Who are my ancient ancestors?

Question

I live in Canada, but my family was originally from Afghanistan, and they were Pashtuns.

I've heard a lot about the supposed Israelite theory, that the Pashtuns are the descendants of one of the Tribes of Israel, and I've also heard that they mostly have ancient Persian ancestry.

My mom's family name is Yosufzai, which means sons of Joseph, which really propagates the Israelite theory.

Can anybody help me out with this, much appreciated.

Answer 1

Pashtuns ( also rendered as Pushtuns, Pakhtuns, Pukhtuns), also called Pathans (Hindi: पठान Pathan), ethnic Afghans or synonymously Afgans are an Eastern Iranian ethno-linguistic group with populations primarily in eastern and southern Afghanistan and in the North-West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Balochistan provinces of western Pakistan.

   Pashtun society consists of many tribes and clans which were rarely politically united, until the rise of the Durrani Empire in 1747.  For over 250 years, they reigned as the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan.

They gained world-wide attention after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and with the rise and fall of the Taliban, since they were the main ethnic contingent in the movement. Pashtuns are also an important community in Pakistan, where they are prominently represented in the military and are the second-largest ethnic group.

  The Pashtuns are the world's largest (patriarchal) segmentary lineage ethnic group. The total population of the group is estimated to be around 42 million, but an accurate count remains elusive due to the lack of an official census in Afghanistan since 1979. There are an estimated 60 major Pashtun tribes and more than 400 sub-clans

(see longer article on Tribes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtuns#Tr...

Population:

Pakistan 28 million (2005)

Afghanistan 13 million (2006)

  United States 7,710 (2000)

Surname: YUSUFZAI

The Yusufzai (also Youssofzay, Yousafzai, Esapzey, Yousufi, or Yusufi) are one of the largest Pashtun tribes. The majority of the Yusufzai tribe reside in the North West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, with some tribal Yususfzais settled along the Afghan border. Yusufzais are the predominant population in the districts of Swat, Mardan, Malakand, Swabi, Buner and Shangla. Still other Yusufzai colonies can be found in the inner city of Sialkot and Lahore where they have established themselves as landowners arriving in the 13th century. They speak the northern variant of "Pukhtu" with the hard "kh" replacing the softer "sh" of southern Pashtun tribes. (longer article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusufzai)

Answer 2

Pashtuns as far as I'm aware are an Iranic people...

First off u guys speak an Eastern Iranian language (Pashto), and your descendants who spoke languages which evolved into Pashto today were the Bactrians and Sogdians..

They were by extension Iranian people and were for a long time part of the Iranian empire (500BC-200AD)

Alexander the Great's wife was from Bactria (Roxanna)

Bactrian/Sogdian were also Iranian languages of the Eastern variety (as opposed to Dari/Farsi/Tajik which are Southwestern Iranian languages)

Afghanistan was for centuries part of the Persian Empire and inhabited by various Iranian linguistic groups, as I'm sure u know

All Iranic peoples ultimately descends from the Proto-Indo-Iranians (known as the "Aryans" or Ariya) whom first spoke the ancestor of all Iranian languages and originally lived in Steppes of Central Asia

The Pashtuns themselves could be descendants of the Scythians or Sakas, another ancient Iranian group who were a nomadic, horse-riding people who lived across a huge area in Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Iranian Plateau (from Romania in Europe to China in Asia).

The closest living relatives of the Scythians are the Ossetians in Georgia and Southern Russia who speak Ossetic (another Eastern Iranian language)

The theory Pashtuns descend from Israelites is a very recent theory (17th) that was invented by Afghans living under the Mughal Empire

It has no scientific basis

Answer 3

It's a little hard to go back that far, but since your family is from that part of the world, there's still a lot of organic ancestry.  It's very possible that your family descended from the Israelites.  As for me, my family is European.  It's really hard to know for sure where they all came from.  Knowing ancestry from back then is very complex.  You would almost have to have records from back then.