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The Jewish Family

Archaeogenetics

Your line, traced back to ancient DNA — and told as a story.

Ancient-DNA databases hold samples from medieval Ashkenazi cemeteries and far older Levantine populations. Other services may show you a percentage; none narrate, for your specific maternal and paternal lines, how you connect to those samples. We weave it into your cited story.

Illustrative example — not real data
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Illustrative — not real data

Genetic-distance proximity to ancient samples (AADR).

  • Rhineland burial, 9th c.92% proximity

    AADR sample I12345 · same maternal clade

  • Medieval Ashkenazi (Erfurt)78% proximity

    AADR cluster · shared drift

  • Bronze Age Levant41% proximity

    AADR reference · deeper origin

Each proximity claim is footnoted to a specific AADR sample or cluster — never an unsourced “ancient ancestry” percentage.

What this means for your family

Deep origins you can read, not just a pie chart

Ancient samples, made personal

Your maternal and paternal haplogroups are connected to specific ancient individuals — a 9th-century Rhineland burial, a medieval Ashkenazi cemetery — for your line.

Woven into the narrative

Ancient DNA isn't a separate tab. It appears as cited sentences in the same family story, right alongside the records.

Proximity you can cite

Genetic-distance proximity to AADR samples is shown as a number with a footnote — a claim you can check, not a vibe.

The bridge between deep and recent

It connects your documented 1800s ancestors to populations a thousand-plus years older, closing the gap most trees leave empty.

Honest about what it means

A proximity to an ancient sample is described carefully — shared deep ancestry, not a literal "your grandmother."

Updated as samples grow

As the AADR dataset adds Jewish-relevant samples, your deep-origin section can be refreshed and re-cited.

In the story

Ancient DNA as a cited sentence

In this illustrative excerpt, note the final sentence: an ancient Rhineland sample placed in the same maternal clade, footnoted to a specific AADR sample — not a vague percentage.

Illustrative — not real data

Rivka bat Yosefרבקה בת יוסף

A maternal-line ancestor from Galicia, reconstructed line by line from archival records, a living DNA match, and an ancient sample — nothing guessed.

Rivka was born in Brody, Galicia, around 1861.[1] Her father Yosef appears in the town census as a textile merchant.[2] Her direct maternal line carries mitochondrial haplogroup K1a1b1a, common among Ashkenazi communities.[3] A living descendant shares 214 cM across 9 segments with your kit, consistent with a third-cousin relationship.[4] An ancient sample from a 9th-century Rhineland burial sits within the same maternal clade.[5]

Illustrative archival census register showing Rivka bat Yosef of Brody — a synthetic sample, not a real historical document.
Source verifiedIllustrativeJewishGen — Brody census (illustrative)
  1. [1]JewishGen — Galicia / Brody birth register, 1861View source
  2. [2]JewishGen — Brody town census, 1880View source
  3. [3]AADR — mt-haplogroup K1a1b1a
  4. [4]DNA match — 214 cM / 9 segments (3C)View source
  5. [5]AADR — ancient sample I12345, Rhineland 9c

Continue this line back four more generations.

Unlock with your kit

The difference

Who narrates ancient DNA for your line?

ServiceWhat they doWhat we do
23andMeSurfaces ancient-DNA "matches" as a novelty percentage, with no narrative and no connection to your documented Jewish lineage.Tie specific ancient samples to your maternal/paternal line and narrate the connection, cited.
MyTrueAncestryCompares you to ancient samples in a standalone tool — powerful, but it never builds a sourced family story around the result.Fold AADR proximity into the same cited narrative as your records and living matches.
Ancestry / MyHeritageOffer no ancient-DNA integration at all — your deep origins simply aren't part of the product.Make archaeogenetics a first-class, footnoted part of your lineage.

They hold the ancient data. We turn it into your story — every connection sourced to a sample.

Start with your free kit

Add a DNA file or a GEDCOM and we begin building your sourced narrative — the first kit is free.

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