The Avotaynu DNA Project processes each human DNA sample through a series of highly controlled steps designed to extract, amplify, and analyze genetic information for ancestry and genealogical research. Here’s a detailed description of that process from collection to result […]
Economic expansions in the Mediterranean that the Avotaynu Project seeks to correlate to dated YDNA tests
I. Bronze Age Expansion (ca. 2000 – 1200 BCE) Regions: Egypt, Levant, Anatolia, Aegean, and Mesopotamian peripheryDrivers: Outcome: A networked economy integrating East Mediterranean polities; collapse c. 1200 BCE ended this first globalized phase. II. Iron Age & Phoenician Expansion […]
Italian surnames of current interest to the Avotaynu Project
Source: Nardo Bonomi Most frequent surnames found in documents of the 16th-19th centuries:
Origin and Migration of the J2-FGC4992 / FGC4975 Jewish Y-Chromosome Cohen Branch and its Descendant Lineages (Avotaynu AB-047)
This study investigates the evolutionary history of the J2a-FGC4992 (aka FGC4975) Y-chromosome lineage, a genetic variant found almost exclusively among Jewish men whose paternal ancestry includes a cohanic tradition, i.e., a tradition of descent from the ancient Israelite priesthood known […]
Index of Jewish Surnames in Beirut
[This index is dedicated to the memory of Ambassador Isaac Levanon (1944-2023)] As with other Jewish communities in the Levant, the size of the Beirut Jewish commnity during the 20th century can only be estimated. The Jewish population of the […]
À la rencontre de nos ancêtres Juifs Marocains et Algériens : NAJMA, la nouvelle association de généalogie dédiée aux juifs du Maroc et d’Algérie.
La présence de Juifs au Maroc et en Algérie est attestée dès le IIe siècle de l’ère moderne. Arrivés avec les Phéniciens, les Romains, les Arabes, ou à la suite des expulsions d’Espagne et du Portugal, ils forment un patchwork […]
JGSLA
Slides from Adam Brown’s talk to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles on August 29, 2021: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FgFQ-sk9YBQCyJ_yeXwL30JDHFiv6-xm/view?usp=sharing
IAJGS 2021
The Genomic History of the BronzeAge Southern Levant, by Lily Agranat-Tamir et al. We are posting here references cited today during Adam Brown’s talk today on the Genetic Origins of the Jewish People: The Genomic History of the Bronze Age […]
Avotaynu DNA Lecture Materials
Jewish Gen Lecture December 2, 2020 To view a recording of Adam Brown’s lecture to JewishGen viewers on , visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QafFMkGDgVw Skip ahead 4 minutes to catch the beginning of the talk! To examine Adam’s slides, visit here (warning: file […]
Personal Journey: In Search of the Lost Life and Art of Marie Rosenthal Hatschek
About 20 years ago I was contacted by a man I didn’t know who wanted to share a family history with me, and also pay me a visit. I was back East and he was out West, but he was […]
Personal Journey: The Early Badrians of Oberschlesein
I have known about my family history since childhood, but only segments of it. My parents, Lothar and Irma Gärtner (nee Badrian) migrated to Australia from Nazi Germany in 1938, the only passengers on a German cargo boat out of […]
Personal Journeys: Finding Mr. Katz
This article is a sequel to my earlier article in Avotaynu Online, entitled “From One Photograph to Journeys of Research and Discovery,”, in which I described how I uncovered and researched the romance of my great uncle Moshe and Paula Lichtzier, […]
Personal Journeys: Cousin Hillary Rodham Clinton
At my home, we refer to Hillary Rodham Clinton as Cousin Hillary. More precisely, the correct term would be step-cousin. Detailed research demonstrates that Hillary’s grandmother married my father’s fifth cousin. But let’s start at the beginning. In August 1999, […]
Personal Journeys: From One Photograph to Journeys of Research and Discovery
All I ever knew was that I am named after my great-uncle Moshe. Moshe died in a motor accident, six weeks before his planned wedding. The date of his death is unknown, but it was sometime between the late 1920s […]
Spanish-Jewish `Nobility’ of Aleppo, Syria
As recently as 1992, more than 4,000 Jews were being held against their will in Syria, unable to leave and kept under watch, branded as “Mussawi,” followers of Moses. At that time, 50,000 Jews from Syria lived in Brooklyn’s Flatbush […]
Launching the Converso Genealogy Project: Tracking the Diaspora of the New Christians
I was born into a Roman Catholic family in Havana, Cuba, but from a young age, I felt Jewish and inexplicably was drawn to all things Jewish. After converting to Orthodox Judaism at age 34, I found clues along my […]
Personal Journeys: The Legacy of Lucian Skotnicki
Of all the grandparents I never got a chance to know, I feel closest to my mother’s father Lucian. Perhaps it was my mother’s vivid storytelling that made him seem accessible. I’ve inherited his talents and his temperament; so I […]
Personal Journeys: Everything Happens for a Reason
1 December 2015 It happened again. I couldn’t believe it but I have two witnesses. Just as I was about to leave my weekly writing class at the library of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), I stopped by the entry […]
Personal Journeys: The Flayer and Razin Families of Shklov
Sitting on the passenger side of the coach, Reiza Flier swept her beady gray eyes over the family’s small home. At approximately 40 years old, this mother showed expressions of defiance and anticipation, even if she also felt sadness for […]
Personal Journeys: A World War I Casualty
It was not a “dark and stormy night.” It was a bright and sunny mid-afternoon. 17 May 2015 was Celebrate Israel Day set up once again in Rancho Park, Los Angeles, as has been done for the past several years. […]
Autosomal and Mitochondrial DNA Together Solve A Family Riddle
In November 2014, I happened across an Ancestry.com online tree featuring Sarah Pikholz, her husband Eisig Baar and twelve children. The tree had them in Czechoslovakia but I quickly found the first three births in Yahilnytsya (Jagielnica) in east Galicia, […]
Personal Journeys: Leopold Goldstein, Rabbi or Not?
Last July marked what is commonly recognized as the centennial of the start of the First World War. What parts, if any, did my family play during that war? From my research, the only person who seemingly played a noteworthy […]
Public Records Access: One Genealogist Can Make A Difference!
This past Thursday, September 3, 2015, a legal petition was filed at the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York. Brooke Schreier Ganz and ReclaimTheRecords.org [Petitioner] vs. New York City Department of Records and Information […]
Jewish Genealogical Resources in France
Jews probably followed the Roman armies into France; evidence of their residence dates back more than a millenium. Many rue de la juiverie (street of the Jewish district) or rue des Juifs testify to their former presence as does a […]
Personal Journeys: The Shkarovsky Family of Pohrebyshche, Ulraine
Researching a Rare Family Name Shared by Levites and Israelites Shkarovsky is an uncommon Jewish surname. This can be a blessing, as the focus of research is limited; or a curse, as there is limited material with which to work. […]
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