According to ancestry.com, I have Jewish ancestors...

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Me neither.

My last name is Scottish, though it's not from the Davidson Clan. Each one of my grandparents come from a different Scottish clan... lol

Here's another discovery: not only do I have Jewish ancestry on my mom's side, but I might also have Native American ancestry on my dad's side! This is so much fun! I never would have thought that I could joinly have Jewish and Native American ancestry.

Very cool. There's a Native American somewhere in my family tree, but it's too far back to claim. Well, unless it was from a Cherokee one drop tribe, but it's not. I'm fairly certain she came from the Hopi tribe here in California.

You know more about your Native American roots than I do. All I know is that it's a possibility, and that it's on my paternal grandmother's side.

I have researched my surname before and according to the database I looked in, my name is Scottish. Thing is as far as I know my grandfather was born in Mexico and so was his father and so on. But I have green eyes and freckles so perhaps there's something to it. The most interesting thing is if I dissect the name etymologically, it means "son of Menes"(the first king of Egypt).

i'm a cross between the girl with glasses and the girl on the far right. it's eerie.

i've used ancestry.com and found it very useful too.

OP, if it was a male ancestor who was jewish it won't matter much as Judaism is passed down matrilineally. but still cool to have fun with that nonetheless.

Yeah, I know. Still, I would consider it to be a part of my heritage.

i have jewish ancestors too. wouldn't think it

Cool. My ancestors were Saxons and Huns.

BTW, what makes The Jews a race and not just a religion? I've never really understood that...

I am Jewish (orthodox) and I have a great interest in these factoids.

Basically, we are not a race.

However, we are the only entity in the modern world that is both a religion and a nation.

(For brevity, I will refer to the 'Jewish people' by the hebrew noun Yisrael/ (Israel in the transliteration), as we are reference as being the b'nei Yisrael, i.e. the sons of Yisrael, which was a pseudonym of Yakov (Jacob). I will also present the history from the traditional Jewish perspective.)

From the perspective of Jews, Yisrael started off as the descendants of Avraham (Abraham) the first ethical monotheist through the lineage descending through Yitzchak (Isaac) and Yakov.

It is important to note that at this point in history, we were neither a nation nor a real religion. We were a small family group that shared what at the time was a unique set of beliefs:

- That there exists exactly one God

- That this God makes demands of all humans, not in a religious sense, but in a moral sense. See this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noahide_la ... ahide_Laws

By the time we ascended from the Egyptian Exile a few hundred years later, the family group had grown into a nation of 12 tribes (although their are really 13, depending on the subject either Levi is left out, or Menashe and Ephraim are combined). This group numbered about 1 million people, depending on which commentary one goes by. (It was at least 600,000 according to all).

At the moment we made the covenant with God at Mt. Sinai, we also became a religion. From this point forward, we have an eternal contract with God, part of the terms of which define the multitude of additional obligations and prohibitions that are incumbent only on the Israelites.

As such, we are a nation like any country. we are also a religion. Just as one who wishes to become a citizen of say, Canada, must pass citizenship exams and obey the laws and pay the taxes thereof, so to the one who wishes to join the Israelites. One who converts to Judaism must study for about a year or so just to learn the basics of the rules, and only then, and after they pass an oral examination, can they undergo the formal conversion procedure.

Jews are therefore not a race, in the sense that African-Americans are. they are defined by common descent from Africans, as the politically correct term implies. An Englishman cannot 'convert' and gain African ancestors. Anyone can learn the laws and take the citizenship test to join the Israelites, in the same way that one could become Canadian (not sure if that is a real word). There are more strings attached: one cannot renounce one's citizenship in the Jewish people, for example.

Of course, now that the State of Israel exists once more as an actual country, and not just as a people-in-exile, there is yet more confusion, as the modern State is not identical to the Jewish people, the historical one was.

The misnotion that Jews are a race most likely stems from two main things:

1) Due to the adverse conditions facing the Jewish people and those who would convert from Christianity and Islam, we have often not been able to accept converts for most of the last two millenia, as everyone involved would be executed. This led to the Jewish people only gaining new members by having children being born into it, leading to a race definition although anyone technically could and now can join.

2) There exists a general assumption throughout the ages that the claim of chosen-ness (which we understand to be an obligation on us to be a moral guiding light and shining example to the world) is a claim that we are 'racially superior', and that we either do not accept converts or that we make them second-class citizens, both of which are utter falsehoods.

My heritage is mainly Hungarian

No, I think you look more like the 6th guy from the right.



On searching my paternal Prussian surname, I find it reported as being a Jewish surname, though I dont think exclusively so. One of these days I am going to get one of those DNA tests to see for sure, I certainly look somewhat Jewish.

Mazeltov, Descartes! I'm just a plain 'ol white person, kinda like the girls on either side of the guy in the middle, except I'm too old for hipsterhood. English, German, Dutch and Welsh. My Dutch relatives are actually named Van Winkle.

I like your avatar, Mindsigh . I've got ancestors that go back to Jamestown, VA according to family documents. There's also the common mix of German/English/Irish/Welsh/Cherokee going on. I'm a mutt.

Well, it's nice to know on this New Year that the church is useful for at least one thing...