The staff of the Avotaynu Research Partnership LLC administers the the Avotaynu DNA Project, a collaboration of experienced Jewish DNA project administrators, historians and geneticists worldwide to develop an online knowledge base that will enable genealogists to discovery the history of their own families and at the same time allow historians and demographers to illuminate the history of the Jewish People.
By now, most people know that each human being carries in the genetic material of every one of his cells, information about his ancestors— all of them. Scientists are continually learning more about DNA and what information may be gleaned from it. The use of DNA testing for genealogists is described everywhere—at conferences, on television, on the Web and in books. Perhaps the enormous variety of sources is a prime reason why current and prospective users of DNA testing have so many questions. Lost in all the articles, books and lectures are answers to simple questions such as:
- Why is it important that I take a DNA test?
- What am I trying to demonstrate?
- Who in my family should take the test?
- What specific test should they take?
- What may I reasonably expect the results to show?
- How do I interpret the results?
- What haplogroup or regional projects offer assistance?
- How do I usefully communicate with genetic matches?
- Should I do further testing?
That so many genealogists still ask these basic questions after 15 years of articles, lectures, and books, comes in part from the fact that the field is evolving so rapidly, but also because the Jewish genealogical community does not yet have a focal point for answering questions and keeping members abreast of important advances in the use of DNA testing for genealogical research.
Avotaynu aims to meet these needs and its expansion into online publishing at www.avotaynuonline.com will help greatly. New tests, new projects, and new resources all can be reported online more rapidly and more broadly than ever before. Partnerships with Jewish genealogical organizations, Jewish DNA project sites, genetic experts and social networking outlets will enable Avotaynu to create an online address where reliable current information on users’ most urgent questions—such as those above—may be addressed clearly, accurately and quickly. The goal is not to create a new layer of bureaucracy, but rather to bring together and maximize the talent and energy of existing DNA projects and their managers.
Genetic Census of the Jewish People
An impetus for the Avotaynu Project was the recent Avotaynu Online article written by Bennett Greenspan (“A Call for the Genetic Census of the Jewish People,” Spring 2015) in which he implored the Jewish community to undertake a massive autosomal genetic census of the Jewish people before the size and clarity of our genetic inheritance is lost.
What is clear, however, is that interested members of the genealogical community alone cannot provide the critical mass needed to provide a meaningful sample of the Jewish population. To accomplish this task, genetic testing must become “social-networking-friendly,” easily comprehensible and fun for ordinary (i.e., non-genealogist) Jews to understand and use. Genetic testing must become as simple and rewarding as ordering a book on Amazon.
Increased testing and reporting of DNA results will help individual genealogists by revealing connections that could not be discovered by conventional means. Avotaynu has larger goals as well.
Three Larger Goals
Avotaynu Online, utilizing all of its component resources, has three major goals for DNA testing:
The first goal is to provide sufficient DNA sampling to enable Jews all over the world to discover their genealogical connection to one another. In a theoretical sense, Y chromosome and mitochondria testing have already proven this for specific lineages, but if sufficient numbers of Jews participate in these as well as autosomal DNA testing, the evolution of technology in the years ahead will give evidence of actual connections to one another.
The second goal is to foster projects that will illuminate major questions of Jewish history such as the current interest among claimed descendants of the b’nei anusim, the remnants of crypto-Jewish families who converted under duress in Spain and Portugal. While the size of this apparent Diaspora is not yet known, the 21st century may yet witness the restoration of a sense of Jewish ancestral identity among these descendants, perhaps an important moment in Jewish history.
The third goal is to enhance the quality of DNA research undertaken both by individual genealogists and by organized DNA projects and to help them present their results in a scientifically credible and publishable form.
To achieve these goals, the Avotaynu DNA Project will help organize existing resources to undertake the following initiatives:
- The project will use its website at https://www.AvotaynuOnline.com to serve as a clearinghouse for providing the best available recommendations and links to DNA resources of all kinds—Facebook groups, websites, Family Tree DNA projects pertaining to a specific surname, Y chromosome haplogroups or ancestral location.
- In collaboration with expert DNA project administrators, the Project will provide online guidance to genealogists on how to identify genealogically suitable individuals to test within one’s own family, to determine the appropriate tests to take, and to help understand the results.
