Jewish people, I have a question for you...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where was your family during WWII?

The US.

Can you give more background on when both sets of grandparents immigrated?

is it possible you were adopted?

In the 30s, I think. They went to Pittsburgh, where the neighborhoods were ethnically separated then, so they were living in communities of Czech and Polish people.

I really don't know. No, I'm not adopted. I have two siblings and we all look similar. I have features from both parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why did you report posts on the other thread that told you that is possible, and then the one saying nobody is 99% Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.
I mean sure, you could be, if they immigrated recently a everyone married only Ashkenazi Jews, but since you just found this out, what are the chances of that?
Your mom and dad are both unaware and both married the same DNA people?
And so did your grandparents? So, completely unaware of their background and yet here you are?
Logically, this is not possible.

Well I think it’s possible because assimilation and hiding a Jewish background was more common than you’d think in the 1900s. But probably there’d be some family stories about it.

It's possible. But the odds that both of OP's parents were from families that hid their very Jewish heritage is small. OP, another sad possibility (if your post is real) is that you are the product of incest.

Why would it be small? They would be biased toward being naturally attracted to each other due to their similar background.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why did you report posts on the other thread that told you that is possible, and then the one saying nobody is 99% Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.
I mean sure, you could be, if they immigrated recently a everyone married only Ashkenazi Jews, but since you just found this out, what are the chances of that?
Your mom and dad are both unaware and both married the same DNA people?
And so did your grandparents? So, completely unaware of their background and yet here you are?
Logically, this is not possible.

Well I think it’s possible because assimilation and hiding a Jewish background was more common than you’d think in the 1900s. But probably there’d be some family stories about it.

It's possible. But the odds that both of OP's parents were from families that hid their very Jewish heritage is small. OP, another sad possibility (if your post is real) is that you are the product of incest.

Now there's a twist!

My parents were identical twins. That’s why I look so much alike.

(That PP was ignorant and nasty, though.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did you report posts on the other thread that told you that is possible, and then the one saying nobody is 99% Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.
I mean sure, you could be, if they immigrated recently a everyone married only Ashkenazi Jews, but since you just found this out, what are the chances of that?
Your mom and dad are both unaware and both married the same DNA people?
And so did your grandparents? So, completely unaware of their background and yet here you are?
Logically, this is not possible.

Narrator: op is adopted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where was your family during WWII?

The US.

Can you give more background on when both sets of grandparents immigrated?

is it possible you were adopted?

In the 30s, I think. They went to Pittsburgh, where the neighborhoods were ethnically separated then, so they were living in communities of Czech and Polish people.

I really don't know. No, I'm not adopted. I have two siblings and we all look similar. I have features from both parents.

it’s unlikely they came in the 30s because that was after restrictive immigration caps took effect. Can you get any more detail on when they arrived? how old were they when your parents were born? When were your parents born?

[Anonymous]

OP - please don't listen to these people claiming it's unlikely for anyone to have 99 percent Ashkenazi DNA and maybe there was incest. Ashkenazi Jews are an historically endogamous population for a variety of reasons. It is therefore very common to be 99 percent AJ.

The part that's surprising is that your family never mentioned being Jewish. It is unusual that both your parents came from families that hid their Jewishness, but it's certainly not impossible. Is there any chance you were adopted? Do you have others in your family who would be willing to take a DNA test?

Anyway, welcome to the tribe! You are Jewish by ancestry and can embrace it spiritually and culturally as much as you choose. Best wishes on your journey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where was your family during WWII?

The US.

Can you give more background on when both sets of grandparents immigrated?

is it possible you were adopted?

In the 30s, I think. They went to Pittsburgh, where the neighborhoods were ethnically separated then, so they were living in communities of Czech and Polish people.

I really don't know. No, I'm not adopted. I have two siblings and we all look similar. I have features from both parents.

OK. So here are some ideas.

You can probably find them in the 1940 Census.

Some men in the family might have draft cards for WWII. Their birthplaces might be on those.

If they were not citizens or naturalized, they may have registered as "aliens" in the WWII time frame. Lara Diamond's blog has an entry about this that's very recent. You can search names for free and pay to order the full images of the forms from Nat'l Archives.

Social Security applications and marriage licenses for children sometimes give birthplaces. Ancestry.com has some of that info.

