RootsWeb: GENEALOGY-DNA-L Re: [DNA] Malaspina et al (2001)'s Cohens -- an answer ?

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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-04 > 1176786907

From: ellen Levy <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Malaspina et al (2001)'s Cohens -- an answer ?
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:15:07 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <462443FC.5080101@sbcglobal.net>

Al: I'm equally baffled by your response. What in the world is a "true" Cohanim? I think Bonnie did an excellent job dissecting the earlier Cohanim study, as well as adding her own observations from her own lay research on this issue. You yourself have performed such research and made such observations about haplogroup J. Are you observations and suggestions invalid because they have not yet been published by a geneticist? Are Steven Bird's observations and suggestions about E3b invalid because they are not published (or even contradict the studies out there)? How about Ken N's research on haplogroup I? Or William Hurst's mtDNA on haplogroup K? Are you saying that when you look at Ysearch for the CMH, you are finding primarily "Ashkenazi Jews" as opposed to "Cohanim"? Not everyone identifies their Jewish caste membership at Ysearch, Al. Occasionally, I see someone identify their ancestor on Ysearch as "Levite," but in reality, many Jews don't even identify their ancestor as "Ashkenazi" or "Sephardim." Many times, I try to deduce this from their surname. Only 3% of Yisrael, according to FTDNA, have the CMH. You allege that because some of the 81% of Cohanim from the early study are in haplogroup J, why not some in J2. I think Bonnie already dissected this possibility very thoroughly as well. I'd refer to her previous postings on this issue. More troubling is the continuing disregard for personal DNA results. My grandfather is J1. He is Cohanim. He matches many other Cohanim in J1 with the CMH-12, both Sephardim and Ashkenazim. I keep saying it because no one seems to hear it. But let's make it more of a reality for the list, OK? Since I have access to FTDNA's database on CMH matches and, furthermore, can contact my grandfather's matches (and there are quite a lot - over 150 exact 12 marker matches), I will simply write to matches about the allegations being made concerning whether they are "true" Cohanim (ie, please state your Cohanim tradition or surname), whether they have been SNP'd J1, whether they are of Ashkenazic or Sephardic descent (or none of the above), etc. I'll see who has expanded beyond 12 markers as well - someone recently suggested this to the group. Before that even happens, though, I'd like to see as many SNP'd as possible. For those who insist that the CMH isn't tied to the Cohanim caste, here's a quick list of some of the surnames from my genetic matches at FTDNA. I'll list only the ones that have obvious Cohanim connotations. There will obviously be many repeats and variations of the same surname. Here they are: Kahhan Colman Cohn cahn Kaplan Kaplan Cohen Kashner Cohen Cohn Kohl Cohen Conahim Katz Cohen Kolnick Katzman Carmen Koen Cohen Katz Conn Katzman Katzman Cohen Katzman Kaplan Cosman Katzman Krastman Katzman Katzman Cohen Carvin Genetic Distance of One Cohen Cohen Cohen Kahan Cohen Most of the other matches appears to be of Jewish ancestry judging from the surname. I'll try to determine which have Cohanim traditions and what everyone's SNP results look like. Ellen Coffman --- __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com