The New Skalat Pikholz Haplogroup

From time to time, I have reported in this space about my Y-DNA matches, with particular emphasis on the apparent fact that the Skalat Pikholz family are part of the older Spira (sometimes Spiro)  family. In my most recent post on the subject eight months ago, my emphasis was on the Y-111 results of a Spira and a Spiro, whom I have known about for some time, and the three Skalat Pikholz testers (Zachy, "Filip" and I). I also included two other Spiras who had done only Y-37 tests; one I call "Z-man" and one new tester whose actual surname was changed from Spira recently.

My guess at the time was that the Pikholz line split from the other Spiras about nine generations ago. Perhaps a few more. (There are no significant autosomal matches within the above group of seven.)

So what's new?
We have several new developments. First of all, the new Spira tester has upgraded to Y-111 and he is a genetic distance of 3 from "Filip" and me and 4 from Zachy. That is closer to us than the others. The new tester has still not done a Family Finder (autosomal) test, but I would be surprised if he is close enough for an autosomal match.

Second, Family Tree DNA has a new test called Y-700, an upgrade of the Big Y-500. The Y-700 has taken some months because they wanted a new cheek swab. This test is based on Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), as opposed to the Y-37 and Y-111 which are based on Short Tandem Repeats (STRs). In general, STRs are relevant to more recent generations, while SNPs are more ancient. (That is an oversimplification and you can read more about this subject here and at other blogs.)

The big deal about the SNP tests is that while the STR test can assign all of us to the huge R-M269 haplogroup, the SNP tests assign us more sophisticated haplogroups based on what they call the "terminal SNP." These terminal SNPs are outlined in a haplotree structure.

This is the relevant section of the R-M269 haplotree. All these people are part of haplogroup R-FGC20765, which is the way my own haplogroup was defined when we first began talking about SNPs.

Then, about three years ago, some of us were redefined as R-A9700, while the group on the left had its own set of terminal SNPs. I have been graciously guided through the world of SNPs by Rachel Unkefer, who is an administrator of our haplogroup project.

My paternal and maternal haplogroups
as they appear on my FTDNA home page.

The Y-700 test has identified a new SNP - R-FT56914 - for which three of us (Spira, the new tester and I) have tested positive. The Spiro test is still pending. R-FT56914 is my new terminal SNP and FTDNA shows it on my home page and in the center column of the haplotree above.

The Spiras have a later terminal SNP and they are defined as R-A10520. We have no idea exactly what "later" means, only that it was later than R-FT56914.

This is the newest version of my Y-111 results. "Filip," Zachy and Spiro do not appear in the second column since they have no Y-700 results. (Spiro is, as I said, waiting for his results.)

Since "Filip" and Zachy have not done SNP tests, I cannot know if the new R-FT56914 terminal SNP arose within the last two hundred years which would make it peculiar to me or if it is older and covers all three of us.  At some point, perhaps I'll scrape together some budget to run the Y-700 on one of them.

The two at the bottom are from the R-FGC20755 group. They appear in the far left column on the haplotree together with a third man whose Y-111 does not match mine.

Then there is Jerry Simonowits, on the third line from the bottom. He is significantly further from me than the Spiras. He did the Y-700 but, unlike the rest of us, tested negative for the R-FT56914 SNP. So he remains defined as R-A9700 and appears to my right on the haplotree. 

This is the TiP report for the closest of the Spiras, based on our Y-111 results. Nine-ten-eleven generations to the common ancestor still looks reasonable.


We are still clearly closer to the Spira/Spiro family than to anyone else.

Zachy's Mutation

For several years, we have seen the identical Y-DNA results for the three Pikholz descendants from Skalat. First at 37 markers and later at 67 markers. The three count back to known ancestors who were born around 1800.

