Janet Billstein Akaha has been a genealogist for twenty years and a genetic genealogist since 2009. She is the administrator of 15 DNA projects at Family Tree DNA including; Jews of Frankfurt, German Jewish Project, four haplogroup projects and seven surname projects. Her mission is to merge those Jewish lineages who have deep roots with the DNA.

She has co-authored three articles related to her research on the Wertheimer, Weil, Shapiro, and Bacharach rabbinical lines. These were published by Avotaynu and the most recent article appeared in their most recent issue.

She lives in Monterey, California and has two children.

Visit her website at http://jewsoffrankfurt.com/

“Searching for the Spira (Shapiro) Rabbinical Line using Genetic Genealogy” (Sun-153), 3:00-4:15 P.M.

It is is very unusual for someone of Jewish origin to be from a Y-DNA haplotype defined by a single surname. Approximately 1/3 of my “R1b-FGC14605” have some variation of the surnames SPEAR, SPEIR, SPIRA and SHAPIRO.

The explanation for this is that these men are offspring of a famous rabbinical line. Spier have an oral history that they came from Spain, and my SPIRA know that they came to Bohemia from Speyer. Both of these oral histories are consistant with Spira history. Rabbi Samuel Spira was born in Speyer in the 14th Century, but also lived in both France and Spain. This early surname explains why our members have ancestors from Germany, Amsterdam, Belarus, & Lithuania.

We will explain how others with interesting surnames like Shapiro can use our methods to ascertain if they are offspring of a famous rabbinical line or other lineage with deep ancestral roots.

Category: Beginning genealogists

Topics: Ashkenazic research, DNA research and genetics, Jewish history and culture, Jewish surname adoption and naming patterns, Rabbinic research, Sephardic research