Jews of Frankfurt DNA Project

15

JULY

2012

Germany

Genetics

The Jews of Frankfurt DNA Project is less than a year old.  It began when I realized how important it was for all Ashkenazi Jews who have tested their DNA to find DNA matches with others who have deep pedigrees. There are now some very large DNA clusters, some with as many as 200 people. Yet most of them do not have a single person who can trace their line back 18, 20, or even 24 generations. To find such a person is like finding the “holy grail” for an entire group of people!

Besides my interest in German Jewish genetic genealogy, Frankfurt was the ideal setting for my project because of their amazing records. Thanks to Schlomo Ettlinger, death records that go back to the 13th Century are available for all of the Jews of Frankfurt With this “ Ele Toldot” database,  it is relatively easy to create family trees from the time a family moved to Frankfurt until the early 18^th Century. In addition, the residents of Frankfurt often took the equivalent of a surname from the house they lived in. Many of these families lived in the same house for many generations. So not only did rabbinical families have surnames that could be traced to the 15^th century, but merchants and court Jews as well!

The goal of my project is to gather Y DNA for every family who lived in the Frankfurt, Mainz, Worms area who can trace their direct male “Y” line back to at least the 16^th Century.  To this end, I have build a database largely from these Ele Toldot records.  Once I have identified a living offspring of a one of these Frankfurt lines, I embark on the even more difficult task of contacting and convincing a complete stranger to  trust me enough to join my project.  As DNA tests are not free, I often have to find funding sources as well. In the past year I have managed to attract 36 members, about half of whom have been recruited using the above method.

I still have a long way to go before I will accomplish my goal of attaching haplogroups to every Frankfurt family. We have DNA for the rabbinical lines of Heilbronn / Halpern, Bacharach, Weil and Treves. We have the DNA for Jewish court Jews, most notably the Wertheimers and the Oppenheimers.  In addition we have the DNA of  a Guggenheim, Beyfus (Scheuer), Rindskopf , Fuld/Fulda, Treves and Bamberger family who can all trace their origins to Frankfurt. In my presentation I will present my amazing findings on all of these families. I also will explain how DNA can be a wonderful tool in your own research and suggest that others who have access to similar records might start this kind of project. As the Jews of Frankfurt were extremely mobile, it is likely that the DNA of the people in my project will also represent both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews worldwide!

Although it would be helpful to have a rudimentary understanding of how a Y DNA test works, it is not necessary. I will try to briefly explain relevant DNA terms and will entertain DNA related questions. But I hope to keep these to a minimum.  

CGV