Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four Jewish mothers who lived 1,000 years ago in Europe are the ancestors of 40 percent of all Ashkenazi Jews alive today, an international team of researchers reported on Friday. The genetic study of DNA paints a vivid picture of human evolution and survival, and correlates with the well-established written and oral histories of Jewish migrations, said Dr. Doron Behar of the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology, who worked on the study. The study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, suggests that some 3.5 million Jews alive today all descended from four women. For their...

Tests confirm what tradition and whispers have alluded to -- a Sephardic community often unbeknownst to many of its members. ALBUQUERQUE — As a boy, Father William Sanchez sensed he was different. His Catholic family spun tops on Christmas, shunned pork and whispered of a past in medieval Spain. If anyone knew the secret, they weren't telling, and Sanchez stopped asking. Then three years ago, after watching a program on genealogy, Sanchez sent for a DNA kit that could help track a person's background through genetic footprinting. He soon got a call from Bennett Greenspan, owner of the Houston-based testing...