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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.

[/quote]

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. [/quote]

I have some Jewish ancestors via emigration from the Austro-Hungarian empire (Budapest) around the 1860s.  That family only retained the memory of having been Jewish but without hiding it or discussing with a sense of trauma. In Europe, there was a secular "Freethinker" movement that had a big impact on Germans and Czechs who immigrated to the US in the 19th century. I wonder if my family tied into that based on their choices.

My hypothesis is that the Jewish part of my family were somewhat secularized German-speaking urban Jews before immigrating.  My great-grandmother, their daughter, self-identified as Christian but I can see that as a likely organic result of where she was raised in the US and decision to marry her Christian Anglo-American high school sweetheart.

I would like to learn more but expect it to be quite a quest to learn anything about the Budapest-side history.  There are also hints of a tie to Slovenia.[/quote]

you might be interested to read this book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/half-jew-susan-jacoby/1003675191

not exactly your family’s story but she discusses how many Jews chose to assimilate due to antisemitism coupled with pre-existing secularism. In the same family you might have some siblings who chose to become more Orthodox and others who assimilated or “passed.” I think we forget that assimilation would have been a wholly rational response in the face of antisemitism. [/quote]

PP.  Thanks.  Maybe you are the DCUM person who recommended that book on here a few months ago.  I did purchase that book based on a DCUM reco and read it and absorbed it.  I greatly appreciate this kind of book reco, so I've passed it along too.

My overall take was that the particular Jewish family in that book was a bit more elite and also a bit more internally-conflicted and self-hating. I think my family probably wasn't as rich or religious.  As far as I can guess, my family left Europe more for economic opportunity than to escape persecution. I say this because while I'm sure they faced discrimination, I don't think they left due to specific pogroms, wars, or hate crimes.  I would like to know more about them to see if my guesses are correct.  And to pursue my suspicions of a Slovenian connection.  We are all curious but information is lacking just due to the passage of time.  I've made great strides with genealogy on one set of great-grandparents and will turn to this couple soon.

As I mentioned above, Lara Diamond's blog is just amazing.  She has found a ton of unexpectedly rich detail about her family.  I highly recommend her site even for mon-Jewish genealogy.  Her insight is inspirational.

https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/?m=1[/quote]

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