Zachy, who lives here in Israel and whom I have never actually met, counts back to his third great-grandfather Mordecai Pikholz. Mordecai's 1864 Skalat death record says he was fifty-nine years old, so I list him as having been born about 1805. "Filip" (not his real name) lives in Poland and counts back to his second great-grandfather Nachman Pikholz, whose 1865 Skalat death record says he was seventy years old.

My own second great-grandfather is Izak Fischel Pikholz and we are guessing he was born about 1810. Autosomal DNA and the relationships within the families have brought me to the tentative conclusion that Mordecai and Izak Fischel are brothers. These same considerations tell me that Nachman is not a brother - rather an uncle or perhaps a cousin.

At the same time, we saw that we also had a perfect match with two Spiras and a genetic distance of one with a Spiro. In the case of the Spiro and one of the Spiras, this was based on Y-67 tests. The second Spira, whom I refer to as "the Z-man," has only done a Y-37. That brought me to the clear conclusion that we were Spira before we were Pikholz. And probably not that long ago.

Comparing Spira to us (Y-67)

FTDNA said with 99.4% certainty that our most recent common ancestor (MRCA) was within the last nine generations. For reasons that are not clear to me, that 99.4% is the prediction both for the Spira with a perfect match and for the Spiro with a mutation built-in.

Both Spira and Spiro had upgraded to Y-111 and during the recent summer sale, I decided to do the same. Much to my surprise, the additional 44 markers showed three mutations between me and Spiro and four between me and Spira. Whether they were my mutations or theirs, I couldn't tell.

So I upgraded the other two Pikholz kits to Y-111, first Filip and then Zachy. Filip and I remained identical, so clearly the mutations happened before our common Pikholz ancestor. That gave me the clear feeling that our split from the Spira/Spiro family was several generations earlier than I had thought.

Now we have Zachy's Y-111 and he has a mutation, compared to Filip and me. This is clearly in the generations between Mordecai and Zachy because I do not have it. The mutation is at the marker called "DYS712" where Filip and I have a value of 21 while Zachy has 20.

The FTDNA probability chart shows a change in the expected MRCA due to Zachy's mutation, but of course we know for fact that this is not relevant.

I also ran the probability chart to compare my results (and Filip's) to each of Spira, Spiro and the Z-man. I used the same nine generations that I had assumed back in the days of the Y-67 results.

At 37 markers, all three show a 98.3% probability of a MRCA with us at nine generations, despite the fact that Spiro has a mutation that the others do not.

At 67 markers, that rises to a 99.4% probability.

At 111 markers, the probability plummets to 84.5% for Spira and 92.9% for Spiro - despite the fact that in both cases there are four mutations. Apparently Spira's mutations are more significant than Spiro's. (Two of the four mutations are on the same markers and two are on different markers.)

Nine generations still looks good. Less certain, yet a reasonable guess. Perhaps even the early 1700s, if you believe that sort of thing.

Thanks to Igor Schein for his assistance in counting up the markers.

My Y-111 Upgrade - What Does it Mean?

I took advantage of the ongoing sale at Family Tree DNA to upgrade my Y-DNA test from 67 markers to 111 markers. (I have already done Big-Y.) These results were due on 5 September, so good for FTDNA for being quick.

At sixty-seven markers, I had perfect matches with two other Pikholz descendants from Skalat. One goes back to an ancestor (Mordecai) born ~1805 who is probably the brother of my second great-grandfather (Izak Fischel). The other goes back to an ancestor (Nachman) born ~1795 who is probably an uncle or cousin to Mordecai and Izak Fischel. Both of those have tested only at sixty-seven markers.

I have seven matches at 111 markers and they and the two Pikholz are my closest matches at 67. (There are some other close-ish matches at Y-37, but I'll ignore most of them for now.)

I was surprised to see the increase in genetic distance across the board, from three to six of the forty-four additional markers. That seems a lot. The most important matches are the two Spira matches which are perfect or nearly perfect with me at Y-67 and now are significantly further away. (There is another Spira - the one we call the Z-Man - who is perfect with me at Y-37, the limit of his test.)

