Modeling Polish ancestry

[Riverman]

Bolek is right about the German surnames of Poles. The best example is the surname Miller, given by the Germans to Polish millers.

This seems to be the case with my maternal grandfather. His surname is Meller, but he has a Slavic R1a haplogroup.

Also the distribution of Mellers in 1890 in eastern Germany mostly matches Polish settlement area, except for Sambia:

https://nvk.genealogy.net/map/1890:Meller

I know that from the Czech sphere as well. Germans get Slavic haplogroups and Slavs get German haplogroups. There clearly was exchange in both directions before the surnames got established.

[Tomenable]

He should test at 23andMe, they are best with picking up Ashkenazi ancestry, FTDNA can't be trusted as much on that matter.

Unfortunately he has passed away since I tested him with FTDNA. But his MENA admixture is consistent across all tools.

And DNA Land gave him as much as 13% Ashkenazi (but this is probably too high, just like also his Balkan score there):

[Tomenable]

But I'm not sure if using Ukrainian_Dnipro as a proxy for Proto-Slavic makes sense.

Dnipro area was part of the "Wild Fields" and was settled by Ukrainians coming from all over only during the 18th-19th centuries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Fields

Most probably Proto-Slavs were more like Belarusians, or even more eastern-shifted.

[Tomenable]

As for possible Roma admixture, I score 0.2% Bengali & Northeast Indian at 23andMe as "Trace Ancestry".

Here is a screenshot of an older version where it was "Broadly Central & South Asian":

Show Content

Spoiler

But before recent updates, I scored 100% Europeann. This is an even older result:

Show Content

Spoiler

They seem to change quite a lot from update to update. I used to be 5% South European and now I'm 0%.

[Riverman]

He should test at 23andMe, they are best with picking up Ashkenazi ancestry, FTDNA can't be trusted as much on that matter.

Unfortunately he has passed away since I tested him with FTDNA. But his MENA admixture is consistent across all tools.

And DNA Land gave him as much as 13% Ashkenazi (but this is probably too high, just like also his Balkan score there):

Its all about matches. If someone has real Ashkenazi ancestry, he gets loads of Ashkenazi matches. People which don't get many Ashkenazi matches usually don't have it. Simple as that. FTDNA has not the biggest data base, but big enough to check for that.

Same for Roma, which are an endogamous population as well. If you have it, you usually get matches in that direction too. Not as clearly as with Ashkenazi, but still.

[Riverman]

But I'm not sure if using Ukrainian_Dnipro as a proxy for Proto-Slavic makes sense.

Dnipro area was part of the "Wild Fields" and was settled by Ukrainians coming from all over only during the 18th-19th centuries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Fields

Most probably Proto-Slavs were more like Belarusians, or even more eastern-shifted.

Honestly this was a concession to the Polish side, to use a proxy which is not by any means extreme Proto-Slavic/Baltoslavic. If Poles get significant amounts of German with that reference and being pulled significantly towards Germans on the PCA from that source, its makes the point even more clear than if using a proxy which might be too much North Eastern shifted.
Its not even about 5 percent more or less to me, which is hard to assess, but the shere fact that the German admixture is there and it surely is.

Another issue is indeed that some of the German and Southern admixture in Poles being, especially in some regions, kind of countered by Baltic and White Russian admixture. Similar to North Italians which got both Near Eastern and Germanic admixture. They might end up on the same spot on the PCA as the "pure Slavs", but its not just purity but Baltic/North Eastern admixture which puts them there. Similar to the Germanic uniparentals, here we have to look at the Baltic ones, especially haplogroup N of course.

But modelling with an early Slavic and a Baltic source is really a mess, that's like trying to distinguish Scandinavian from Northern German old Germanic. Doesn't work that well imho.

[Tomenable]

Its all about matches. If someone has real Ashkenazi ancestry, he gets loads of Ashkenazi matches. People which don't get many Ashkenazi matches usually don't have it. Simple as that. FTDNA has not the biggest data base, but big enough to check for that.

How would I know if his matches are Ashkenazi or not?

He gets 3rd Cousin - 5th Cousin level matches with people who have Germanic-sounding surnames (Ginter, Klaiber, Roeder, Kant, Schwanke, Großmann, etc.). It is possible that his MENA admixture has another source - for example Sephardic Jewish or Armenian. There were some Sephardim in Poland too.

Edit:

Klaiber is even 2nd Cousin - 4th Cousin level.

[Tomenable]

23andMe, they are best with picking up Ashkenazi ancestry

According to user rothaer, majority of Poles score low level of Ashkenazi admixture at 23andMe (usually below 1%).

I personally haven't confirmed this, but he claims that he examined all of his Polish matches and discovered this.

[Riverman]

Its all about matches. If someone has real Ashkenazi ancestry, he gets loads of Ashkenazi matches. People which don't get many Ashkenazi matches usually don't have it. Simple as that. FTDNA has not the biggest data base, but big enough to check for that.

How would I know if his matches are Ashkenazi or not?

He gets 3rd Cousin - 5th Cousin level matches with people who have Germanic-sounding surnames (Ginter, Klaiber, Roeder, Kant, Schwanke, Großmann, etc.). It is possible that his MENA admixture has another source - for example Sephardic Jewish or Armenian. There were some Sephardim in Poland too.

Edit:

Klaiber is even 2nd Cousin - 4th Cousin level.

