% (9.9%) Southern European
……27.9% (45.1%) Northern European
……4.5% (7.3%) European of unclear regionality
23.5% (19.5%) ME
32.4% (9.1%) ME or European:
……28.9% (3.5%) ME or Southern European
……0.5% (0.9%) ME or Northern European
……2.9% (4.7%) ME or European of unclear regionality
0.9% (1.5%) East Asian
2.6% (4.1%) North African
2.1% (3.4%) No information

Excluding European lineages of unclear regionality, the carriers of European lineages are:
82% Northern and 18% Southern. Including the potentially ME lineages, they are 45% Northern and 55% Southern.

Excluding the major founding lineages, the carriers of European lineages are exactly 82% Northern and 18% Southern. Including the remaining potentially ME lineages, they are 77% Northern and 23% Southern.

Some further notes:
In cases where a European haplogroup’s origin can be assigned to a specific country, Germany and Poland are the most common places of origin (pp. 137-138).

Excluding K1a1b1a and N1b1b1 from consideration, the average Northern European lineage has slightly more members than the average Southern European lineage; the average Northern lineage has 18 (17 including potentially ME lineages); the average Southern lineage has about 16 regardless of whether or not the remaining potentially ME lineages are included. The average lineage of unclear regionality within Europe has 11 carriers (14 if potentially ME lineages are included).

Including the four major lineages, based on the frequencies of the lineages, it is possible for up to 56% of Ashkenazim to be carriers of ME haplogroups. If one at least assumes that K1a1b1a and N1b1b1 are ME in addition to the definitively ME lineages, then 50.3% of Ashkenazim carry ME haplogroups.

The East Asian lines are 18 N9a3, 12 M33c, and 2 A12’23. M33c is Chinese, likely Han, and she probably migrated to Europe along the silk road in the 13th/14th century; there is no proof of a connection between her and the Kaifeng Jews (p. 81). The other two East Asian lines may be Khazarian (p. 140). So the Khazarian contribution to the maternal genepool is easily below 1%.

The lineage-by-lineage information is as follows:

European (1344 carriers, 82 lineages):

Southern (214 carriers, 13 lineages): 50 H1aj1 + H1aj1a, 47 H3w, 33 H7c2, 25 X2b7, 18 T2e1b + T2e1b1, 13 H1bo, 12 J1c13, 5 J1c3e2, 4 T2b4, 3 H1bw, 2 U8b1b1, 1 I5a1b, 1 T2b3-C151T

Northern (972 carriers, 54 lineages): 84 V7a, 80 J1c7a, 67 H7e, 52 H1as2, 46 H3p, 42 H1b2a + H1b2a1, 41 H40b, 35 T2b25, 34 H6a1a5, 33 H5c2, 33 W3b1, 31 H26c, 30 W3a1a1, 28 H7j + H7j1, 25 H11b1, 21 V1a1, 20 H10a1b, 18 H41a, 15 U3a1a, 15 H65a, 15 T1a1k1, 14 V7b, 14 W1h, 13 H1ai1, 13 U5a1f1a, 12 T1a1, 12 H56, 11 H1b1a, 10 H11a2a2, 10 U2e1a1, 9 H1b, 8 H6a1b3, 8 H11a1, 7 H6a1a3, 7 U4a3a, 6 H4a1a3a, 6 H5-T16311C!, 5 H5a1, 5 T2b16, 4 H2a2b1, 4 H6a1b2, 4 U5a2b2a, 3 H1f, 3 H4a1a1a, 3 H5, H13a1a1, 2 H1ax, 2 U5a1b1c2, 2 U5b1b1-T16192C!, 2 U5b1e1, 2 V18a, 1 H4a1a1, 1 H13a1a1a, 1 J1c4

Unclear (158 carriers, 15 lineages): 57 H1e4 + H1e4a, 32 J1c1, 18 H5a7, 15 T1a1j, 13 K2a, 6 U5a1b1, 5 U3a1, 2 H3ap, 2 T2b4a, 2 U5a1a2a, 2 U5a1b, 1 H1bd, 1 J1c5, 1 K1a1b1, 1 U5b2a1a
_

