A DNA Footnote

Last year when I did the DNA test deal....one of the odd pieces that came out of the test....was this .1-percent (yeah, awful low) of a connection that leads DNA-wise to India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.  You can search over both sides of the family tree, for five or six generations....and find nothing that really explains the eastern Asian DNA significance.

So I've spent a couple of hours over the last month looking at a likely scenario.

You see, there is this odd factor in the DNA test results..... a .4-percent Ashkenazi Jew. 

One of the branches in the family had this dramatic move in the mid-1600s from southern France to central Germany, and stayed there (around the Rheinland Pfalz region) for about two to three generations....then packed up and left for America in the 1760s era. 

My best guess is that one of those members ended up marrying some local German, who had this family connection back to the 300 AD to 700 AD period and some Jewish trader who came into central Germany.

That Jewish trader?  Well....only because of the Roman Empire passion for trade....does he end up making his way from Rome to central Germany.  Prior to that, this guy probably lived in Judah and his family....for generations...had gone to using the 'Silk Road' which led from the Mediterranean through India and Afghanistan....onto China. 

My scenario would suggest that one of these relatives of this guy had some long period of trade going on in perhaps Afghanistan....married up with some local gal, and had Jewish-Ashkenazi-Afghan kids from that situation, who eventually moved off to the Med and one of them ended up in central Germany.

The Silk Road deal?  Most folks agree that it began as early as 220 BC.  This road connected Rome through Persia, the Med, India, Afghanistan, Greece, and onto eastern China.

A odd factor in the DNA?  Yes, and it lays out an awful long route for that sequence to exist today.