Can DNA ancestry testing tell you if you’re background is Sephardi or Ashkenazi?

I don’t think these tests are accurate. Besides for Africans, most people globally are descendents of immigrants and mixed races. How do they have markers to test these “races”? The Sephardi and Ashkenazi groups are only a few hundred years old, how can they test Ashkenazi and Sephardim ancestry (as opposed to Michzrachim that were a distinct group from hundreds of years longer)? Sephardim have lived in Europe, not only in the Middle East and Africa, since the Spanish Inquisition, so how can they tell apart people by their genes when they lived on the same continents and in the same countries? Are minhugim part of their genes?

Identical twins and triplets who took these DNA tests often had completely different results from one another and regardless of all these “scientific” explanations, I’m not buying it. Siblings, especially if they are identical, should have the same, or very similar, genes makeup.

“Ashkenazi Egyptian Jew a Sephardi German Jew.”

There isn’t really such a thing.

23andme tells you what percentage you are Ashkenazi. It doesn’t say anything about Sephardi. However, if your results say 95% Ashkenazi and 5% Middle-Eastern/North African, or something like that, then it might be a safe assumption that you’re part Sephardi.

It has a category for Ashkenaz, but not for Sphard. I’m not sure what it would tell someone if they were 100% Sphardi and they took it.

Also, heads up, it always tells everyone that they’re like 2% African. I think it’s a political correctness thing.

After some thought, i sent my DNA sample (test tube of saliva) to Ancestry.com for analysis. The initial result was: 85% European Jewish, 12% Middle Eastern, 3% undetermined. I received an update from them a couple of weeks ago. based on (they said) an expanded data base. The revision shows me to be 100% European Jewish with the epicenter of my genome in historic Lithuania (based on their map of likely origins).

N.B. Ancestry’s category is “European” Jewish, Not “Ashkenazi”

Hi Lightbrite,

The answer to your questions is… yes.
There have been very recent advancements in this field in the last few months. It’s not 100%, but it is with very very high accuracy, including if it’s via the mother or the father.

I tried to post before with a link to a very recent, fascinating shiur by Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz discussing your exact questions, but perhaps the moderators didn’t allow a post with a link. [Moderator?]

So if you’re interested then DM me, or I can try to post again, or tell you what to Google to find the shiur.

akuperma, it was not only the Middle Eastern soldiers they boughtt, he Romans themselves are descendents from the Hitites as well as other civilizations from the Levant. And of course, they assimilated with other races wherever they went.

Generally, Europeans originated from the Middle East and Asia, even the Frech and Germans. That’s why the alphebets have Semitic roots.

ubiquitin,
Sephardi German Jew.
sure there were

Ashkenazic and Sephardic Kohanim share a DNA profile that non-Kohanim lack.

Many of the Sephardim who moved to the Ashkenazic countries of Europe following the Inquisition, their descendents became Ashkenazic in the centuries that followed. There’s a Chasidic dynasty whose Rebbes shtam from Sephardim. There’s also a famous Sephardi who lived in Poland and immigrated to the British colonies and financed the American revolution.

Joseph, are you referring to the Level Tahor “Chassidus”? …Just kidding, btw.

cherrybim: The vast majority of frum Jews who come from a frum yichus have nothing to worry.

Joseph, what you know about your yichus only goes back several doros.
So if you have nothing to worry about, give it a shot.
I wonder if the test can give you a clue concerning mamzeirus and other things?

(Mamzeirus due to eishes ish would certainly not be detectable through genetics.)

cherrybim: DNA testing can be used to determine paternity (if a given man and woman are the biological parents of a given child). However the laws determining mamzerus are more complicated than that.

Hey dna can prove that Pocahontas has 1 Native American between 6 and 10 generations back

There are some genes that apparently are only found among certain groups, so if one has American (i.e. Indian, indigenous) ancestry it would be obvious. The trick is to be from a very isolated group (the Americans were almost totally cut off from the rest of humanity before the 16th century, the Australians before the 19th, and most Africans until the late 19th century). However in the bulk of Eurasia people moved around a great deal whether as conquerors or merchants, so genes are more mixed up, e.g. the “Middle Eastern” gene found in England could have come from a Jew, or perhaps a Cartheginian slave owned by a Roman, or from a Roman soldier recruited in the Middle East who stayed in England when discharged.

