Quote:
Originally posted by dtb
Cohen is a quintessential Jewish name, as it confers special "status" because it means you are a descendant of a "high priest" from biblical times. All bets are off, however, if dad marries a shiksa.
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The New Yorker, a magazine to which I falsely claim to subscribe, did a story on genealogy and genetic biology in which,
inter alia, the author reported a scientific study testing the genetic markers of a bunch of Jewish Americans. They tested to see whether certain families' lore that "We're descended from the high priests" was, in fact, true. They obviously couldn't dig up Moses or Aaron and run the DNA, but they could test the entire pool and determine whether people have a common patrilineal ancestor --- the same test they did on Sally Hemmings's descendants.
I can't remember the exact methodology (something involving the Y chromosome to determine strictly patrilineal descent), but they were able to determine that 60% of those whose family lore claimed priestly origins indeed had common patrilineal ancestors, as opposed to some much smaller number of those who didn't. Considering that the statistical likelihood of paternal illegitimacy is 5 to 10% in each generation, the numbers floored the researchers. It seemed more likely that almost everyone who had this family legend was making it up or retelling the lie of an ancestor who made it up.
Mebbe it's just that the chicks who marry the Cohens never do much wanderin' after all.
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