The Relationship between Mordecai and Izak Fischel

Part One

Mordecai and Izak Fischel
Mordecai Pikholz has three known daughters and four known sons. Descendants of six have participated in our DNA project. They appear in red on the following chart.

Devorah and Szulim married descendants of Izak Josef Pikholz,
whose relationship to Mordecai is unknown

According to Mordecai's 1864 death record, he was fifty-nine, therefore born about 1805. His Y-67 DNA is identical to mine.

My Y-DNA comes from my second great-grandfather Izak Fischel Pikholz, whose parents and siblings are unknown. His wife Rivka Feige is the daughter of Izak Josef Pikholz (b. ~1784) and based on the ages of her daughters from her first marriage, was probably born about 1815. My guess is that Izak Fischel was born 1810-1815, but he may well be either older or younger.

The analysis
Over the last few days, I had a chromosome-by-chromosome look at how Mordecai's descendants match one another and how they match the descendants of Isak Josef. These are the results for chromosome 3. I restricted the data to segments of twenty cM or more.

The red lines are Mordecai's descendants. Those who tested are shaded - Mordecai's descendants in red, descendants of both Mordecai and Izak Josef are in yellow, descendants of Isak Fischel (and Izak Josef) are in green and descendants of only Isak Josef are in blue.

Several of the testers are composites. For example, Judy and Leonora both match at least one of the eight descendants of Morris (my grandfather) on segments of 35 cM and it doesn't matter which or how many of those descendants are involved. We do know it is the same segment, as Judy and Leonora match each other there and this segment is almost certainly an Izak Josef segment rather than one that reflects a relationship between him and Mordecai.

Eight interesting chromosomes
I present here the eight chromosomes which have significant matches between each of the four descendants of Mordecai who are not descendants of Izak Josef, with the descendants of Izak Fischel, that is the red group and the green group.

On chromosomes 4, 11 and 18, the only "red tester" is Ruth.

Ruth has matching segments as large as 46 cM with the descendants of Izak Fischel's son Hersch.

Ruth has matching segments as large as 32 cM with the descendants of Izak Fischel.

Ruth has a matching segment of 21 cM with the descendants of Izak Fischel's son Hersch.

Barbara matches Isak Fischel's descendants on chromosome 13 and on 14 with Ruth.

Barbara has a matching segment of 20 cM with the descendants of Izak Fischel's son Hersch.

Barbara and Ruth have matching segments as large as 26 cM with the descendants of Hersch.

Lloyd and Dalia match Isak Fischel's descendants on chromosome 7, while Lloyd's cousin Mike matches on chromosome 16.

Lloyd and Dalia have matching segments as large as 43 cM with the descendants of Hersch.

Mike has a matching segment of up to 29 cM with many of the descendants of Izak Fischel's son Hersch.

Finally, Barbara and Dalia match Isak Fischel's descendants on chromosome 20.

Barbara and Dalia have matching segments as large as 32 cM with the descendants of Izak Fischel.

I cannot prove it, but I am quite convinced that Mordecai and Izak Fischel are brothers. I will not write this in my database, except in the comments, and I will not draw a chart with solid lines. But I think and believe it to be the truth.

I still want to test descendants of Tema, Gittel Riwka and Chaim (at the left of the chart at the top). If they have matches similar to Ruth's, I will know that these are legitimate Mordecai Pikholz matches and not, for instance, from the husband of Ruth's great-grandmother Etel.

I will have more to say about this in a few days (I did call this "Part One," after all) but I have other things to do right now.

My granddaughter is getting married this evening.