‘POCAHONTAS’ FIGHTS BACK: Warren’s DNA Test Shows She’s 1/1024th Native-American; Trump Denies $1 Million Pledge

Even Yeshiva World News calls her Pocahontas

I don’t think headlines should generally use derogatory nicknames of any kind.

You’re right, but I was thinking about possible evidence in the results of a single test,
not about checking them against all other results of tests performed by the company.

Would that not require the other party to have agreed to such disclosure?

“uncomfortable truth ” — as if converts were a shameful scandal????

There were many conversions in ancient times (i.e. before the rise of Christianity and Islam, which made conversion to Judaism a capital offense). And for obvious reasons, there were always more female than male converts (for men, conversion meant a radical loss of status, whereas most women did not have much in terms of rights to begin with, not to mention the complications of Bris Milah for an adult male). Remember also that for most the last 2000 years a Geir needed to come u p with a fake yichus (to avoid being executed), and it is easier to pass off woman than a man (since Jewish males had more contact with the goyim than the women did). One should note that most “Sefardim” were living in areas where the non-Jews were closely related to the Jews (Middle East) so from a genetic perspective, converts would be indistinguishable from Jews.

I suspect that the lighter skin color and frequent blond hair among Ashkenazim is more the result of “natural selection” (Jews who could pass for goyim were more likely to survive pogroms). Remember also that many people for northern Europe ended up in the Middle East (e.g Viking mercenaries hired by the (Byzantine) Romans, Legionaries recruited in Northern Europe and assigned to the Middle East, not to mention slaves who in Roman times were likely to be Celts, Germans or Slavs), with their genes mixing with everyone else’s.

baishatal: You’re comment is factually incorrect. You could lead to the same faulty conclusion, in the opposite direction, by pointing out that non-Ashkenazim are the only Jews who have dark colored skin. That is meaningless and environmental, which alone can change physical attributes without any other reasons by living in a geographic area for many centuries; the same point of which applies to fair hair color. Your interpretation of DNA results is similarly faulty and incorrect.

Bashalmuder, I’ve met many light-colored Sephardim in my life. I once went to a genuine Sephardishe shul in London and I was surprised that many people there were blond. From features you cannot see know whether one is Ashkenazi or Sephardi. Generally though, Middle Eastern people are darker. Even Ashkenazim living in Israel, living on kibbutzim and serving in the army, i.e. being out in the sun a lot, can make light people, and their descendents, darker.

You make it sound as if geirim are something bad. Avraham Avinu was a geir, The imuos were geirim, Dovid Hamelech was a geir, etc. So all of klal Yisroel are descendents of geirim.

These type of DNA tests, where one tests their ancestry, is totally inconclusive. Unlike testing against the blood of one’s close relative to see if they are related, ancestry testing is testing against whom? You obviously can’t compare your DNA with your ancestor’s DNA, so who are the markers that decide which group has which DNA? Immigrants, that’s who! If you study history you see that the world’s population has always migrated and mixed. DNA tests cannot prove one’s ancestry as a conclusive fact.

I’m only piping up to correct some factual errors here:
Baish’s interpretation of DNA inheritance: Males have X chromosomes as well – they get it from their mother, who has 2 X chromosomes- she got 1 from her father, 1 from her mother, and she can pass either to her son, so tracing the X does not trace maternal lineage. If however overall the genome shows mixing- X or any of the other chromosomes that could come from mother or father, yet the Y is identical indicating little mixing within the paternal line, the assumption would be that the mixing must have come from the maternal line. To prove maternal lineage, you would need to check mitochondrial DNA that comes from the mother.

Philosopher- the Avos and Emahos were not geirim, since there was no concept of Am Yisroel yet- the machlokes is whether that starts with Matan Torah or the Shevatim. Dovid was definitely not a ger, but his ancestor Rus was. So although your point about the importance of geirim is true, you need to defend it with true facts.