Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2005-08 > 1124846685

From: ellen Levy <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Sephardic Diaspora
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:24:45 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <018d01c5a827$d3ea5d70$10d22f50@Masterbedroom>


I agree that the 3 hypotheses are not mutually

However, the likelihood that the majority of J, E & G
in the British Isles represents a remnant of Sephardic
ancestry is much less likely than Neolithic or Roman
sources (or even more recent Ashkenazi emigration to
England beginning in the 1870's).

Let's assume that the Sephardic populations of England
right before expulsion was 9000 individuals. Out of
that 9000, let's assume that 2000 individuals hide
their identity and remained in England, eventually
forgetting their Jewish ancestry. I don't know what
the population of England was around 1290, but what
would be the genetic impact of 2000 individuals on the
larger English population at that time? I do not
recall the source, but remember reading that the
population of London alone at that time was about
40,000-30,000 people.

More importantly, I think we need to look to the
genetic studies to try to answer these questions as
best we can. There actually is some limited Sephardic
DNA data available. Go to table 1 in the following

"Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome
Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European
Ancestries," (2003) Doron Behar, Am. J. Hum. Genet.

This table is very basic, but better than nothing. So
if we were talking about a large influx of Sephardic
peoples that were responsible for certain haplogroups,
we would also expect to see not just J2, but K and J1
as well.

I suppose that sub-clade testing will be revealing as
well when it becomes more widespread in the future.
For example, according to Semino's study, Sephardic
Jews are 10% J-M123. This appears to be rare to
absent in many northwest European groups - Dutch,
Bernaise, French Basque, Spanish Basque, Catalan,
Andalusian. The same can be said for J-M35* at a
frequency of 2.5% in Sephardim. It remains to be seen
whether any notable frequency of these sub-clades are
found within in the British population.

By the way, to further emphasize the complexity of the
Jewish picture itself, J-M123 appears to be shared
between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from a common
Israelite source, while J-M35* among Jews is probably
from Roman and Spanish gene flow originating with
North African sources.

Ellen Coffman

--- "gareth.henson" <> wrote:

> Beth
> your 3 hypotheses are not mutually exclusive - in
> fact I would suggest they
> could all be a part of the whole story.
> So any individual receiving their first STR results
> should not jump (or be
> encouraged by others to jump) to consider just one
> of the three as the
> context of their own genetic history. They should
> consider all three as
> possibilities and look for further evidence (DNA and
> non-DNA) which might
> point towards a particular solution.
> In the same way someone receiving R1b results cannot
> assume a "Celtic" or
> "Iberian" label without supporting evidence, we will
> perhaps soon see
> examples of R1b whose DNA trail is some distance
> from the "Atlantic"
> heartland.
> Gareth

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