Iberian Ashkenaz mtDNA Project- Background

Administrators

Surnames

Alomar, Alvarez, Andrade, Barbara, Bareas, Bascunan, Borg, Brandenburg, Brosgol, Brosogold, Brozgol, Brozgold, Calado, Campos, Canfora, Carrasco, Chavez, Coelho, Colon, Colthorpe, Custodia, da Silva, Dane, Davis, Dawson, de Freitas, de Lira, de Oliveira, Delgado, Diaz, do Lado, do Rosario, Duran, Eskenasi, Ferreira, Ferrel, Foreman, Forman, Frey, Genet, Gist, Goldina, Goldschmidt, Gonzales, Gonzalez, Graham, Hale, Hassan, Henkelmann, Henry, Hinojosa, Horeau, Iberian, Jacobs, Jacobson, Jales, Johannes, Kadosh, Kohler, Laufer, Launay, Lavrischeff, Lee, Lima, Lopes, Lourdon, Lucero, Lugo, Lynch, Marques, Marten, Matamala, Melendez, Mighel, Miransky, Moreno, Myers, Nunes, Oliveira, Ortiz, Owen, Pabon, Pastorkovich, Perez, Perna, Ponce, Presber, Prince, Rains, Rapoport, Rappaport, Rau, Roberz, Rodrigues, Rodriguez, Rosa, Roussel, Saldias, Sanchez, Schlussel, Sephardic, Serna, Shephard, Shoer, Simerson, Soares, Srubisky, Stecher, Steinman, Stewart, Still, Takigawa, Tucker, Turchin, Vargas, Williams, Wolinsky, Yurfest, Zermeno

Background

There are Ashkenazi families in Eastern, Western, Northern and Central Europe who have Spanish or Portuguese surnames, an oral history of having Sephardic ancestors, or some other indicator of Sephardic heritage such as a particular custom or being a carrier of a genetic disease found mostly in the Mediterranean. Often their Sephardic ancestry has not been verifiable through archival records. We would like to find out if DNA analysis provides support of a Sephardic ancestry among some Ashkenazi Jews.