The question is do the new mutations represent a distinction between the Pikholz group and the Spira group, or is this something at least partially particular to my personal line. Perhaps it will tell us something about the distance between Izak Fischel and Mordecai on one hand and Nachman on the other.

I suppose I shall have to upgrade the other two Pikholz kits in order to answer that question. The sale continues for another two weeks.

There are others who match me at a genetic distannce of five or six at Y-67 and are now beyond the match criteria, so they too would represent increases of six or more.

In the meantime, I have submitted this new data to the project managers for their consideration and comments.

Striking Out in Subcarpathia

I have addressed the possibility that my Pikholz line lived in Subcarpathia (Ukraine) back in the 1700s when it was Hungary. For instance here.

I updated it last summer in three sections beginning with "Heritage Subcarpathia" in which the theory seems to become real.

To review, here are the basics.

• We do not know how long our family has been in Galicia or where we were before that.
• Ron McComb pointed me to Vyshkovo in Subcarpathia regarding his mother-in-law's Pikholcz Hungarian family. Maybe we lived on their land and took their surname.
• I attended the inaugural meeting of the Subcarpathian SIG at the IAJGS Conference six years ago. (I can't attend this year as it conflicts with one of my own presentations.)
• Lara Diamond's Subcarpathian Project has a load of Pikkel and Pikel in two towns very close to Vyshkovo. At her urging, I had a look and made a preliminary tree of them.
• I began looking for Subcarpathian Pikkel descendants to do Y-37 tests to see if they match ours.
• Rachel Unkefer's Y-DNA project showed people who match me closely (in Y-DNA terms) in the same area, particularly Berehova. My best match there is with a Spira.
• There are two Spiras with perfect Y-DNA matches to us - one at Y-67 and one at Y-37 - and another one step away at Y-67. No other match is closer than two steps.

 

• One of the Pikkels (now Pickel with the accent on the second syllable) agreed to test and I took his DNA when I was in Chicago last summer.

New developments
The Chicago test shows haplogroup R-M269, which is the same as ours, but there is no match due to the more specific characteristics. He may be relevant for other projects, but not Rachels's and certainly not to the specifics of the Pikholz-Spira group.

I wasn't ready to give up on the Pikkels and kept chasing after potential matches, particularly on Facebook. Eventually, I got a bite. My contact was through his mother and he agreed to my sending him a test. I feared it might be a waste and he would match the Pickel test, not ours.

Today we saw results. My fears were well-founded. He and Mr. Pickel are in the same group, one step apart. No match to us.

So much for that strategy. I need a new one. Patience, perhaps. I am not giving up on anything even though I haven't a clue how to best proceed.

Housekeeping notes  
For the first time, I am actually thinking about checking into the conference hotel Friday.
Dates and times for the 37th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy have been published. Here are mine.
 –   Monday 24 July 9:45-11:00, Room Swan 9    
Beyond a Doubt: What We Know vs. What We Can Prove
–   Monday 24 July 2:00-3:15, Room Osprey 2
Lessons in Jewish DNA – One Man’s Successes and What He Learned On the Journey
–   Tuesday 25 July 2:00-3:15, Room Osprey 2
GEDmatch.com’s Lazarus Tool As It Applies to Two Kinds of Endogamy
–    Wednesday 26 July 8:15-9:30, Room Swan 8
Why Did My Father Know That His Grandfather Had An Uncle Selig?

Plans for my Slovakia/Hungary trip with cousins Linda and Cyndi are moving along. I am stopping in Nuremberg on the way to see my newfound Rosenbloom second cousin Inna and her family. Then meeting up with Linda and Cyndi in Prague four weeks from today (Thursday). Meeting a couple of Zelinka cousins in Prague, as well.

Nuremberg to Prague is by bus. The rest we'll be driving.

