Dear Family Tree DNA Participant:
We have invited you to our web page because your YDNA results closely match those among the 6,000 men of Jewish ancestry currently participating in our landmark AvotaynuDNA Study. The study utilizes the YDNA of individuals such as yourself to trace migrations of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi populations over the last 3,000 years..
The Avotaynu DNA Study is a worldwide academic collaboration in which leading scholars and geneticists participate in specific projects, such as geneticist Dr. Karl Skorecki at the Technion, historian Michael Waas at the University of Haifa, Amsterdam archivist Ton Thielen, and scientists Dr. Aaron Pinkhasov of New York University Winthrop and Dr. Emily Warshauer the University of Denver. In addition to our scientists, we are represented in each community worldwide by a dedicated team of local Jewish community historians and leaders such as Ainsley Henriques in Jamaica, Sandra de Marchena from Curacao, Sarina Roffe and Miriam Kairey from Aleppo, and Hazzan Ike Azose from the Turkish and Rhodeslian community in Seattle, to name just a few.
If you scroll to the bottom of this letter you will find a description of some of the things that we have learned about your particular lineage, which our project has designated Avotaynu Lineage AB-051. This lineage comprises more than ten percent of all identified Ashkenazi Cohanim and in recent months we have discovered participants who may have Sephardi ancestry. A unique feature of the lineage is the ease of identification due to a highly unusual variation at location DYS455, where the number of Short Tandem Repeats spontaneously mutated from 11 to 8. Our studies of this lineage continue under the long-term leadership of Sidney Sachs of Virginia.
There is no cost whatsoever to participate.
Our project follows the high academic standards of our participating institutions pursuant to Institutional Review Board approvals from the world-renowned Technion/Rambam Medical Center, NYU Winthrop Hospital, and the University of Denver.
By participating in our study, you are not giving us access to your DNA itself. You are only sharing the numerical results of genealogical interest that FTDNA has published on its own website. We do not maintain your results on our website beyond the type of disidentfied information that you will find on this page.
To supplement our database of several thousand Ashkenazi participants, we are in the process of actively surveying lineages of the Sephardim, Mizrahim, and Italkim and other non-Ashkenazi lineages in the Caribbean, Europe, Italy, Turkey and other locales all over the world.
Participants will automatically receive copies of all articles we publish on Jewish DNA at AvotaynuOnline.com/DNA as well as other subjects of interest to Jewish family historians and genealogists.
Please participate in our study by simply logging at www.JewishDNA.org and pressing “join”. You will immediately receiving a confirmation email.
We welcome questions about the project via AdamBrown (at) AvotaynuDNA.org or call +1 (201) 321-1881.
Best regards,
Adam Brown , Avotaynu DNA Project Administrator
Provisional YFull YDNA Genetic Tree Based on Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Describing Avotaynu Lineage AB-051. Source: https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-Y33795/)
Geographical Distribution of Reported Paternal Ancestry of Avotaynu AB-051 Participants (Source: www.familytreedna.com)
Distribution of Short Tandem Repeats within Avotaynu Lineage AB-051 (Source: https://jewishdna.net/AB-051.html)
Surnames thus far found within this YDNA lineage:
| Berg |
| Braverman |
| Bunyaner |
| Chesin |
| Cohan |
| Cohen |
| Cohen |
| Cohen |
| Cohen |
| Eisen |
| Grover |
| Harmelin |
| Jaffe |
| James |
| Joseph |
| Kahan |
| Kaplan |
| Katz |
| Lane-Philly |
| Langer |
| Leonard |
| Makovitzky |
| Makowiecki |
| Meyers |
| Molar |
| Molnar |
| Porter |
| Potter |
| Rolfe |
| Sachs |
| Sarut |
| Schwartz |
| Sicorsky |
| Sohotinski |
| Stone |
| Wolfe |
| Zezmer |
| Zisman |
Technion/Rambam Institution Review Board ethics approval of our project.