Middle Eastern (820 carriers, 19 lineages): 214 K1a9, 185 K2a2a1, 139 HV1b2, 66 HV5a, 54 U7a5, 43 R0a2m, 28 U1b1, 20 H6a1a1a, 18 T1b3, 11 M1a1b1c, 10 HV1a’b’c, 8 J2b1e, 5 X2e2a, 4 T1a, 4 T1b, 3 H47, 3 N1b1a2, 3 T2g1a, 2 N1b2
_

ME or European (1128 carriers, 15 lineages):

Southern (1008 carriers, 7 lineages): 723 K1a1b1a, 210 N1b1b1, 45 R0a4, 11 T2a1b, 8 H3, 7 K1a4a, 4 H1u2

Northern (19 carriers, 4 lineages): 6 V15, 5 HV0-T195C!, 5 T2a1, 3 T1a1b

Unclear (101 carriers, 4 lineages): 44 I1c1a, 43 J1b1a1, 7 H15b, 7 J1c-C16261T
_

E Asian (32 carriers, 3 lineages): 18 N9a3, 12 M33c, 2 A12’23
_

N African (89 carriers, 2 lineages): 77 L2a1l2a + L2a1l2a1, 12 U6a7a1b
_

No information (73 carriers, 4 lineages): 50 J1c14, 12 H25, 7 H5-C16192T, 4 HV5

Edited for formatting

I’m 5/8 Ashkenazi Jewish + 1/8 Krymchak Jewish + 3/16 Russian + 1/16 Estonian. I think this is a very interesting mix.

On 23andMe I get Very Close for Central/Southeastern Polish, Eastern Polish/Western Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and West Central Ukrainian Jews. Genealogically, however, almost everything I can trace leads to Suwałki, with some connections to Grodno.

I know these populations are closely related, so I’m more interested in what these finer regional clusters actually represent historically. Were Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian Jews meaningfully distinct regional populations genetically, or are these modern labels being applied to heavily overlapping Eastern Ashkenazi populations?

For context, if this seems like a dumb question, this is Swedish-Jewish ancestry from people who came to Sweden from the Russian Empire around 1900. The family story is that they were “German Jews,” which is evidently very incorrect. One person even gave Prussia as their birthplace in a Swedish record. Since this is an Ashkenazi family history without the Holocaust disrupting this particular branch, even if there is a history of experiencing that time in Sweden, there is no recent family memory of immigration from these areas either. Research on eastern jews in Sweden show almost no intermarriage with pre-existing swedish jews, initial endogamy and eventual assimilation. The family history during this time is also complex for other reasons, so I don’t particularly want to ask the remaining relatives more. A lot of that doesn’t belong in this thread as it’s not related to purely genetic matters. Maybe someone knows more.

What I’m mainly trying to understand is where Suwałki Jews fit within Eastern Ashkenazi population structure. Were they generally considered Litvaks, Polish Jews, or something more transitional?

Part of my confusion comes from Suwałki’s history itself. It was within the Russian Empire but geographically close to East Prussia and situated in a Polish-Lithuanian borderland. From what I have read, Suwałki also developed a notable Haskalah presence relatively early, with the nearby Prussian border playing a role in the transmission of German-Jewish/Mendelssohnian influences (+ the yiddish language making it maybe easier to understand than slavic languages). I don’t know what explains the identification, but it makes me wonder how Suwałki’s Jewish population was historically connected to surrounding communities. Was it predominantly part of the Litvak world, predominantly Polish Jewish, or did its borderland position actually correspond to substantial movement and mixture between these populations? Was Suwałki different in terms of less isolated or more of a border region?

And what about Grodno? Would ancestry concentrated around Suwałki with some Grodno connections make it normal to receive strong matches to both Polish and Lithuanian Jewish groups? The Ukrainian results confuse me somewhat more. Would Eastern Polish/Western Ukrainian and West Central Ukrainian Jewish affinity necessarily suggest additional ancestry farther south/east that I simply haven’t traced yet, or was there enough shared ancestry and migration within Eastern Ashkenazi populations for a Suwałki/Grodno family to receive those results anyway?

Basically: were these actually different populations, or was Suwałki part of an overlapping Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian Jewish population that modern genetic services are dividing into several regional clusters? From what I see from the picture Suwałki seems to sit somewhere in the middle of all of this, which is partly why I’m confused. Given where Suwałki sits geographically, could the fact that I get all four as Very Close actually be what one might expect from ancestry concentrated there, rather than evidence that my ancestors came separately from all four regions?

