Saturday, January 23, 2016

Suttlemans, Settlemans and DNA--The Conclusion

Earlier, I posted about a Settleman gentleman who believed that he was related to my Suttlemans--and some of the circumstantial evidence seemed to back that up.  To try to get more evidence, Mr. Settleman took a DNA test.  His initial FamilyFinder (autosomal) results didn't look very promising for a connection, but his Y results weren't in yet.  But now they are.
Mr. Settleman's Y-DNA Haplogroup

Mr. Settleman's haplogroup is R-M269.  If there were a common direct male ancestor to Mr. Settleman and my Suttleman/Zitelman relative who tested, the haplogroup would be identical.
Suttleman/Zitelman Y-DNA Haplogroup
Not even close.  So the Settlemans and Suttlemans/Zitelmans are not descended from the same direct male line.  So what does this mean?

  1. There may have been the adoption of a mother's name by a child, so we are related but not through direct male lines.
  2. There may have been a "non-paternal event" (NPE) along the way in one of our families--someone's father wasn't really their biological father.
  3. We're really not related, any more than two typical random Ashkenazic Jews.
Any other potential options anyone can think of?

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3 comments:

  1. Another possibility is that one of the male children was given his mother's surname for some reason. For instance, they didn't have a civil marriage (depending on where they lived, I can't remember) or the mother was from a rabbinical family.

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  2. I'm dealing with a similar situation. Is there a second direct male line descendant you can test? That would help rule out the possibility of a NPE.

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    Replies
    1. I know from autosomal DNA that there was no NPE on my side, at least back to my great-great grandfather Yechiel Suttleman. There are no other direct male descendants on his line that we know of.

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