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From: Bonnie Schrack <>
Subject: [DNA] Malaspina et al (2001)'s Cohens -- an answer ?
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 17:16:00 -0400


Oh dear, I'll never get my taxes done if I keep responding to this
thread. . . but I so much appreciate your intelligent contribution,
James. You wrote:

>Looks like I've been missing all the fun over the last few days!
>
>One thing Bonnie Schrack wrote (13/04/2007, 16:17) was:
>
>
>>>
>>> The J2 group who *do* have a Cohen religious tradition and are proud of
>>> it, are *NOT* *in J2a1b*, and *do not have the 6-marker or any other
>>> CMH*. They belong to a unique, small offshoot of J2a1* which I believe
>>> to be a predecessor of the J2a1k clade. They may be seen in the
>>> category in our test results chart labeled, "Pre-J2a1k." I will not go
>>> into the technical explanation at this moment, but it's very
>>> interesting. There are a good number of Ashkenazi Jewish members of
>>> this cluster, who have a well-organized project of their own, and so
>>> they have not all joined our J haplogroup project. ( Note that one of
>>> our members listed here is from India, and is Christian. He is a
>>> descendent of ancient Jewish settlers on the Malabar coast of Kerala.)
>>
>>
>
>So, this group appears to have an average haplotype
>
>393 - 12
>390 - 23
>19 - 15
>391 - 10
>385a - 14
>385b - 17
>426 - 11
>388 - 15
>439 - 12
>389i - 13
>392 - 11
>389ii - 29
>
>which is a 4/6 match for the original CMH-6
>
>
>Do we think this explains the results of Malaspina et al (2001) ?
>
>
>>> typing a limited number of Italian Cohanim (A. Novelletto unpublished obs.) for the STRs used here, we determined that the Cohen Modal Haplotype ('an important component in the sharing of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Israelite Y chromosomes', Thomas et al. 2000) does indeed belong to network 1.2"
>>
>>
>
>(ie the population having DYS413a,b <= 18, the signature of the J2a1
>subclades).
>http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1469-1809.2001.6540339.x
>
>They only typed 388, 390, 392, 393 of the CMH-6, so would have seen
>presumably at least a 3/4 match, if they were from the subclade above,
>with only 388 not matching.
>
>So, not unreasonable for them to think they were dealing with the main
>CMH population.
>
>

I'm delighted that you've come along to finally explain to us about this
Italian cluster of Cohanim who were found to be J2. I've heard of them
for some time, but no one explained where we could read about them, and
what the details were.

I can't take the considerable amount of time right now that would be
required to respond usefully to Sasson's last long posting. But I was
looking into the Cohanim question last night, and downloaded the
original data for one of the classic studies, Origins of Old Testament
Priests, by Thomas et al, Nature, vol. 394, 9 Jul 1998.

It's rather fascinating data. It showed that of 106 Cohanim studied
(total of Ashkenazi and Sephardic), 54 had the 6-marker CMH, or 50.9%.
The rest were scattered in very small numbers over a lot of other
haplotypes. I will have to spend more time later to confirm the exact
haplogroups signified by the categories they used in that early study,
but from what I can tell, 1 Sephardic Cohen was somewhere in E (likely
E3b), and in the R macrohaplogroup (probably R1b, but could also include
R1a) there were 2 Ashkenazi and 6 Sephardic Cohanim. The rest were in a
large polyphyletic group, that is, made up of more than one
haplogroup. But it looks like perhaps 8 or 9 of the Cohanim might
possibly be in non-J haplogroups within that larger group (outside of E
and R) -- and as I said, this is only a report of my work in progress to
decipher the data.

So then, among the scattered haplotypes which a few Cohanim had, there
were some that did look like J, but were not the "CMH." Most of these
were singletons, but there were a few small clusters. Now here's the
good part! Although the group we've just discussed, which has this
haplotype,

>393 - 12
>390 - 23
>19 - 15
>391 - 10
>385a - 14
>385b - 17
>426 - 11
>388 - 15
>439 - 12
>389i - 13
>392 - 11
>389ii - 29
>
was present, there was only 1 Ashenkenazi Cohen in it (and one
Israelite, or non-priest). However! There was a cluster I had not seen
before, as well. This cluster had 6 Sephardic Cohanim in it. Its
haplotype, in this paper by Thomas, et al, is:
393 - 12
390 - 23
19 - 15
391 - 10
388 - 16

So, if that group were typed for only four markers, not including DYS19
-- as you say was done in the Malaspina study -- this group would look*
identical* to the CMH group.

I looked into this immediately on Ysearch. What I found kept me up
considerably later than was wise, so that I missed most of our church
service this morning. This cluster does exist on Ysearch, and three of
its members have the surname of Cohen, a pretty good indication that
they do have a Cohen tradition! If I had to explain why I hadn't
noticed it before, one reason might be because most of them have only
tested 12 markers. Only one of them, XY765, has tested even 25 markers!

There are nine of them at my count, and here's their haplotype compared
to the larger group that I was already aware of:
____"Pre-J2a1k"____"New" J2 Cohen cluster
393 - 12 - 12
390 - 23 - 23
19 - 15 - 15
391 - 10 - 10
385a - 14 - 14
385b - 17 - 17
426 - 11 - 11
388 - 15 - 16
439 - 12 - 12
389i - 13 - 14
392 - 11 - 11
389ii - 29 - 30

As you know, the change from 13-29 to 14-30 at DYS389I-II is really only
a one-step mutation. With only two steps of genetic distance between
these groups' modal haplotypes, I have little doubt that they're
related, especially as they share the distinctive 14-17 at 385a-b.

On Ysearch, I think two members of this newly discovered cluster are
listed as J2, and the others as Unknown.

Of course, now we'll need members of this group to join the J haplogroup
project and help us learn a lot more about this. We'll need to test a
number of markers, 37 to start with, plus DYS445, to see whether they
are indeed part of the same Pre-J2a1k cluster. And of course they
should be SNP-tested.

So, at long last, we have a very good explanation of why that small
sample of Italian Cohanim would have seemed to have the CMH and be in J2
at the same time. A breakthrough! :-)

>Of course, I suppose we don't know for sure what other mini-clusters of
>Cohens there might be in J2a1, that just statistically haven't yet shown
>up in what little data there is that is openly publicly accessible.
>
Well, to my mind the data in Ysearch and in FTDNA projects is a huge
amount, much more than what has been available in any scientific
studies. Jews are very strongly represented in this data, though not
nearly as many Sephardim as there are Ashkenazim. I think a lot can be
done with it. Most people who voluntarily share their DNA test results
are also willing to tell whether they are Cohanim or not, so this
information is not really so inaccessible and secret. Others may not
agree, but I think as time goes on, the published findings will bear out
what I'm describing. I would be surprised if there would be any other
unrelated Cohen clusters of any size in J2, as I've searched up and down
and asked questions of key people, but I've certainly been surprised
before, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Bonnie

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