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Jewish ancestry?

I am interested in seeing if I have any Jewish ancestry. I don't have a Jewish surname, and I don't think my grandparents do (my grandmother's maiden names are Tillen and Waterton). I say jewish ancestry because htere's always been an in joke in my family about my nan on my dad's side being Jewish - just in her mannerisms and some of her features, please don't think i'm being antisemitic or something here, I am well aware there is a lot of diveristy among jews, but she could definitely be Ashkenazi. If you were to see a picture of her you would see this. She's had a DNA test with MyHeritage and there's nothing that mentiuons "Jewish", it has basically every other ethnicity on there but jewish - it does say Eastern European/Balkan and Iberian, could this include eastern european/ashkenazi jewry or shepardic jewry? I've had a DNA test with Ancestry and nothing about jewish, moslty homogenous tothe british isles apart from some scandinavian ancestry,a nd looking further through cousins there are a few from Germany, Croatia and Poland. My grandparents were both born in the East End of London in the 30s and early 40s when there was obviously a very sizeable Jewish population. My nan on my mum's side looks less Ashkenazi, but she does have osme features. Not sure if its relevant but my nan's daughter, my aunt, has naturally curly hair, dark eyes, my dad also originally had dark black hair and black/brown eyes - correct me if I am wrong, but these features can often be found in Jews? Perosnally, I have blue eyes and dark brown hair, but I know Jews who look basically Nordic with blue eyes and blonde hair. I don't believe any of their surnames are jewish, though my nan on my mother's side is called "Joan", which is Hebrew, but it's quite widely used outside of jewish communities? Any idea on how I can find out more about this? My nan on my mum's side is dead and my other nan doesn't really talk about it, probably because if she was jewish, she'd most likely be a self-hating jew, my grandad could be quite antisemitic sometimes. When I ask people what I look like, most of them actually say Russian or Eastern European.
Reply 1
Whilst your quest to know if you have any jews in the family is umm interesting, why is this news worthy?
Reply 2
Original post by Napp
Whilst your quest to know if you have any jews in the family is umm interesting, why is this news worthy?

Blame TSR for selecting the wrong forum lol
Original post by fenton484
I am interested in seeing if I have any Jewish ancestry. I don't have a Jewish surname, and I don't think my grandparents do (my grandmother's maiden names are Tillen and Waterton). I say jewish ancestry because htere's always been an in joke in my family about my nan on my dad's side being Jewish - just in her mannerisms and some of her features, please don't think i'm being antisemitic or something here, I am well aware there is a lot of diveristy among jews, but she could definitely be Ashkenazi. If you were to see a picture of her you would see this. She's had a DNA test with MyHeritage and there's nothing that mentiuons "Jewish", it has basically every other ethnicity on there but jewish - it does say Eastern European/Balkan and Iberian, could this include eastern european/ashkenazi jewry or shepardic jewry? I've had a DNA test with Ancestry and nothing about jewish, moslty homogenous tothe british isles apart from some scandinavian ancestry,a nd looking further through cousins there are a few from Germany, Croatia and Poland. My grandparents were both born in the East End of London in the 30s and early 40s when there was obviously a very sizeable Jewish population. My nan on my mum's side looks less Ashkenazi, but she does have osme features. Not sure if its relevant but my nan's daughter, my aunt, has naturally curly hair, dark eyes, my dad also originally had dark black hair and black/brown eyes - correct me if I am wrong, but these features can often be found in Jews? Perosnally, I have blue eyes and dark brown hair, but I know Jews who look basically Nordic with blue eyes and blonde hair. I don't believe any of their surnames are jewish, though my nan on my mother's side is called "Joan", which is Hebrew, but it's quite widely used outside of jewish communities? Any idea on how I can find out more about this? My nan on my mum's side is dead and my other nan doesn't really talk about it, probably because if she was jewish, she'd most likely be a self-hating jew, my grandad could be quite antisemitic sometimes. When I ask people what I look like, most of them actually say Russian or Eastern European.

You and your grandmother have both completed DNA tests with seemingly no mention of Jewish ancestry, I don't think you're going to get much further in your search for answers by telling unqualified strangers on the internet about your family's hair and facial features.
From what I know, Ashkenazis have very distinct DNA markers so it is quite easy to show if someone has Ashkenazi ancestry or not. I have no experience with Ancestry, but 23andMe has a specific category for Ashkenazi, which is distinct from Eastern European.

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