20
votes
Accepted
Why are 99% of my Ashkenazi DNA matches not in the Middle East or Central Asia?
I think the answer is simply that these DNA testing companies are all American companies and have primarily targeted the American, European, and Australian markets. I suspect they have a comparatively ...
- 18.5k
10
votes
Is there such a thing as Ashkenazi Jewish surnames?
Ashkenazi Surnames really only came about in the early 1800s actually. The Jews of Western Europe (Germany, France, and England etc) took surnames sooner than their coreligionists in Eastern Europe. ...
- 161
9
votes
Accepted
Identifying 1910 Russian Town Name "Swel"
I think it is Новоград-Волинський, which is transliterated as Novohrad-Volyns'kyi, Novograd-Volinskiy, etc. and is also known as Zhvil, Zvil, etc. This is in the Zhytomyr Oblast in northern Ukraine. ...
- 1,961
8
votes
Seeking list of Jewish Cemeteries in the USA
Your best bet is to check the International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies: IAJGS International Jewish Cemetery Project.
On their United States Page, they have almost 1400 Jewish burial ...
- 16.5k
7
votes
Why are 99% of my Ashkenazi DNA matches not in the Middle East or Central Asia?
You could try MyHeritage DNA. They are the DNA Branch of MyHeritage based in Israel, and they have a larger portion of European and Middle East customers than the other DNA testing companies.
They ...
- 16.5k
7
votes
Accepted
Is there such a thing as Ashkenazi Jewish surnames?
I am not an expert, but am adding my humble bits to the answer:
There is no such thing as a jewish surname, indeed.
First of all a surname itself is not a jewish thing. Jews are not indetified by ...
- 413
7
votes
Accepted
How to interpret my having ethnicities inconsistent with my parents?
Unfortunately, the DNA companies imply way more accuracy to their estimates by including percentages to one decimal point. Let me rephrase your results as they should have been stated:
My father is ...
- 16.5k
6
votes
Finding half-sister who may still be living?
If your father lived in New York, there may be limits on how much information you have access to because of privacy restrictions. I think this is a case where you will be much better off hiring a ...
- 24.4k
6
votes
Cantonist Records
These notations should appear on Russian Empire Revision Lists (which were kind of like census lists). That is, if a son was present in the 9th Revision List but not the 10th, the 10th would say that ...
- 1,860
6
votes
What Polish village is named in this document?
I think it might be Sudlikov. There's a Sudilkov, Ukraine, which gets more matches on Google (see http://grossmanproject.net/sudilkov_jewish_history.htm). But Sudlikov shows up too (eg http://www....
- 1,226
6
votes
Accepted
Is longest cM a better predictor of relatedness than total cM for Ashkenazi Jews?
The results from this Ashkenazic Shared DNA Survey should be of interest to you:
https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/05/ashkenazic-shared-dna-survey-data-by.html?m=1
That 57.4 cM longest match ...
- 835
6
votes
Why would I match someone in a region neither of my parents do?
What I see often said is that any matching segments under 5 cM, if not under 7 cM, are more likely to be identical by chance rather than by descent, and should usually be disregarded as noise.
A ...
- 981
6
votes
Accepted
How to interpret this19th century Ukrainian Jewish birth index result?
The normal way that JewishGen represents Ukrainian birth records is like this:
where in the second column, the top box contains the father's name (Ber) above the father's father's name (Perel). So ...
- 16.5k
5
votes
Accepted
What Polish village is named in this document?
A good resource is The Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and other Slavic Countries
Looking for names similar to Soodlikov, one finds Sudilowka on p 550 of volume XI which tells one to ...
- 778
5
votes
Accepted
Finding half-sister who may still be living?
Bad news: you very likely can't get access to a NYC birth certificate from someone who is not your parent from the 1943-1947 time period.
Good news: you can check the NYC birth index and confirm that ...
- 1,860
5
votes
Accepted
Slovakia, Bratislava, Reca - Jewish records
This is a stub of an answer which will be added to as I find more resources. I'll write out a Research Plan to give you some ideas. You may have done a lot of this already, and if you have, feel ...
- 24.4k
5
votes
Interpreting DNA matches from endogamous communities?
Those are very close matches, even for an endogamous population.
A match of 824.7 cM for your mother with him would normally indicate (in a non-endogamous population) that she might be his great-...
- 16.5k
5
votes
What Exactly are the "Jewish Records" on Ancestry.com?
The JewishGen collection search page has a banner at the top which describes the special collection:
See the Ancestry blog's post, New Jewish Family History Collection on Ancestry.com (Posted by ...
- 24.4k
5
votes
British citizens in Morocco 19th century?
If he was indeed a British citizen then any marriage might (but might not) have been registered with the local British consulate in which case you ought to find the marriage in the consular marriage ...
- 4,333
4
votes
Ancestors in Lemberg (Lviv) and Czyczkow/y
The good news is that over 100,000 Jewish birth, marriage, and death records from Lviv (Lwow, Lemberg) have been transcribed and put online for free searching in Gesher Galicia's All Galicia Database:
...
- 1,860
4
votes
Place of birth listed on immigration docs but where in Russia is Kosnitza/Kosnitze?
It was likely Velikaya Kosnitsa. It had sizeable Jewish population in the beginning of XX century:
http://www.jewishgen.org/ukraine/GEO_town.asp?id=313
Here is some additional info about it (Russian ...
- 481
4
votes
Accepted
Is there a list of interned in 2-4 Rosenstrasse?
In looking for the answer to this I saw noted several times that there is not a ton of documentation of the Rosenstrasse / Rosenstraße event that survived the war and there is limited resources that ...
- 5,531
4
votes
Find Austrian vital records?
Try http://www.jewishgen.org/AustriaCzech/ausguide.htm, easily findable via Google.
- 1,226
3
votes
Interpreting DNA test that shows mother was 1/3 Jewish?
According to Jewish religious law, a person is Jewish if either their mother is Jewish, or if they convert to Judiasm.
If your mother is not 100% Jewish, then you need to know if her mother (your ...
- 16.5k
3
votes
Did any of the descendants of Rabbi Ascher ben Jechiel take "Rosch" as a surname?
You are making a wrong assumption, in my understanding.
Rabbi Asher's surname was not "Rosh" - it is simply an acronym of his name (his letter abbreviations make sense only in Hebrew). It's like ...
- 413
3
votes
Is surname Judah/Juddah Jewish?
To provide an answer here I am going to use quotes from two comments on your question.
From @Gary:
There's a great book by Dan Rottenberg called "Finding Our Fathers-A
Guidebook to Jewish ...
- 11k
3
votes
Searching for Proof of Jewish Ancestry?
There's no easy shortcut, so you're going to have to do your family tree the old-fashioned way first. Then add in DNA and see if you can get confirmation, or not.
From what countries did your mother'...
- 1,860
3
votes
Accepted
Searching for Proof of Jewish Ancestry?
You are the perfect candidate for a DNA test. I would recommend FamilyTreeDNA because they have a large number of Jewish testers and allow more detailed analysis of your matches.
From the autosomal ...
- 16.5k
3
votes
Find Austrian vital records?
You will find the birth records in the registers of the confessional institution since he was born before 1938 (the registration authorities started their work in 1938 in Austria afaik, see e.g. for ...
3
votes
Slovakia, Bratislava, Reca - Jewish records
Searching on JewishGen is not the same thing as asking questions on the (free) e-mail mailing lists of JewishGen. Researchers on the lists may know about sources that no one has bothered to ...
- 1,860
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible