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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2002-10 > 1033868686


From: "Annie, The WritingTeacher" <>
Subject: [DNA] Re: GENEALOGY-DNA-D Digest V02 #422
Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2002 18:44:53 -0700


The article in Signals at a this Website:
http://www.signalsmag.com/signalsmag.nsf/657b06742b5748e888256570005cba01/799c47cdcd7a924788256609004e0503?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,jewish
Can anyone explain why genes are almost always visible in any population
after "2,000 years of mixing" with other populations? What are the markers
being looked at that make the genes identifyable? What about similar tests
for women's mtDNA or other?

I was told that chromosome 23 is what is looked at when you are seeking how
much percentage of African or Asian or European genes a person has and which
side he or she has inherited those genes from. Does anyone know how this
test is done and who does it besides Dr. Frudakis's group? I'd like to find
out how many African or Asian genes I might have, or any other genes of
various continents. I have a long male relative line of Sephardim (Tawil
family) from Aleppo and Alexandria on my dad's father's mother's side. My
female relatives line would probably show European genes. You never know.

Here's an excerpt from the article from Signals I found interesting:

The Race Is On

That scenario may be farfetched. But what one can say with more certainty
and immediacy is that the SNP-discovery race resurrects the troubling
question of race. There is no question that intermarriage, immigration,
assimilation have blurred what may once have been more well-defined racial
and ethnic boundaries. Yet, genetically, these terms appear to still be
valid. In studies of Jews, for example (among all ethnic groups Jewish genes
are among the world's most studied), despite the nearly 2,000 years during
which that originally Semitic people has been mixing with European stock,
Jews of diverse European backgrounds are still genetically identifiable.
Modern genetic techniques have already demonstrated terrific similarities in
the Y-chromosomes of most Jewish men whose last name is Cohn or Cohen or
Kahn, for example, presumably owing to their shared ancestry. And for its
SNPs-identification project, the NHGRI has set out to collect DNA samples
from significant numbers of Asians, Europeans, Africans, and Native
Americans, thus implicitly endorsing the concept of race.

What about the name Mizrahi, deSola, and Tawil? These all came from the
Levant (Aleppo and/or Alexandria) at one point and married women from the
Black Sea ports. What kind of test can I take to find out what percentage
African (or Asian) I might be? (I don't tan and have freckles and green
eyes)...You never know. My kids are lighter than I am and my cousins are
darker.

Just wonderin'

Annie


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