 

A Month Abroad: Part One - IBERIA

This is the first of what I hope will be a fairly rapid fire series of reports on my four weeks in the US.

If there is one word that covers much of the four weeks I just spent in the US, It is "Iberia," and not because that's the airline that carried me across the ocean in both directions.

Flying

The flights themselves were excellent. From home, I was on an Iberia flight operated by El Al to Madrid and from there to Chicago. The return was American from Seattle to O'Hare, then Iberia from there.

The flights were uneventful and there was plenty of room on the long trans-Atlantic legs. Chicago to Madrid was particularly good as I had the three-seat middle section to myself, so I moved to the center seat where there was no one leaning back.

There were some glitches with seat selection and check in, but the seats they assigned me were fine.

The forty minute layover in Chicago was plenty of time, though as I write this in flight, I don't know if forty minutes was enough for my suitcase. At the beginning of my trip, my suitcase was not loaded onto the MAD-ORD flight. (That made three out of my last four international flights!) That necessitated a small shopping trip to Walmart, as they did not deliver my bag for thirty-two hours. I filed a claim.

Unfortunately I seem to have left my "immediate to-do list" on the last plane.

Heritage Sub-Carpathia

But this chapter is titled "IBERIA" for more important reasons.

As I have written here several times, I have been looking at the possibility that before Galicia, our Pikholz line was in Visk (now Vyshkovo) in what was then Maramaros County in Sub-Carpathian Hungary and is now Ukraine. There has never been any evidence and no real possibility of finding any, so it has remained pure speculation for the last dozen years.

A few months ago, Lara Diamond (the new coordinator of the Sub-Carpathia SIG) told me that in two of her towns - Vajnag and Talaborfalva, now known as Vonihove and Tereblya -  she has records of families named Pikkel (or Pikel) and these towns are less than ten miles from Vyshkovo. I did some work on the extracts that Lara had created and found a living male-line descendant in north suburban Chicago. I wanted his Y-DNA to compare it to our own. It took a couple of months to make contact, but days before I left for the US, the man's wife emailed me, very interested in the whole thing. She said they would come to my talk in Buffalo Grove Illinois later that week.

She came. He said he'd be along later, but didn't show up. He told his wife on the phone "I know who I am." Fortunately his son is interested and came with his mother to hear me. He did the test. Family Tree DNA estimates results in mid-September. If he matches us, it appears to place us in Sub-Carpathian Hungary in the 1700s.

In the meantime, there is another Pikkel I am talking to on Facebook and I want him to test as well. And I spent $410 to get another set of records which Lara Diamond is working on

and which may add to this picture. (Any family members who wish to participate in that expense, let me know privately.)

Rachel Unkefer

Rachel Unkefer is the lead author of an article in the Spring Issue of Avotaynu, which discusses the Y-DNA of a number of Ashkenazic families in the R-M269 haplogroup. Her husband is one of these. So are we. Rachel's team believes that these families came from Iberia – either Spain or Portugal – some hundreds of years ago. Whether they left Iberia as a result of the Inquisitions in 1391 or 1492 or perhaps earlier due to garden variety anti-Semitism, is not clear yet.

This work is based on something called SNPs, which is different from the STRs that FTDNA looks at when assigning matches to Y-DNA results. This is not something I knew much about, so I asked Rachel if she would mind having me at her house for a couple of days for some personal mentoring.

There are some statistical models which purport to assign approximate times to the various SNP mutations. My own instincts are that the pace is faster than the models suggest.

Rachel and her husband Dan – my whatever-cousin – were wonderfully gracious hosts and we spent hours on the specific issue and on other aspects of genetic genealogy. Dan and I are fairly close on the chart, but it's probably still a few hundred years to our most recent common ancestor.

The thing is, due to the geography of some of the other subjects in the project, our being in Vyshkovo makes much more sense than our being in Skalat and Rozdol, so the pending Pikkel test results become that much more important.

