January 23, 2006--Aunts Bertha, Tanna, Fannie, and Gussie
As an Ashkenazi Jew (Jews who descended from communities in Central or Northern Europe), I was not at all surprised to learn from a piece in the NY Times (see link below) that recent research reveals that at least half of us (4.0 of 8.0 million) are direct descendents of just four women who accompanied their husbands (assuming they were in fact married, if you know what I mean) a few thousand years ago when they left the Middle East for points north and west.
You see, if you, like I, grew up with Aunt Bertha, Aunt Tanna, Aunt Fannie, and Aunt Gussie, you would have known all along that all eight million actually descended from the four of them. So it was no surprise to find scientists using the latest DNA evidence coming to the same conclusion.
But for those of you of a more scientific bent I have linked below the matrilineal ancestral tree that shows how prolific these original aunts were; and also, here, I want to give you a flavor of the study itself, published online last week in The American Journal of Human Genetics:
We initially generated a maximum parsimony tree of 121 complete mtDNA sequences belonging to Hg K. The tree encompassed 28 novel and 93 previously reported mtDNAs (fig. 1 and table 3). The sequencing procedure and phylogeny construction were performed as described in appendix A. Of the 28 novel samples, 13 were from Ashkenazi Jews, and 15 were selected from non-Ashkenazi Jews and non-Jewish Near Eastern populations. Samples for complete mtDNA sequencing were chosen to include the widest possible range of Hg K internal variation, on the basis of sequence analysis of the mtDNA control region.
This is obviously an incredible piece of research, but if they had only come to one of our Passover dinners, even just for the Second Seder, they could have saved themselves a lot of work and been able to deploy their scant research money for other, more important purposes.
For example, to do a double-blind study comparing Tanna's and Gussie's Matzoh Ball recipes.
You see, if you, like I, grew up with Aunt Bertha, Aunt Tanna, Aunt Fannie, and Aunt Gussie, you would have known all along that all eight million actually descended from the four of them. So it was no surprise to find scientists using the latest DNA evidence coming to the same conclusion.
But for those of you of a more scientific bent I have linked below the matrilineal ancestral tree that shows how prolific these original aunts were; and also, here, I want to give you a flavor of the study itself, published online last week in The American Journal of Human Genetics:
We initially generated a maximum parsimony tree of 121 complete mtDNA sequences belonging to Hg K. The tree encompassed 28 novel and 93 previously reported mtDNAs (fig. 1 and table 3). The sequencing procedure and phylogeny construction were performed as described in appendix A. Of the 28 novel samples, 13 were from Ashkenazi Jews, and 15 were selected from non-Ashkenazi Jews and non-Jewish Near Eastern populations. Samples for complete mtDNA sequencing were chosen to include the widest possible range of Hg K internal variation, on the basis of sequence analysis of the mtDNA control region.
This is obviously an incredible piece of research, but if they had only come to one of our Passover dinners, even just for the Second Seder, they could have saved themselves a lot of work and been able to deploy their scant research money for other, more important purposes.
For example, to do a double-blind study comparing Tanna's and Gussie's Matzoh Ball recipes.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:22 AM
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