Hello List,
Another message from Bonnie Schrack, administrator of the Haplogroup J project,
reposted (with permission) from the GENEALOGY-DNA list. We are soooo lucky that
Bonnie has become "fascinated" with our line. I encourage all our members to
join the Y-DNA-J project, in addition to the CARRICO project. But I have to
laugh a little...
Only in the field of DNA testing for genealogy could someone toss out a line of
numbers,
12 21 15 9 12 17 11 14 10 13 12 30
and expect an ooh-aah reaction from their readers. :-)
Diana
P.S. YHRD is the "Y Chromosome Haplotype Reference Database":
http://www.yhrd.org/index.html
-----Original Message-----
>From: genealogy-dna-bounces(a)rootsweb.com Behalf Of Beth Hirschman
>Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 5:08 PM
>To: genealogy-dna(a)rootsweb.com
>Subject: [DNA] Carrico and Judaizing
>
> Beth wrote:
>
>Carricos are found in the South Central Appalachians, in fact a large
>group settled there. I had speculated in 2001 that they were likely
>crypto-Jewish. The J male haplotype adds support to this interpretation.
>All the best, Beth Hirschman
From: genealogy-dna-bounces(a)rootsweb.com On Behalf Of Bonnie Schrack
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2007 12:11 AM
To: Genealogy-DNA-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [DNA] Carrico and Judaizing
Diana wrote:
>I'm curious... what led you to believe they were crypto-Jews, before knowing
>they were Haplogroup J?
>
>I was led to suspect it by the research of Tim Carrico Weaver, back in 1997,
>when he uncovered the case of Pero Dias CARRICO being imprisoned by the
Spanish
>Inquisition in Portugal (1629-33) for the crime of
"Judaismo":
>
>http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/FGS/Car/CarricoPeroDias-IsabelLima.shtml
>
>I wanted there to be a connection (I have ancestors involved in the Salem
Witch
>Trials, so why not the Spanish Inquisition, too?). You can
imagine how
tickled
>I was when the results came back for our first member, showing
him to be J2.
>And how tickled I am that we just got a new member who was born in Brazil, of
a
>father born in Portugal. Like, we should be so lucky as to get a
match so
>soon... (the project has only three other members, all Americans descended
from
>one immigrant). And of course, I'm doing something I
ordinarily try very
hard
>not to do: embrace a connection before it's proven.
It's a recipe for
>disappointment...
>
I just thought I would throw in my two cents here, as I've gotten so
fascinated by this particular line. You see, they have one of the
strangest haplotypes, just so far off from all the norms that it's
impossible to place them, other than to say J2. I have hardly seen a
haplotype which is so far from having any matches remotely near it in
YHRD. I mean, on the first 12 markers,
12 21 15 9 12 17 11 14 10 13 12 30 ?
The other thing I wanted to comment on is the crime of "Judaizing." I
have actually studied this a bit in the context of European history. I
used to be a graduate student in religious studies and have read a
number of interesting, specialized books on the history of heresies and
their persecution. What I wanted to mention is that this accusation was
frequently made against people who had absolutely no connection with
Judaism in their background. The ideologies of the time were so
extreme, that anyone who had a religious view counter to that of the
Catholic Church, questioning some aspect of the doctrine of
Christ, or who, heaven forbid, leaned toward Unitarianism, could be
accused of this.
I really don't want to throw cold water on this investigation of Pero
Dias Carrico, on the contrary! I love this story. It's just that we
should remember, as Carol Mitchell says in the posting you
have linked to,
> According to
> Dr Jorge Fonseca, Librarian of MontemoroNovo, the Spanish
> Inquisition targeted wealthy Jews, *or people accused of
> being Jews*, *primarily to take their money.*
So there were strong financial motives to make this accusation,
regardless of whether it had any basis in actual Judaism.
The way the two points of my message come together is that the longer I
work on the J haplogroup, the more I see that Jewish families tend to
cluster tightly together in sizable groups of families. It's very rare
to find a Jewish haplotype that doesn't have at least some moderately
close matches. The Carrico haplotype, on the other hand, is like
nothing I've ever seen, and so far has nothing resembling a
match in any database or study that I'm aware of. For this reason, I
would tend to wonder if the family could have had some more exotic origin,
though I'm so far at a loss to suggest where! But people who sailed the
seas could come from distant harbors. As we have been told, the Portuguese
were
great seafarers, and no doubt some natives of other countries
came back to settle in Portugal from some of the ports of call that the
Portuguese visited.
If they do turn out to be a Sephardic family, I'll be very happy with
that outcome; I just want to think about all the possibilities.
I can hardly wait for the outcome of the Deep SNP test that has been
ordered. And there are further tests that should be done.
Gareth just confirmed my suspicion that the extremely unusual 10 at
DYS425 should be explored by ordering the DYF371X test, to see
what's going on there.
Remember that I'm in Maryland. If there is something that has never
been dug out of the records here, that needs to be looked at, maybe I
could help?
Bonnie