FTDNA is not as good as 23andMe in detecting small amounts of Ashkenazi Jewish, but if somebody has a high amount of Ashkenazi ancestry, he gets it with near certainty. So one easy way is to compare the ethnicity estimates from FTDNA.
The other is to check trees, because as we know there are typical Ashkenazi surnames.
The next one is to check for matches in common. If you have a candidate, he will have a lot of matches in common which are candidates as well.

Single surnames are not always indicative, but if you look into a tree and there are a couple of rather Jeiwsh surnames, you know it. There are many surnames which being used both by Ashkenazi German speakers and non-Jewish Germans.

A very small amount of Ashkenazi is indeed present among many Poles, not sure the total frequency, but its below threshold for a considerable change in overall ancestry proportions. Like if people get say 1-4 small segments, it doesn't pull them all too much either way. Another problem is that if its just small segments, we can never be sure about the direction of the gene flow, unless it screams Jewish founder effect with big Ashkenazi clusters. Ashkenazi from Poland and Russia have some Slavic admixture the old Ashkenazi didn't have.

[Tomenable]

Here is a model which picks up over 9% of AJ for WMeller (here labelled as Wlkp4):

Show Content

Spoiler

If one day 23andMe enables raw data transfers from FTDNA, I will transfer his data.

[Riverman]

But that's a really Northern shifted set of references. This can only hold up if his ancestry is actually very Northern otherwise. Like nothing more Southern Polish or more Western-South Western German etc. Therefore it could represent reality, but doesn't have to.

[rothaer]

23andMe, they are best with picking up Ashkenazi ancestry

According to user rothaer, majority of Poles score low level of Ashkenazi admixture at 23andMe (usually below 1%).

I personally haven't confirmed this, but he claims that he examined all of his Polish matches and discovered this.

Well, my statement was that from my experience based on obviously ethnic Polish matches of my mother - that has 0.0% AJ and that genealogically has 7/8 German and 1/8 Polish ancestry - at 23andMe the majority of them seem to display AJ up to 2.5% with a mean of something like 0.7%. 

And I asked repeatedly for what is the respective experience of Poles (having 0.0% AJ themselves). I'm not sure why you didn't answer that question as you afaik do administer Polish 23andMe results. You can simply sort for matches with four grandparents born in Poland and ignore those that are obviously ethnically German or AJ or that are that to a notable proportion.

I'd be interetested in what you can determine.

[rothaer]

I couldn't resist to run myself as a neighbouring Eastern German:

Target: rothaer_scaled
Distance: 1.7304% / 0.01730364
46.0 Wielbark(n=51)
27.2 Przeworsk_PCA0012
26.8 Proto_Slavic(n=3)

I'm unsure what Przeworsk represents ethnically or more correct what ethnical ancestry proportions it is assessed to have. I'd expect a Celtic-like/Germanic mixture.

At the next stage I think that I could equal medieval Polish with pre Ostsiedlung Wendish, or say pre Ostsiedlung West Slavic beause I have some minor Polish ancestry proportion as well. Any objections?

Target: rothaer_scaled
Distance: 1.5277% / 0.01527659
40.4 Dutch
40.4 Polish_Medieval(n=62)
19.2 Danish

I'd then likely be roughly composed as 60% Old German and 40% pre Ostsiedlung West Slavic.

In own calculations I appeared like 40% proto Slav, here just abt. 27% but maybe that is correct. Tomenable, as you roughly know the references in my referred to calculations, what do you think how this difference is to be explained?

However, thanks for this interesting modelling.

[Tomenable]

beause I have some minor Polish ancestry proportion as well

Aren't Poles around 1/2 of your Slavic ancestry (and if counting also Pomeranians aka Kashubs then 2/3)?:

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showth...c-ancestry

This said, my Old-German ancestry distributes on historical tribes like this:

Saxons 43,2%
Thuringians 34,3%
Franconians 15,6%
Swabians 6,9%
Old-Germans 100,0%

My Slavic ancestry distributes on the following historical Slavic main tribal groups, where I followed the assessment from the map above that Masurs and Slavic Silesians are subgroups of Poles.
       
Polabians        12,1%   
Pomoranians    19,6%   
Poles            48,2%
Sorbs        17,1%   
Czechs        3,0%   
Slavs        100,0%

I guess now you refer just to your recent Polish ancestors (those who were still Poles in the 19th century).

This part is indeed minor, IIRC.

=====

Time to go to sleep I will post more tomorrow.

[rothaer]

beause I have some minor Polish ancestry proportion as well

Aren't Poles around 1/2 of your Slavic ancestry (and if counting also Pomeranians aka Kashubs then 2/3)?:

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showth...c-ancestry

This said, my Old-German ancestry distributes on historical tribes like this:

Saxons 43,2%
Thuringians 34,3%
Franconians 15,6%
Swabians 6,9%
Old-Germans 100,0%

My Slavic ancestry distributes on the following historical Slavic main tribal groups, where I followed the assessment from the map above that Masurs and Slavic Silesians are subgroups of Poles.
       
Polabians        12,1%   
Pomoranians    19,6%   
Poles            48,2%
Sorbs        17,1%   
Czechs        3,0%   
Slavs        100,0%

This is correct as for tribal/linguistic categories but here I had in mind the differentiatiion of Wends and non-Wendish Slavs and in this context I thought of Lower Silesian Slavs as Wends. (You see above that Wends are none of the above tribal/linguistic groups.) Traditionally Wends depict Slavs in the German sphere, going all the way from Slovenes up to Kashubs.

I should not have said Poles but non-Wendish Poles.