Spira

We have three Y-DNA tests for Pikholz lines from Skalat. Each line goes back 200-220  years and the results are identical, as identified by FTDNA using STRs. But we also have a non-Pikholz who matches us. This is a man named Spira. His test was initiated by  Ellen Zyroff, the mother of his daughter-in-law, and at the conference in Seattle Ellen and I had a chance to chat.

Rachel Unkefer's project has him as an immediate "neighbor" to us.

The Friday before I left for the US, I received a note from Dr. Jeffrey Paull, who does work on rabbinic Y-DNA lines, that another Spira had tested with results that matched ours perfectly on 37 markers. (Our tests are 67 markers.) This new Spira, who had tested at Jeff's request, claims descendancy from the Megalleh Amukot, Rabbi Natan Neta Spira who was born in Cracow in 1583 and claimed a Sephardic heritage. The paper trail for this man is being verified. He is also in Rachel's project.

One of the sessions I attended at the IAJGS conference in Seattle included a presentation by Janet Billstein Akaha on her Speyer/Spira/Shapiro project. Perhaps the Pikholz line was a version of Shapiro four hundred years ago.

I attended one of Jeff Paull's Seattle talks Monday morning

Conversos
Tuesday  evening, I attended a presentation on "Converso Genealogy Project; Tracking the Diaspora of the Iberian Forced Converts." The extract describes it as follows:

The objective of this multi-tiered project is to consolidate the works that have been done on the large segments of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were converted to Catholicism during the 15th century. Some fled and joined Jewish communities in the East and others established communities in Western Europe and in the New World, many were lost to recorded history. The project will  garner information on their Diasporas as well as the genealogical information required to match up contemporary descendants of those forced converts to their ancestors.

The project intends to gather in one place, information that has been scattered in multiple sources, languages and countries throughout the world for centuries. We will find a home for all the work that historians, researchers and serious genealogists have done. Aside from the obvious contribution to Jewish genealogy, this will equip historians with data enabling them to rewrite entire chapters of Jewish history.

I am not going to say more, because as we say in Hebrew, he who adds only detracts.

The star of this show as far as I was concerned was Genie Milgrom, but she was joined by Professor Avrum Gross, Brooke Shreier Ganz and Sallyann Sack-Pikus, each bringing a different talent to the project. The importance of this project cannot be overstated and we will surely read and hear more of it in the near future.

Genie did point out that next Sunday we mark Tisha BeAv (postponed from Shabbat), a day of fasting and mourning for the Temples, but also the day which marked the Inquisition in 1492. It is also the reason I left the conference early - I have a problem doing Tisha BeAv abroad.

Non Como Muestro Dyo
I spent the Shabbat before the conference in the Seward Park neighborhood of Seattle. This was arranged by Varda Epstein's friend Michael Behar, from picking me up at the airport after my Thursday midnight arrival to taking me to the conference hotel at six Sunday morning. I have long known that the Seattle community was Sephardic, but I didn't really know what that meant in practice. My own familiarity with Sephardic services is based on Moroccans, Kurds and what they call "Yerushalmim." The community in Seattle is more from Rhodes and Turkey - Michael being from both communities. His father's Turkish side says the name comes from the Spanish town Bachar, which is how their name is spelled in Hebrew.

The services were very much like what I am familiar with, though some of the melodies are similar but not identical and others are completely different. They do not use the heavy wooden case for the Torah that I am used to here, but an Ashkenazi-type scroll with special cloth wrapping. They include some Ladino translations within the standard prayers and they sell some of the honors according to a Ladino ritual. Their Hebrew is precise in terms of accented syllables and shewa na and that carries over into their English speech, which we Ashkenazim generally don't. And it was unusual to my ears to hear the proper Sephardic Hebrew with American accents.

And I wondered how much of this was shared by my own probably-Sephardic ancestors. 

Here is Part Two.. And Part Three. And Part Four. And Part Five.