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From: Bonnie Schrack <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Samaritan Cohen are E3b1(M78) & DYS439
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:08:08 -0400


Hi Rebekah,

Thanks so much for sending the paper!

Yes, I have a copy of Shen, and you're right that it seems likely that
these are the same four lineages.

It states:

> The other three
> Samaritan lineages (M, Z, and D) carried the 12f2a-8
> kb allele and were members of haplogroup J. The Z and
> D lineages had the derived allele at M172 and, hence,
> were members of haplogroup J-M172. Lineage M was
> ancestral at M172 and was part of paragroup J∗ .

So, it was M that was J1, as I had thought, and D and Z are somewhere in
J2, one of them being M67+ if Shen's findings apply here, as they most
likely do.

The M lineage appears to be related to a large grouping that I'd call
Middle Eastern J1, which is widespread among most ethnic groups in the
Middle East and North Africa, such as Arabs, Turks, etc., but has not
been found among Jews to my knowledge. The 13-18 at 385a-b values are
modal, as far as I know, for this cluster, as are the others with two
exceptions: the 16 at 388, where the modal is 17, and the 10 at 439,
where the modal is 11. The 10 is a fairly uncommon value in the J
haplogroup, which distinguishes this lineage from others in the cluster.
In order to confirm whether this haplotype actually belongs to this
cluster, which has 22-22 at YCAII and is quite closely related to the
clusters of J1 in which there are many Jews, it would of course be
necessary to test a lot more markers.

In choosing which of the others is J2a1b, I'm leaning toward saying that
could be D, though it's very hard to tell. It's not that those
particular values are very common in J2a1b -- they aren't, but neither
do they fit any better in other clusters. What makes me lean that way is
that I'm excited about the possibility that Z could be related to the
cluster in J2a1* that I'm currently investigating. That cluster's
signature seems to be the 14-17 at 385a-b. This Samaritan lineage has an
unusual 12 at DYS426, which distinguishes them, as well as the 13 at
439, which isn't that rare. Also of course, a couple of families are
showing a RecLOH changing their values from 14-17 to 17-17. It's not a
slam-dunk, but still, close enough to intrigue me that they could be
related to this group which includes Cohanim.

I'm afraid all we can do is speculate, until maybe someone's extended
haplotype shows up in Ysearch, SMGF, or the FTDNA databases that really
matches one of these, which would provide a few better clues.

Bonnie




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