Does anyone know how I can find out if my family line has Jewish roots or not?

Question

I find tracing family lines fascinating. The Jewish lineage is a rich and complex history, with many amazing stories. It would be exciting to find out if I have Jewish blood running though my veins. But either way I am happy with the result. I am just curious.

Answer 1

If you are male, Dna is a good way to go, your Y-Dna, from the male line, has remained much the same for thousands of years, but remember ! there is no such thing as a Jewish race, it is a religion, your dna might show a haplogroup or haplotype that is shared by many Jewish people, and it may not, it cannot prove that your ancestors were, or were not, at any time in history,"Jewish".

Answer 2

The easiest way to do that would be through a DNA test.  Mine showed 3 types of Jewish ancestors, the most common being the Anasazi Jew.  Don't forget the paper trail; unless the Jewish ancestry is recent, it is, at best, a long shot, but try anyway.

Here are some sites, etc.:

You should start by asking all your living relatives about family history.  Then, armed with that information, you can go to your public library and check to see if it has a genealogy department.  Most do nowadays; also, don't forget to check at community colleges, universities, etc.  Our public library has both www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com free for anyone to use (no library card required).

Another place to check out is any of the Mormon's Family History Centers.  They allow people to search for their family history (and, NO, they don't try to convert you).

A third option is one of the following websites:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/...

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739...

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/...

http://www.cyndislist.com/

http://www.geni.com/

Cyndi's has the most links to genealogy websites, whether ship's passenger lists, ancestors from Africa, ancestors from the Philippines, where ever and whatever.

Of course, you may be successful by googling: "john doe, born 1620, plimouth, massachusetts" as an example.

Good luck and have fun!

Check out this article on five great free genealogy websites:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...

Then there is the DNA test; if you decide you want to REALLY know where your ancestors came from opt for the DNA test. Besides all the mistakes that officials commonly make, from 10% to 20% of birth certificates list the father wrong; that is, mama was doing the hanky-panky and someone else was the REAL father. That won't show up on the internet or in books; it WILL show up in DNA.

I used www.familytreedna.com which works with the National Geographics Genotype Program.

Answer 3

There is no "Jewish gene" because Judaism is not a race. The only people who can determine where they were from via DNA testing are people who haven't intermarried with other ethnicities - like remote Ashkenazi communities in Eastern Europe, for example.

Otherwise, you can't find "Jewish blood." (Because there is no such thing.) If there is a lot of intermarriage in your family you can forget about DNA testing.

The easiest way is through a paper trail. Jewish ancestors aren't too hard to find. Unless they changed their name at Ellis Island or something.

Answer 4

I recently had a Mitochondrial DNA test done on my direct female line.  I was very surprised because my maternal grandmother's ancestry is 100% American  colonial.  I knew my maternal grandfather was a Jew.

However, my Haplogroup was K with Subgroup K1. 32% of the Ashkanazi Jews are part of this mitchondrial DNA Haplogroup.  Now it has me wondering who the parents, particularly the mother, are of my third great grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth Winston born in 1791 in North Carolina.  

One thing you have to understand that Orthodox and Conservative Judaism defines a Jew by the mother not the father.

They state they get the nation from the mother and the ttribe from the father.  If they don't have a Jewish father, they belong to the tribe of the nearest male relative on the mother's side of the family.  Tribe does not necessarily mean the tribes as mentioned in the Old Testament.  

At the same token, if they don't have a Jewish mother, the only way they can be considered Jewish is to convert.

Reform Judaism sees it diffferently.

Edit: I might mention that SMGF (Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation) does DNA tests for free. They won't send you a report but eventually their results will be online.  It took about 6 months for mine but still I needed interpretation.  They have contracted GeneTree to interpret the results and provide them to you on line.  It only cost me $19.50.  There were two trees given which I have a direct match.

http://www.smgf.org/index.jspx

FamilyTreeDNA will do it much faster but their cost is greater.

Y DNA is passed solely from father to son.

Mitchondrial DNA is passed from mother to both sons and daughters but only the daughters pass it on to their chldren.  

If you are a male,  you can have both the Y & Mitchondrial done and it will give you the direct male and female lines.  It will not give you the spouses of all your direct male and female line.  

Most of your DNA is autosomal.  You get it 50-50 from both parents.  They plan to start using autosomal in the future.  It is quite a bit more complicated since there are a lot of family lines.  If you go back 10 generations, you can be directly descended from over a thousand people.  It pyramids as you go back. If you go back 20 generations, you can be directly descended from over a million people.