- For people looking to run high-quality DNA projects, the Project will work with geneticists to develop and publish in our pages descriptions of the sophisticated tools and best practices for taking the essential steps in any scientific endeavor, including hypotheses, scientific design, recruitment of test subjects, funding, implementation, tools for data analysis, publication of conclusions.
- The Project will endeavor to work with Jewish genealogy conference organizers to foster special programming such as a “DNA Day” to encourage more concentrated conversation on DNA topics among participants who may not be able to devote an entire week to the topic.
- The Avotaynu Foundation, a non-profit public foundation, will serve as a U.S. tax-exempt vehicle for individuals that wish to sponsor testing within the community.
- To simulate genetic testing, the Project will continue to publish in Avotaynu Online genealogical success stories that have relied on DNA testing. The project will support genetic studies of public interest, such the presently ongoing the “Boy on the Train” project, a collaborative effort to find the family of a three-year-old boy left on a train near Warsaw in 1943, who was adopted by a Catholic family during the war and grew up to become an Israeli army colonel.
- To stimulate Sephardic genetic research and illuminate both the Sephardi component of the contemporary Ashkenazi population and any remnants of the crypto-Jewish population, Avotaynu will partner with the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and with Sephardi institutions.
- Goals likely will evolve over time, and will not be achievable immediately. The vision laid out here is intended to stimulate a conversation with readers and thereby begin a collaborative process that will serve the disparate needs of the Jewish genealogical community. Take the opportunity to engage now by sending your thoughts to AvotaynuDNA@gmail.com.
HOW MIGHT YOU PARTICIPATE?
Hear are the Paths to Joining the Avotaynu DNA Project!
If you have already been tested by Family Tree DNA, visit JewishDNA.org and choose Option A. Once you have joined, we will help direct you to haplogroup and geographical DNA projects where experts can help you interpret your results and perhaps recommend further testing that will enable you to learn more. We will give you advice on adding information to your DNA website profile that will increase your chances of being noticed by a genealogical match. If you have close matches, we will offer advice on how to “break the ice” when communicating with them;
If you have not yet tested, but would like to plow right in and purchase a kit, visit JewishDNA.org and choose Option B. We recommend a Family Tree DNA Y37 test for men, and a FTDNA Family Finder autosomal test for women.
If you previously had your Y chromosome tested with another company and have your results, visit https://www.familytreedna.com/landing/ydna-transfer.aspx. After the transfer, join the Avotaynu Project by visiting JewishDNA.org.
If you previously had autosomal testing from 23andMe©(V3) or AncestryDNA™, then visit https://www.familytreedna.com/AutosomalTransfer. After the transfer, join the Avotaynu Project by visiting JewishDNA.org.
If you would like to learn more about Jewish genetic genealogy in general, visit our Project web page at www.AvotaynuOnline.com Based on what you are trying to learn about your ancestry, we can recommend tests to start with, and give you pointers on how to identify whom in your family should be tested; and lastly,
IF IN DOUBT, feel free to contact us at AvotaynuDNA@gmail.com or reply directly to this post.
Guiding Principles of the Avotaynu DNA Project
The Avotaynu DNA Project, managed by the Avotaynu Research Partnership LLC, is a collaboration entering its third year of active DNA testing among Jewish communities on six continents. As described previously in this journal,[i] the project’s purpose is to utilize DNA to illuminate the origins and migrations of the Jewish People since its founding, which by tradition occurred more than 3,000 years ago.
From the start, the project has followed certain guiding principles.
Principle 1. We focus on concrete objectives.
Our major goal is to develop an exhaustive catalog of the full diversity of Y chromosomes found today among Jewish men worldwide.
We include in our catalog all demonstrably Jewish Y chromosomes whether the men who independently introduced them into the Jewish population lived during Biblical times or during other periods during which Judaism accepted men from outside the community. As of December 2018, we have identified YDNA evidence of 518 independent Y chromosomes among today’s Jewish male population, and the number continues to grow each week as we continue to test in new Jewish communities around the world.