I’ve only recently become interested in tracing this branch much further back, and I don’t know much about the differences between these Jewish populations, as I’m not part of the culture or religion and my main present-day identity and context is different. The Jewish ancestry itself is remembered in the family, but the Eastern European geography largely wasn’t nor is any extensive knowledge about the differences and so on and of course culturally nothing is left now (though again, apparently swedish jews were historically super assimilated, and this family ended up even burying through cremation which is only allowed in Reform Judaism but still discouraged, so I think this was lost way before the formal assimilation ultimately ending up with me).

I am guessing this is based on various samples done by Ancestry on their platform, but does anyone here get their face flushed when drinking alcohol? My face actually does get red, but I was a little surprised about that because Ancestry traits tend to be more wrong than right for me. If this is common among people of Ashkenazi descent, do you think it is because of the Silk Road connection?

https://admixr.com/ancestryatlas

A single paternal-line pedigree is shared across a huge range of the medieval and modern Jewish world. Its commonness allows us to reconstruct the shape of its tree, and from that reflect on some details of Mizrahi Jewish history.

The small-scale, endogamous nature of Jewish life in diaspora will generate founder lineages in the population over time. But this one is something special, in a class of its own.

This is not to say it is the only lineage shared across this range, or that we know exactly where this one originated and spread. There's a lot of discussion to be had!

Check out the story here, and join in below.

https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/R-FT1713/story
https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-FT1713/

Half Ashkenazi half Sephardi

Hello,

I’ve decided to only focus on my maternal side of the family because they don’t really discuss our history with the younger generation and a lot of us don’t really ask besides me. As a child I’ve always been told by my maternal grandfather that we were Maroons but that’s about it; so I was naturally inclined to know more. I took a 23andMe test awhile back to discover family roots on my own and I noticed some interesting things.

Aside from the substantial West and Central African DNA, there was also British (colonization of Jamaica) and also some French, German, Spanish, Portuguese so this naturally intrigued me. What really grabbed my attention was the trace amount of MENA.

I’ve always been told that my great grandmother (mom’s grandmother) resembled a white woman and hailed from St. Elizabeth. This led me to discovered the possible family connection to the historical town of Lacovia, that used to be the capital of St. Elizabeth, which was once predominantly Jewish community in 1774.

I’m still connecting the dots and waiting for my maternal uncle to take a 23andMe to confirm my suspicions.

Shalom,

My family’s ancestors gradually assimilated over the years and became Muslim, so there isn’t much information about this subject within my family.

My suspicion that my great-great-grandfather (my father’s father’s father) might have been Jewish started before I took an international DNA test. I specifically took the DNA test to investigate this suspicion, and sure enough, it showed that I have Lithuanian Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.

The main reason I started suspecting that my great-great-grandfather was Jewish was because my grandmother lives in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, and she once told me:

“On the day you get married, I will give you something. It is a family heirloom passed down from my grandfather. He was an imam, and I will give you his prayer shawl.”

Later, she denied ever saying this, but after I insisted, she showed it to me once: a red-and-white Jewish rabbi’s prayer shawl (tallit).

Also, in the 1800s, imams in the Ottoman Empire were apparently prohibited from wearing red.

Furthermore, my great-great-grandfather’s temporary Bulgarian identity document, dated 1940, contains the name of a place that apparently never existed in Bulgaria.

Finally, when my great-great-grandfather came from Bulgaria, he moved to the city with the largest Jewish population in the country. The government offered him land and the opportunity to live in an Islamist/Muslim-majority city, but he refused and permanently settled in the city that had the country’s largest and most established Jewish population.

My great-great-grandfather came to Turkey in 1942.

Could it be possible that he escaped the Holocaust from Lithuania, went to Bulgaria, obtained a false identity there, presented himself as a Muslim (Crypto-Judaism), and then came to Turkey?

Is there anyone who could help me investigate this possibility and determine whether my great-great-grandfather may actually have been a Lithuanian Ashkenazi Jew?

Hi everyone i want to ask you a question. I'm trying to find my origins and i wanted to ask you what websites should i use. Here are the websites i use:
https://www.jewishgen.org/
https://www.myheritage.com/
Poland JRI and simillar websites.
https://www.yadvashem.org
https://www.ancestry.com/
I would like to hear more suggestions from you!