The latest FTDNA Family Finder pages confirm that I am 90% "Jewish" and
10% "European." The previous maps and information >from FTDNA indicated
that my ancient ancestors also carried Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA.
Do these two groups now represent "European" ancestry? The newest
accompanying map indicates that my "European" ancestry was predominately

from Scandinavia!! >from information on the Internet, it would seem that

Neanderthal and Denisovan people never lived in Scandinavia.
So......am I 10% Scandinavian or 10% Neanderthal and Denisovan or just
plain "European?

David Mandel dcmandel@...
New Mexico

David Mandel wrote:

"The latest FTDNA Family Finder pages confirm that I am 90% "Jewish" and
10% "European." The previous maps and information >from FTDNA indicated
that my ancient ancestors also carried Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA.
Do these two groups now represent "European" ancestry? The newest
accompanying map indicates that my "European" ancestry was predominately

from Scandinavia!! >from information on the Internet, it would seem that

Neanderthal and Denisovan people never lived in Scandinavia.
So......am I 10% Scandinavian or 10% Neanderthal and Denisovan or just
plain "European?"

Hopefully the new FTDNA ancestral clusters are more meaningful.
Neanderthals and Denisovans lived roughly 50000 years ago. By the
time the first Jews appeared, about 3000 years ago, the Neanderthals
and Denisovans were long gone. Mixing the two groupings in a single
numeric breakdown serves only to confuse. One has to define the time
period for which the ancestral origins are being evaluated. I haven't
seen FTDNA spell it out explicitly, but I think they are now focusing
more clearly on genetic ancestry in clusters that existed perhaps 1000
years ago.

You can see the 22 cluster definitions here -
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/ftdna/myorigins-population-clusters/

Elan Caspi
Belmont, CA