I recently got the results of my Genographic Testing back. As a test it is simple enough; you swab the inside of your cheek with a comb like device and send it off to the Genographic services for analysis. You can check on the progress of the test by logging into their site and it does take a while to get it performed- in my case about 5 weeks from submission. If I remember correctly, it cost about USD $150.

Women always do the form of ancestry testing called mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis, since this is the DNA that is passed continuously through the maternal lineage. Guys can do either mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome analysis, which gives information on the paternal lineage. Since I'm more attuned to my Spanish heritage, I opted to do mtDNA though I'm going to do the Y chromosome as well.

It turns out that I'm Haplogroup T. It's not uncommon in Europe, but not the most common gene marker either (that is Haplogroup H). It seems to have developed in the Middle East (Anatolia) and moved into Europe with the spread of Neolithic agriculture, which jives with my ABO blood group, A.

Time to visit my friend Yaman and once again tour the old haunts!

Haplogroup T has a few subsets (T2, T3, T4 and T5) but I have only four SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) in the so-called Hyper Variable Region (HVR-1) called 16126C, 16294T, 16296T and 16519C and these plant me in the rather unsatisfying T* subgroup made up of all T's who are not in any other subgroup.

Well, at least I'm not directly related to Jesse James although I am related to a lot of European royalty.

Take that Isa!

I always did feel a bit of connection to tragic-comic Czar Nicky and it's nice to think I can hit up a few royals for bus fare if needed.

Haplogroup T is closely related (derived, rather) from Haplogroup J, another Middle Eastern haplogroup, a fact which I find especially interesting in light of another recent discovery.

My mother's maiden name was Subira-Vidal, the Vidal from her mother (my grandmother's) side of the family. It turns out that Vidal in that part of Spain (Catalonia) was a name commonly adopted by Sephardic Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism during the Inquisition, the name "Vidal" being used as a substitute for "Chaim" both signifying "life." Not all Spaniard with the surname Vidal are of Sephardic origins, but many in Catalonia are.

My mother was born in a very small town near the Aragon-Catalonia border called "Masalcoreig" which the locals say is derived from a phrase meaning "The Moor's Rock.� In those halcyon days before the occupations and intifadas and especially in Spain, wherever you found Moors you usually also found Jews; often as doctors, scribes and tutors.

So I'm a quarter Middle-Eastern and Sephardic. Now I can't wait to see some of my old-timer Hassidic patients at the clinic so I can pull rank on them.

"Hah! Newcomers!"

Well, gotta go brush up on my Ladino...

Kol Tuv!