Help me analyze this surprising DNA match (find, search, percentage)
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Was hoping some people here could maybe help me decipher this surprising DNA match I found via an Ancestry DNA test.
First of all, my family is of Jewish heritage, and the test in question is my Great Uncle's - i.e. the brother of my grandfather.
A few months ago, a match came up with someone, which said very likely 2nd - 3rd cousin. The thing is, this woman was Italian, and her entire family tree was also Italian. I contacted her on the website and we exchanged a few messages back and forth. She said when she did the DNA test, she was shocked that it said she was part Jewish. As far as this person knew growing up, her entire family was off-the-boat Italian. When she asked her parents about this, they refused to talk about it and wanted her to drop the whole thing.
So clearly some kind of hanky panky went down at some point years back, but I'm trying to imagine what that could be (as is she). I'm trying to wrap my head around what the possibilities are, but I don't know if I even have enough data to figure anything out.
For instance, whatever went down, was it with her parents generation? Grandparents? Is it possible to know? If it's her parents, obviously, assuming that her mom gave birth to her, would it have to mean that her father is not her biological father?
Would whatever happened be with my uncle directly, or would it show as a cousin if it were one of his siblings, or even his parents? My uncle is still alive and he had no idea about what this could be, and he's also interested in figuring it out.
I guess there is also the possibility that she is adopted as well. Her parents don't want to do a DNA test. I'm guessing that it's almost impossible to figure out anything without either more tests, or more info from her family.
This is interesting. 23andme has a tool that offers an estimate of how far back a certain DNA donor lived. It's not precise but it gives a range of time and an end date. I have an Ashkenazi ancestor that is 4th great grandparent (most recent) back to 7th great grand parent (farthest back). That puts it back to a 1680-1770 time frame. My Ashkenazi DNA is less than 1% and I'm more Neanderthal (3%) than Ashkenazi. I don't confuse religious faith with DNA because there is no naturally occurring linkage between the two. Maybe the Ashkenazi ancestors were devoutly Jewish. My more recent Balkan ancestors could have been Muslim at one time since they lived under the Ottoman Empire. My Russian/Ukrainian ancestors were most likely Russian Orthodox. My County Kerry Irish ancestors were most definitely Catholic. I'm not any of those faiths and the ancestors might be surprised by that. My DNA results give me hints of where I came from and who my people were and maybe how it fits in history. My Scandinavian ancestor's dates roughly correspond with the Great Northern War when Sweden took over parts of Poland and the Baltic areas. My paternal line goes back to Pomerania --on the Baltic, which was partially controlled by Sweden from the 1650s to 1815. People move around and sometimes events overtake people.
Going very far back there were Ashkenazi roots in the area we know today as Italy.
Yes but to have such a close cousin match and hominamad has no known ancestors from Italy, whether Jewish or not, is highly suggestive there was a NPE somewhere in this person's tree, not that it's from "very far back".
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I know people whose ancestors are from the same town in Poland as mine, and they have Italian DNA.
That doesn't mean their Italian DNA is related to you.
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This person may also have Sephardic roots. Perhaps their family were Conversos from Spain.
AncestryDNA's Jewish category is Ashkenazi, not Sephardic.
Was hoping some people here could maybe help me decipher this surprising DNA match I found via an Ancestry DNA test.
First of all, my family is of Jewish heritage, and the test in question is my Great Uncle's - i.e. the brother of my grandfather.
A few months ago, a match came up with someone, which said very likely 2nd - 3rd cousin. The thing is, this woman was Italian, and her entire family tree was also Italian. I contacted her on the website and we exchanged a few messages back and forth. She said when she did the DNA test, she was shocked that it said she was part Jewish. As far as this person knew growing up, her entire family was off-the-boat Italian. When she asked her parents about this, they refused to talk about it and wanted her to drop the whole thing.
So clearly some kind of hanky panky went down at some point years back, but I'm trying to imagine what that could be (as is she). I'm trying to wrap my head around what the possibilities are, but I don't know if I even have enough data to figure anything out.
For instance, whatever went down, was it with her parents generation? Grandparents? Is it possible to know? If it's her parents, obviously, assuming that her mom gave birth to her, would it have to mean that her father is not her biological father?
Would whatever happened be with my uncle directly, or would it show as a cousin if it were one of his siblings, or even his parents? My uncle is still alive and he had no idea about what this could be, and he's also interested in figuring it out.
I guess there is also the possibility that she is adopted as well. Her parents don't want to do a DNA test. I'm guessing that it's almost impossible to figure out anything without either more tests, or more info from her family.
Any ideas?
What percentage did she get in the Jewish category?
Look at your shared matches with her - which side of your family are they on? What ancestors do you have in common with those shared matches? That would be your starting point. Establish an ancestor she is likely descended from by looking at what matches you have in common and what ancestors you share with them. That ancestor(s) may not be your most recent common ancestor with her, but from there, she can look at all the descendants of that ancestor and work on it further.
Thanks everyone. Yes - as far back as I know, I have no family that ever lived in Italy. This is my great-uncle's DNA test, and he was born in the US. His parents were both from Romania.