Once you find their home villages, then you look for Jewish community records there. There may even be censuses. Possible online sources include FamilySearch, Ancestry, or MyHeritage.

If you know their Catholic parishes, there might possibly be records of when they first participated. Things like baptisms and confirmations may be maintained records. For that, you might need to contact the congregation or the diocese.

So then you work the gaps to see if you can figure out more about when they converted.

Knowing Pittsburgh (I grew up there), if they weren't in a Jewish neighborhood before WW2, it might have been a good idea to blend in a bit. And a lot of community life there used to be highly organized around parishes. So if you wanted to hang out with people who shared your accent and approximate regional origin, it might have been fairly advisable to join the church to fit in.

[Anonymous]

DP

OP - Do you have any corroborating evidence that the DNA tests were accurate? Did any of your other siblings have similar results or did you also do other DNA testing that confirmed through the other main company (23 & Me plus ancestry.com)

I am skeptical that your 99% Ashkenazi Jewish descent results are accurate given that neither side of your family claims any Jewish connections.

I would definitely want this result corroborated by siblings or the other DNA testing company

However, if it is accurate you may wish to get tested for carrying genes that greatly increase your risk for developing certain types of cancer. People of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, are known to have a higher risk of certain cancers due to genetic mutations, particularly in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which significantly increase the likelihood of developing breast, ovarian, and sometimes prostate cancer. This is linked to their unique genetic history stemming from a relatively isolated population in Eastern Europe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jewish law doesn’t address DNA, as far as I know. Do a genealogy search to see who your ancestors were. If your mother is Jewish, whether or not a “practicing” Jew, you are Jewish under Jewish law.

So is being Jewish an ethnicity, not a faith?

[Anonymous]

Those who are upset about the suggestion of incest should realize how often Dna tests are showing it...here is a study where 1 in 7000 people in a DNA bank had parents who were siblings or parent and child. https://hcn.health/hcn-trends-story/consumer-dna-tests-uncover-hidden-epidemic-of-incest/ and there's a paywalled Atlantic story from earlier this year on the same topic. the odds of that vs two secret Ashkenazi Jews finding each other and having kids don't seem that different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jewish law doesn’t address DNA, as far as I know. Do a genealogy search to see who your ancestors were. If your mother is Jewish, whether or not a “practicing” Jew, you are Jewish under Jewish law.

So is being Jewish an ethnicity, not a faith?

21:42?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those who are upset about the suggestion of incest should realize how often Dna tests are showing it...here is a study where 1 in 7000 people in a DNA bank had parents who were siblings or parent and child. https://hcn.health/hcn-trends-story/consumer-dna-tests-uncover-hidden-epidemic-of-incest/ and there's a paywalled Atlantic story from earlier this year on the same topic. the odds of that vs two secret Ashkenazi Jews finding each other and having kids don't seem that different.

People who get their DNA done are not a random population sample. Many are people looking for answers. Anyway a few people here have chimed in to say that they have the same high percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish DNA.

There is no reason for you to keep insisting that there is a traumatic explanation. If so, OP will learn from further research. This post is in the Religion forum.

It's not weird at all for people from a common ethnic origin to have lived in the same small neighborhood in the first half of the 1900s. In my family's ethnicity, men got mail order brides from the homeland.

Also, in some global cultures, it's okay for uncles to marry nieces and more tolerated for first cousins to marry. Like European royalty (Queen Victoria). It wasn't considered incest. So there's that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those who are upset about the suggestion of incest should realize how often Dna tests are showing it...here is a study where 1 in 7000 people in a DNA bank had parents who were siblings or parent and child. https://hcn.health/hcn-trends-story/consumer-dna-tests-uncover-hidden-epidemic-of-incest/ and there's a paywalled Atlantic story from earlier this year on the same topic. the odds of that vs two secret Ashkenazi Jews finding each other and having kids don't seem that different.

People who get their DNA done are not a random population sample. Many are people looking for answers. Anyway a few people here have chimed in to say that they have the same high percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish DNA.

There is no reason for you to keep insisting that there is a traumatic explanation. If so, OP will learn from further research. This post is in the Religion forum.

It's not weird at all for people from a common ethnic origin to have lived in the same small neighborhood in the first half of the 1900s. In my family's ethnicity, men got mail order brides from the homeland.

