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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: gwenie on Sunday 19 August 18 13:17 BST (UK)
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Good day to you, Somewhere in my past family there is a Jewish surname, would a DNA test pick that out ?
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Not necessarily as DNA recombines, so you might have inherited that bit or not.
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A family story was that my maternal gt.grandfather was a Russian Jew. One of my distant cousins, who is researching a different line, organised a DNA test for me. My result showed 6% Ashkenazi which would fit with the family story. However as he 'married out' ....well lived with my gt.grandma and they had 10 children....there was no marriage certificate and I suspect his name on the birth certs and his own death cert was not the one he started life with. So no surname to work with. ::)
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Dear Gwenie
The completed picture ie ourselves, none of us know what large or small pieces are in the box of "jigsaw pieces "until we have tested.
Your first step would have to start with doing a basic Autosomal FF DNA test, there are some sale offers with a couple of testing companies until the end of August.
Then you work with whatever matches you have in databases. The family name you are seeking may not have tested yet, or as Clayton has pointed out to you, you may not have inherited that part in your DNA.
very good luck in your search, plenty of good researchers on here to help you if you decide to do a test
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A family story was that my maternal gt.grandfather was a Russian Jew. One of my distant cousins, who is researching a different line, organised a DNA test for me. My result showed 6% Ashkenazi which would fit with the family story. However as he 'married out' ....well lived with my gt.grandma and they had 10 children....there was no marriage certificate and I suspect his name on the birth certs and his own death cert was not the one he started life with. So no surname to work with. ::)
Sometimes name changes were recorded in newspapers or the London Gazette so it might be worth looking for his later name, otherwise there are documents you can check at the National Archives, but it may never have been enrolled or simply been informal and not recorded anywhere officially (sometimes quite deliberately if they wanted to conceal their origins for ethnic/religious or nefarious reasons).
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I tried a search but I think he just changed his name.
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I tried a search but I think he just changed his name.
You could try checking for matches of anyone who has a Jewish sounding name I suppose, either on that site, or upload to other sites.
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His only appearances on official documents (census and BMD certs) gives his name as John Howard. Not helpful. ::)
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My husband has one grandfather whose parents were both Russian Jews. His DNA test showed him as having 20% European Jewish DNA. I have seen variations of the more unusual surname on other people's trees among his DNA matches, but it probably wouldn't have popped up as obvious if I didn't know it. The other surname I know from that family is Levine, which is about as common among Russian Jews as Americans named Smith. ;)