I'm not sure how the other DNA sites, but as far as I know, Ancestry doesn't really tell any other information other than "likely 2nd or 3rd cousin". I don't have any other tests from that part of my family, and as far as I know, she has no other tests other than her own. How can I see what other ancestors we have in common?
I feel like I will not be able to get to the bottom of this with the data I have.
By the way, to add another piece of data to this puzzle, I went back to my old messages with this woman. She said that her test said she was "50% North European Jewish". So, 50%...does this mean one of her parents were Jewish? Or one of her grandparents? If it's one of her parents, it must be her father, assuming that she's not adopted, right? However, she said that her father did a DNA test and it said he was 7% Jewish. So does this mean it's one of her grandparents on her mother's side? Maybe her mother is adopted?
Thanks everyone. Yes - as far back as I know, I have no family that ever lived in Italy. This is my great-uncle's DNA test, and he was born in the US. His parents were both from Romania.
I'm not sure how the other DNA sites, but as far as I know, Ancestry doesn't really tell any other information other than "likely 2nd or 3rd cousin". I don't have any other tests from that part of my family, and as far as I know, she has no other tests other than her own. How can I see what other ancestors we have in common?
I feel like I will not be able to get to the bottom of this with the data I have.
By the way, to add another piece of data to this puzzle, I went back to my old messages with this woman. She said that her test said she was "50% North European Jewish". So, 50%...does this mean one of her parents were Jewish? Or one of her grandparents? If it's one of her parents, it must be her father, assuming that she's not adopted, right? However, she said that her father did a DNA test and it said he was 7% Jewish. So does this mean it's one of her grandparents on her mother's side? Maybe her mother is adopted?
It sounds like her father may not really be her father. If she is 50% Jewish, one of her parents should be 100% Jewish or close to it.
One thing to consider about Italy DNA: Italy and Sicily will look completely different. I'm 25% Sicilian and came back with percentages in the Baltic, Middle East, and Scandinavia, among other things. However, my DNA matches fit my tree perfectly. After doing some research, I determined that Sicily was a melting pot. Additionally, there was a high Jewish population until about the 1500s when any remaining Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism.
I'm not sure if that's the case in your situation.
It sounds like her father may not really be her father. If she is 50% Jewish, one of her parents should be 100% Jewish or close to it.
One thing to consider about Italy DNA: Italy and Sicily will look completely different. I'm 25% Sicilian and came back with percentages in the Baltic, Middle East, and Scandinavia, among other things. However, my DNA matches fit my tree perfectly. After doing some research, I determined that Sicily was a melting pot. Additionally, there was a high Jewish population until about the 1500s when any remaining Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism.
I'm not sure if that's the case in your situation.
Or she could be completely adopted, right? Assuming that's not the case, it then means that her father is someone from my family....but who? The test is my great uncle's - and it says they are 2nd or 3rd cousins. I'm not sure if that could also mean 1x, or 2x removed. Does this mean that her father is one of my uncle's first cousins?
Thanks everyone. Yes - as far back as I know, I have no family that ever lived in Italy. This is my great-uncle's DNA test, and he was born in the US. His parents were both from Romania.
I'm not sure how the other DNA sites, but as far as I know, Ancestry doesn't really tell any other information other than "likely 2nd or 3rd cousin".
If you click on the match and then click on the "i" icon next to the confidence level, it will show you how much DNA you share over how many segments.
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How can I see what other ancestors we have in common?
What I meant by common ancestors, is to look for ancestors you (or rather your great uncle) have in common with people who match both him and she. You can do this by clicking on "shared matches": https://support.ancestry.com/s/artic...-1460089700549 - hopefully some of your shared matches have trees and you can identify an ancestor you have in common with one of them. That is likely an ancestor of hers too, and will give you a starting point for which branch she is related to.
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By the way, to add another piece of data to this puzzle, I went back to my old messages with this woman. She said that her test said she was "50% North European Jewish". So, 50%...does this mean one of her parents were Jewish? Or one of her grandparents? If it's one of her parents, it must be her father, assuming that she's not adopted, right? However, she said that her father did a DNA test and it said he was 7% Jewish. So does this mean it's one of her grandparents on her mother's side? Maybe her mother is adopted?
"North European Jewish" is not an AncestryDNA category. It's just "European Jewish". But if she is 50% Jewish, then it is likely her father is not her biological father. It's also possible she was adopted, but assuming the other half of her results are Italian (or mostly so), then that is consistent with her known ancestry, suggesting one of her parents is her bio parent. Unless it's just coincidence of course - it's also possible she was adopted and coincidentally had one Italian parent, one Jewish, and just happened to be adopted by an all-Italian couple.
Normally, I would say that the ethnicity report is not enough to base this info on because they are only estimates, but in this case, Ashkenazi is a very genetically unique group due to endogamy, which means there's no way she would get 50% Jewish/Ashkenazi results if she did not have one Jewish parent.
I see. Actually, through those shared matches, I see some other people matching with this woman - and I pretty much know the relationships with those people. So I know which branch of my family it's from. Unfortunately I am not really close with this family so I may never figure out exactly what happened. That entire part of my family was something I discovered through my genealogy research. I was hoping to find a good scandal!
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