U6 mtDNA

Hi Bony, my maternal line is U6d3a (not same but close). There is a possibility that my maternal line would have come from Galicia/Bragança down to Murcia in the late 1500. Pereyra definitely qualifies for Sephardic, but if that is your mother's actual surname you need to try build a tree back. My line is early 1600 was Mendez García. I have been trying to find light on this North African Berber question. I have seen scientific tests on current populations from the north of Portugal that claim jewish descent and there is a variety of sub-claves. It is also true that Sephardic jews can a North-african Berber component. On the other side, Berber markers have left a mark in Galicia, Murcia, Almería and Extremadura, and it is expected to come from the muslim imprint in those areas. I am still debating, as you. I think that we need more tests among Spanish and North African population to get a better idea of the origin of those minority populations. Do you have matches in your MT test? I only have one match, with a Portuguese gentleman, with maternal ancestry in Bragança.

In the study" Echoes from Sepharad, signatures on the maternal gene-pool of crypto-jewish descendants", the most common MT group was H1. The few subclaves of U were: U2e1a1, U5a1a1, and one U6d. Those samples were taken in Argonzuelo, Bragança, Carçao, and Vilarinho dos Gallegos. Another way of expanding MT-results of possible sephardic descend are tests from people with roots in New Spain during colonial times. The sephardic presence in those populations is also important: they also show jewish sephardic markers in their autosomal tests.

Thank you Alejandra. I build a tree and I was able to go as far back to 1616 and that side of my family was from the area of between Monforte de Lemos and Castroverde.

I read there was an important Sephardic community in that area but who knows. The thing is my mtDNA is U6a3b which is identified more commonly as being Berber. But it also looks like whole Berber tribes were actually Jew.

Do you know the four mtDNA haplogroups Karen?

The information I found mentions 3 women with distinct haplogroup K signature. "Approximately 32% of people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry are in haplogroup K. This high percentage points to a genetic bottleneck occurring some 100 generations ago. Ashkenazi mtDNA K clusters into three subclades seldom found in non-Jews: K1a1b1a, K1a9, and K2a2a. Thus it is possible to detect three individual female ancestors, who were thought to be from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool, whose descendants lived in Europe." The 4th mtDNA line is N1b. This comes from a study done in 2006 by Behar et al., all the info about nucleotide positions and specific mutations are in the article. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380291/

what about Sephardim....which haplogroups are they?

I belong to u6a7a1b which is a Sephardic cluster. However, my maternal grandmother grew up in an Ashkenazi family.