Also, in some global cultures, it's okay for uncles to marry nieces and more tolerated for first cousins to marry. Like European royalty (Queen Victoria). It wasn't considered incest. So there's that.

It's very common for people of the same background to marry but it's very uncommon for people concealing the same background to find each other and marry.
It's very common for people whose parents are both Ashekenazi Jews to have 90% or more Ashkenazi DNA but it's very uncommon for someone who never knew they had Jewish heritage to have that high a percentage of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those who are upset about the suggestion of incest should realize how often Dna tests are showing it...here is a study where 1 in 7000 people in a DNA bank had parents who were siblings or parent and child. https://hcn.health/hcn-trends-story/consumer-dna-tests-uncover-hidden-epidemic-of-incest/ and there's a paywalled Atlantic story from earlier this year on the same topic. the odds of that vs two secret Ashkenazi Jews finding each other and having kids don't seem that different.

People who get their DNA done are not a random population sample. Many are people looking for answers. Anyway a few people here have chimed in to say that they have the same high percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish DNA.

There is no reason for you to keep insisting that there is a traumatic explanation. If so, OP will learn from further research. This post is in the Religion forum.

It's not weird at all for people from a common ethnic origin to have lived in the same small neighborhood in the first half of the 1900s. In my family's ethnicity, men got mail order brides from the homeland.

Also, in some global cultures, it's okay for uncles to marry nieces and more tolerated for first cousins to marry. Like European royalty (Queen Victoria). It wasn't considered incest. So there's that.

It's very common for people of the same background to marry but it's very uncommon for people concealing the same background to find each other and marry.
It's very common for people whose parents are both Ashekenazi Jews to have 90% or more Ashkenazi DNA but it's very uncommon for someone who never knew they had Jewish heritage to have that high a percentage of it.

PP. Madeleine Albright didn't know until the 1990s. Here...I'm gifting an article that covers a situation similar to OP's.

https://wapo.st/400a68c

"She says she was raised as a Roman Catholic and was never told by her parents or anyone else that family members had perished in the Holocaust. She says she has no independent knowledge of the evidence about her family's connection with that tragedy – the records showing the family's Jewish origins; the memories of family friends that Albright's parents converted to Catholicism around the time of World War II; records and other information indicating that Albright's relatives were exterminated at Auschwitz and other Nazi camps."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where was your family during WWII?

The US.

Can you give more background on when both sets of grandparents immigrated?

is it possible you were adopted?

In the 30s, I think. They went to Pittsburgh, where the neighborhoods were ethnically separated then, so they were living in communities of Czech and Polish people.

I really don't know. No, I'm not adopted. I have two siblings and we all look similar. I have features from both parents.

it’s unlikely they came in the 30s because that was after restrictive immigration caps took effect. Can you get any more detail on when they arrived? how old were they when your parents were born? When were your parents born?

1920s were the height of Czech and Slovak immigration to the U.S. Czech and Slovak immigration to the U.S. Czechoslovakia still had 14K allowed until 1929. Numbers went down in 1930s but some were still admitted. Plus Germany had large numbers as did Austria, as today with quotas, people might have traveled to apply somewhere else, such as in Austria and Germany which still had higher quotas. Until 1918, Czechia was Austro-Hungarian Empire. OP might also be a few years off, or not. Heritage.com can provide instant information, but you do have to pay for it.

It was very common in the 1920s and 1930s for families as they arrive to deny any Jewish ancestry. In addition, Habsburg and then Austro-Hungarian Empire provided incentives to those who converted to Christianity in the 17th century and there were many waves of conversions happening in Europe since the First Crusade.

It is rare, however, for anyone to be 99% something, that is why I am wondering if OP's test traces only maternal or paternal DNA.

Almost always it is easy to discern descent by the last name, many will have either German or Slavic sounding names that were modified to fit the English structure. People used to hide these things, not only bcs of the Jewish background, but because Slavs were also deemed not white at the beginning of the 20th century in the U.S.
We cannot apply today's passport requirements for 1920s and 1930s to know for sure where people applied for U.S. immigrant visas.

After 1850s anti Jewish restriction on higher education encouraged conversion.

OP, take a look at the chart included here.
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/stat_abstract/pages/52753_1935-1939.pdf