About us
In Bohemia, surnames were generally adopted by Jewish families in 1788. Prior to that names were most frequently based on patronymics. The number of Jewish families, their occupations & residences, and in particular the right to marry, was heavily restricted until the 1840s. The total number of Jewish households in Bohemia in around 1800 was in the order of 10000, and the majority lived in small communities with not more than 100 families. As a result, parents of any child were often related.
Family Finder gives estimates of the number of close relatives for descendants of Bohemian Jews that are often far too high - e.g giving hundreds of predicted "Close relatives", of which very few could even be possible when known genealogies are compared. Intermarriage is likely to lead to living descendants with DNA segments, albeit maybe short length, inherited from ancestors many generations back. The net result is that it is very difficult to utilize Gedmatch or Family Finder databases.
Over the last years, Bohemian Jewish descendants have made a great effort to work together on the collaborative Geni Tree (www.geni.com). One result of this is that it has become possible to follow maternal lines, as one can merge one's tree with that of another researcher who happens to include a member of your own maternal line.
Further, there has been an effort to create Geni Tree projects based on Jewish communities, and to link families to those places, and conversely link places to families.
Anyone with Jewish Bohemian ancestry who has taken autosomal DNA tests is welcome to join this group. As are those with male-line or female-line Jewish Bohemian ancestry with Y-DNA or mtDNA test results.
The project is focused on Bohemia, but testers with Jewish ancestors in Moravia and Austria that could have Bohemian connections are also welcome.
The project is focused on Bohemia, but testers with Jewish ancestors in Moravia and Austria that could have Bohemian connections are also welcome.