Is mtDNA different for Jews?

Question

Is mtDNA different for Jews?

Answer 1

No; the differences are on the Y chromosome.

Answer 2

There is no difference at all with Mtdna or Y-DNA in Jews.

Judaeism is a religion, not a separate race to the rest of humanity. Certain Y-DNA haplogroups are shared, and I repeat, shared, by people with a Jewish heritage and others who do not share that heritage, they are not specific to Jews.

Edit : The research shows that many, not all, Jews share some haplogroups in common, they are not all of the same haplogroup or haplotype, it does not show, or rather, it is not reported, that there are also many people with those same haplogroups and haplotypes who are not Jewish, and that those haplogroups all predate Judaeism.

My experience, and opinion (formed as the member of a dna surname project and a separate haplogroup group). Is that Jewish people are more inclined to undertake genetic dna testing than people in general , so that data based on the results of those tests and therefore research reporting is "weighted" and gives rise to the conclusion that certain haplogroups and haplotypes are peculiar to jews alone, and that is simply not the case.

Answer 3

I am in Mitochondrial Haplogroup K1 and it is mostly Ashkenazi Jews.  

Orthodox and Conservative Jews define a Jew by the mother not the father.  However if a woman converts to Judaism before her children are born her children are considered Jewish. That would mean they would not necessarily be in a Mitochondrial Haplogroup that is predominantly Jewish.  However, if the father is not Jewish, as long as the mother is Jewish, then the children are considered Jewish.

Reform Jews view it differently.

Answer 4

Yes. It is different for BOTH the mtDNA AND the yDNA. How else could your DNA tell where your ancestors came from?

They can tell if your ancestors came from Sweeden or Norway; France or Spain; Iran or Iraq.

Never mind those on this site who claim otherwise: check with authorities, such as www.familytreedna.com or the National Geographics Genotype Program.

Answer 5

"Jews" are not a genetically distinct group of people. A jew can be of any race or ethnicity.

However there are ethnicities that arose from groups of people who have practiced judaism for centuries due to the fact that intermarriage was kept to a minimum.

The largest group would be those of Ashkenazi stalk, followed by those of Sephardic stalk, the Ashkenazi originating from Western and Eastern Europe and the Sephardim originating from the Iberian Peninsula.

Most genetic studies on "jews" have been limited to the Ashkenazis, and one study reported that 40% of participants had mtDNA which was thought to be of semitic origin.

So is mtDNA different for jews as in can you distinguish who is and who isn't a jew and who isn't from looking at their mtDNA? Absolutely not. You would not even be able to speculate that the person might be a jew...it's not a race.