Many of you who have been DNA tested will be familiar with the system adopted by the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG), which assigns scientific Y-chromosome haplogroup identities such as J-M172 or R-M269 to YDNA results. Unfortunately, these haplogroups typically describe men using mutations that occurred long before the advent of Judaism and hence are insufficient to differentiate the Jewish founders from parallel non-Jewish lineages. New DNA testing technology called Next Generation Sequencing[ii] has rapidly identified 100,000 new mutations on the Y chromosome in only four years, allowing far more specific descriptions of YDNA haplogroups. However, new mutations continue to be discovered daily, forcing the constant revision of YDNA haplogroup descriptions as new mutations are discovered. A Tower of Babel has arisen, with multiple variations from different laboratories describing the same mutation.
We have reached what we believe to be a successful solution. Using one or more statistical tools that have been developed specifically for YDNA analysis[iii], our project biometrician Wim Penninx endeavors to assign all new project participants into one of our previously identified Y chromosome lineages. If a new participant possesses a Y chromosome that is sufficiently distinct from all others in our catalog to evidence a separate Jewish founder, Wim assigns an Avotaynu serial number to the new lineage and announces his discovery on the website at www.JewishDNA.net. Starting in 2016 with Lineage AB-001, by December 2017, our YDNA catalog had reached Lineage AB-518, meaning that 518 separate male Jewish progenitors have thus far been identified.
In the main, the 518 Jewish lineages we have identified are Middle Eastern in origin. A good example is an ancient Bronze Age (hence pre-Jewish) Y-DNA lineage that ISOGG calls J-Z640, from whom our Jewish Lineage AB-033 descends. Our project historian and archaeologist Michael Waas and his team have been investigating this Y chromosome for several years, and it expanded rapidly during the late Bronze Age, spawning sub-lineages that can be found today in the Near East, the Caucasus, South America, and among Ashkenazi and Sephardi populations. The study, now in pre-publication review, is a virtual roadmap to the migration and growth of Jewish and non-Jewish populations of the Mediterranean during the last 3,000 years.
New Jewish lineages are discovered almost weekly and await qualified teams to explore them. One new lineage that is being studied is AB-218, that of a rabbinic dynasty in Aleppo, Syria, which matches a man with crypto-Jewish family traditions living today in Guatemala, and another man from a Sephardi family active in the American Revolution. Yet another of the many Y chromosome lineages under study is AB-181, which includes a the dynasty of a famous Sephardi rabbi who settled centuries ago in Libya, as well as a Christian in Guadalajara, Mexico and a Dutch family that settled during colonial times in New York State, carrying the name of Van Zandt, which our historians take for a rough translation of “from Santander”, a city in Spain with a known Jewish community.
These are merely examples of the many fascinating Y chromosome lineages that our team is working on. Of the 518 Jewish Y chromosome lineages identified thus far, it appears that fewer than 100 lineages are found among Ashkenazim; the remaining 418-plus lineages have only been found among the non-Ashkenazi men whom we have tested worldwide.
Principle 2. We listen to academic experts.
The genealogy world is not immune from wishful thinking and ethically unsound scientific practices. The Project’s antidote has been to include academic advisers from the beginning of the study and to embrace the rigorous ethical practices of their institutions. Under international norms, academics who engage in the scientific study of human subjects will not do so without an Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval from the Helsinki Committee of their own institution. The primary requirements for an IRB approval are informed consent and anonymity of DNA samples.
In addition to providing an ethical foundation, the Project’s academic partners have also added greatly to the rigor of our historical and bio-statistical analysis. Our team thoroughly evaluates the genealogy of all potential participants in the study, and our statisticians rigorously analyze if a DNA result from an outside participant matches one in our database.
The Project does not add a lineage to its catalog until it exhibits DNA matches to known members of the Jewish community or we find evidence that it originates from a recognized Jewish community. This is not because we seek to exclude any individual or group, but rather that to accurately describe the Y-DNA variation of the Jewish people, we must be reasonably certain that the individuals whose DNA we are depending upon have actual Jewish ancestry.
We have embraced these core principals and thus far our academic partners have obtained IRB approval of our work from The Technion, the University of Haifa, New York University’s Winthrop Hospital, and the University of Colorado. Additional applications for IRB approval will be sought as the project continues to expand in scope and geography.
Principle 3. We focus on specific communities and engaged historians, genealogists and community leaders in the recruitment effort.
