[mnehring]

I thought the Lemba where one of the better connections once Genetic testing was done? The Lemba and the Ethiopians (the latter is better documented in the Apocrypha) as having the closest ancient Hebrew connections outside of Israel.

http://www.enotes.com/forensic-science/african-lemba-tribe

...The genetic material was analyzed for the genetic markers that have been found in the Jews. Similar to the general Jewish population, the Cohen Modal Haplotype was found in nearly 10% of all Lemba men. In addition, the Cohen Modal Haplotype was found in nearly half of the men in the Buba tribe...

[Nikas777]

What I read is that geneticists don’t think there is a the Cohen Modal Haplotype but I lack the info to add more to this. I of course could be remembering this all wrong. I will google what I can and see if my memory is correct.

[Nikas777]

One source of early confusion was a widespread popular notion that only Cohens or only Jews could have the Cohen Modal Haplotype. It is now clear that this is not the case. The Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH), whilst notably frequent amongst Cohens, is also far from unusual in the general populations of haplogroups J1 and J2 with no particular link to the Cohen ancestry. These haplogroups occur widely throughout the Middle East and beyond [8],[9]. So whilst many Cohens have haplotypes close to the CMH, a greater number of such haplotypes worldwide belong to people with no likely Cohen connection at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron#Responses