Maharam of Rothenburg Matches 14th Century Erfurt Sample

I've been thinking along these lines ever since you posted that on JewishGen.

Not sure what the Jewish population of Erfurt was in 1349, but I suspect that a bit of detective work could actually identify the individuals who were buried there.

I wonder if the sample above was a sibling or cousin of the Maharam?

There sure is lots that can be done with the Erfurt data. We shall see where researchers go with it. This was a bolt of luck to connect with the Maharam. Others won't be as easy....

One more detail: the sample I13865 was from a person of aged 18-25 years so this would seem to be in the first or second generation following the Maharam. I13865 could be a son, grandson, nephew or close cousin.

That is absolutely mind-blowing.

Private User for what it's worth, the (generally crappy) site MyTrueHeritage now has at least some of the Erfurt samples in their database.

I match 5 of the samples.

Closest "genetic distance" (not sure whether they define it in a standard way) is 8.92.

According to their numbers, I'm the 100% percentile match on all of the 5 samples out of their database.

There's no other useful information there that I can provide at this time.

Oh wait, I found more info there.

Sample 1:
- mtdna N9a3
- total cM: 29.01cM
- longest: 10.24cM
- 3 matching sequences
- sample id I14740

Sample 2:
- mtdna U3a1a
- total cM: 18.55cM
- 1 matching sequence
- sample id I14738

It won't give me that level of info for the others. I refuse to spend hundreds of dollaws to upgrade.

Thanks for keeping us posted. Those two samples are from the sub-group labeled EU, for European, in the initial study. I've probed the entire set and it is true that the two groups have different ratios of Middle Eastern (ME) to European genes, the EU group still retains about 80% of its ME ancestry. On average the ME group has about 84.6% Middle Eastern genes (in which I include genes from the entire area between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf and between the Caucasus Mountains and the Arabian Sea), while the EU group has 69.2%. I include the broader are because my research has shown that genes from all these regions were already mixed in the Levant prior to Judaean migrations into Europe, going back to the late Bronze Age. Therefore it would be erroneous to consider these genes as having entered into the Jewish population only in Europe.

I just did a browser inspect. Got two more kit numbers that I'm more distantly related to (14+ genetic distance), but can't see the cMs etc.

I13861 and
I13863

Can't find the 5th one today.

Those two are considered ME sub-group in the original study.

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?26176-The-Ashkenazi-founder...

"I was able to get access to the BAMs for Y chromosomes of the three Z2103 samples from this paper. Here is what I was able to glean so far:

i13865: R-Y19847 (xA13359, xBY17497, xBY51776, xY143990).
- This fits nicely with the known major Jewish haplogroup. The sample was positive for the Y19847 SNP itself as well as two other SNP equivalents (FT19323 and Y19850). Coverage was okay. No further downstream positive SNPs identified, but sample was negative for downstream SNPs A13359 (SNP equivalent of A13358), BY17497, and both BY51776 and Y143990 (SNP equivalents of Y143997).

i14904: R-Y4364 (x484551, xBY41455, xFGCLR459, xY19860, xSK540, xY104897)
- This was negative for almost all major branches of Y4364, including the major and minor Jewish branches in Yfull's and FTDNA's databases. This sample might be either truly Y4364* or somewhere within Y4366 but without Y19860.

i14853: R-FGC14682 (based on positivity of SNP equivalent FGC14625).
- The coverage on this sample was not great, but this does fit with another major Jewish Z2103 branch. No coverage with anything downstream, unfortunately, either positive or negative."

Please see here for complete ydna and mtdna haplogroups (as currently known): https://1drv.ms/b/s!AuwT-4qnkJLBnWVS1tEdaPznZA6d?e=TTbPsd

Original paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.13.491805v1

Got another deep dive sample. Looks like they're rolling out a few each week.

ID: I14736
1 SNP / 9.59cM match
K1a1b1a

And another one:

ID: I13862
2 SNP / largest 10.94cM / total 19.44cM
MtDNA K1a1b1a / YDNA T1a1a (L208)

so far most of my matches have clustered in that Pannonian plains circle on Private User's chart, although a few have come from the "original Ashkenazim" and "Sephardim in N Europe" circles. Pretty much as expected, I'd say.