At the outset of the project, we found that the non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities worldwide were woefully under-represented among Y chromosome databases. To identify and recruit participants ourselves, we developed a three-pronged strategy:
- Work with historians to use primary sources, such as cemeteries and vital records, to compile a list of historically important surnames from each community;
- Work with Jewish genealogists with expertise in each community to identify community leaders; and
- Work with the community leaders to recruit Jewish men to be tested.
Enthusiastic participants have stepped forward to assist at key stages, such as Hazzan Ike Azose who delivered several dozen Greek and Turkish Jews for testing at International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) conference in Seattle in 2016 in Seattle, Sandra de Marchena who, over winter vacation, tested boys she knew growing up in Curacao, or a clinician of Bukhari descent who stepped forward to test his community. Patiently building relations with genealogists and leaders in each community is without question the key aspect of our success in recruiting participants to date.
Focusing initially on the eastern Mediterranean, so far we have participants from the following non-Ashkenazi populations (the number of participants follows the name of the population
Eastern Mediterranean (Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Croatia), 194
Mizrahim (Iraqi, Persian, Afghani, Kurds/Nash-Didan), 85
Western Sephardim (the Caribbean, North America,, London, Amsterdam), 84
Italy, 81
Levant (Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt), 71
North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya), 79
Caucasus (Dagestan, Azerbaijan), 25
Bukhari (Uzbekistan), 20
Principle 4. We seize opportunities as they arise.
Although our primary mission is historical, during the past year we were contacted by a medical team at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, which discovered a rare and often fatal genetically recessive skin disease among Latinos in remote sections of Colorado.[iv]
Being a recessive disease, endogamy likely was a causal factor and the medical team asked if the Project could use DNA genealogy techniques to identify family connections among the participants. After receiving informed consent, we took samples obtained by the University and a collaborating institution in Mexico and anonymously ran them through the autosomal databases at Family Tree DNA. Not only did we find that some participants are previously unknown distant cousins of one another, but we also found that they had close autosomal matches in small communities in Colorado and New Mexico known to have been havens for crypto-Jewish families dating back four centuries who had adopted cousin marriage in response to the predations of the Spanish Inquisition. We found similar results in remote regions of Chile and in Colombia, and we presently are testing in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. A member of the team, Dr. Emily Warshauer, recently described our collaborative study at a scientific conference in Zermatt, Switzerland, and is preparing a paper for publication.
In addition to practical medical applications, another area of great interest to the Project is archaeogenetics,[v] the study of the preserved DNA of long-deceased individuals that recently has garnered considerable media attention. This fast-growing academic discipline holds promise for directly linking members of the Jewish and other Near Eastern contemporary populations with those of the past. We have been in discussion with a well-known academic geneticist interested in working with the DNA Project and hope that the first such Avotaynu study will come to fruition in the next few years.
Principal 5. We strive to serve our participants.
In addition to its worldwide testing program, Project leaders are willing to help individuals understand the results of their YDNA tests. Using its database of results from several thousand Jewish participants, we can help participants identify their Jewish lineages and quickly distinguish between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Y chromosome ancestry. Interested readers should visit the Project Web portal at www.JewishDNA.org to join their existing FTDNA kits to the Avotaynu Project, or to purchase a Y-DNA 37 kit from Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) if they have not tested already.
DNA testing by the Avotaynu DNA Project continues actively around the world. Genealogists, scientific collaborators, and academic institutions continue to join and we continue to work with genealogists to identify under-tested communities and to recruit participants. We invite you to read about our efforts in specific communities from time to time in the pages of www.AvotaynuOnline.com. Readers with connections to far-flung non-Ashkenazi communities that wish to help recruit participants, have suggestions or questions or know someone who might fund a community project and thereby move it to the front of the testing queue, to feel free to write to me at AdamBrown@AvotaynuDNA.org.
[i] Brown, Adam, “Announcing the Avotaynu DNA Project, AVOTAYNU Vol. XXXI, Fall 2015 and “Avotaynu DNA Project Advances to the Second Phase, AVOTAYNU Vol. XXXII, Fall 2016.
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequencing#High-throughput_methods, sold commercially by FamilyTreeDNA as “BigY”.
[iii] https://isogg.org/wiki/Y-DNA_tools
[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidermolysis_bullosa_dystrophica