DNA study reveals 130,000 Hungarians are at least 50% Jewish

[Dunai]

A MyHeritage DNA study has revealed that Hungary’s population has the highest percentage of Jewish ancestry outside of Israel. In total, 100 countries were included in the research.

At least 7.6% of the 4,981 people living in Hungary who took the DNA test were found to have at least 25% or more Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity.

“This is equivalent to having at least one grandparent who is fully Ashkenazi Jewish,” MyHeritage said. “This is a significantly higher percentage than the 3.5% observed in DNA test-takers living in the USA and 3% in Canada.”

Based on UN estimates, Hungary’s population is 9.7 million.

“MyHeritage discovered that 4.2% of DNA test-takers in Hungary have 50% or more Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity,” it added.

The online genealogy platform worked on this research together with Dr. Daniel Staetsky, director of the European Jewish Demography Unit at the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

The study also found that 12.5% of the people tested in Hungary had 10% or more Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity, compared to only 4.7% of people in the USA and 4.0% in Canada.

Staetsky explained that, “commercial genetic testing is an activity where the most educated and well-to-do classes of a society will be over-represented.

Bearing this in mind, he said that, “the number of people with 50% or more Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity in Hungary amounts to 130,000.”


https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/DNA-study-reveals-130000-Hungarians-are-at-least-50-percent-Jewish-598498

[TheMaestro]

Shalom.

[Lemgrant]

For many years, demographers believed that the countries outside of Israel with the highest proportion of Jewish inhabitants are, in order, the USA, Canada, France, Hungary and Uruguay.

However, this study has challenged these assumptions, discovering that after Israel, the top countries in terms of significant Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity were Hungary and Russia, followed by Argentina, South Africa, Ukraine and then the US. This is based on countries with a sufficiently large DNA sample sizes.
The full study will be released by MyHeritage and Staetsky at a later date.
nice lol

[RenaRyuguu]

They are actually it's no secret

[Dunai]

Jews in Hungary were some of the most successfully assimilated people into the Hungarian nation, and their great contributions are almost unmatched by any other none-Hungarian ethnicity in Modern Hungary.

[Lemgrant]

https://www.myheritage.com/ethnicities/ashkenazi-jewish/ethnicity-worldwide-distribution

[Grace O'Malley]

I'm not sure how reliable MyHeritage is though. I have 2.8% Ashkenazi there and yet I have absolutely no history of it in my family and nothing shows on any other test although I did get 1% European Jewish on Ancestry but that has disappeared now. If they are giving Ashkenazi out to Irish people like me I'd be a tad dubious as to their accuracy. I'd love to have it if I thought there was any possibility that it was real.

[RenaRyuguu]

I'm not sure how reliable MyHeritage is though. I have 2.8% Ashkenazi there and yet I have absolutely no history of it in my family and nothing shows on any other test although I did get 1% European Jewish on Ancestry but that has disappeared now. If they are giving Ashkenazi out to Irish people like me I'd be a tad dubious as to their accuracy. I'd love to have it if I thought there was any possibility that it was real.

If you have no history of it you have history of it. Since you are in Australia where people were isolated you are a 100% Irish.

[Grace O'Malley]

If you have no history of it you have history of it. Since you are in Australia where people were isolated you are a 100% Irish.

All my family are from Ireland with long paper trails just in very specific parts of Ireland. This is also obvious genetically i.e on Ancestry I'm 100% Ireland and Scotland and on 23&Me 98% British & Irish so very odd where MyHeritage gets 2.8% Ashkenazi for me? :) Anything is possible though but the evidence is against it.

[RenaRyuguu]

All my family are from Ireland with long paper trails just in very specific parts of Ireland. This is also obvious genetically i.e on Ancestry I'm 100% Ireland and Scotland and on 23&Me 98% British & Irish so very odd where MyHeritage gets 2.8% Ashkenazi for me? :) Anything is possible though but the evidence is against it.

Don't trust myheritage it's biased. Do livingdna it's British like yourself or well close to that

[Grace O'Malley]

Don't trust myheritage it's biased. Do livingdna it's British like yourself or well close to that

I've done virtually every dna test including LivingDNA which wasn't really accurate for my family due to a lack of Irish samples. We ended up with too many British areas, including some Scandinavian. I even got a small amount of Chechnya and Pashtun so that is even more unbelievable than having some Ashkenazi. :) They have been saying they were updating their panels for ages now but still no sign of any changes.

[RenaRyuguu]

I've done virtually every dna test including LivingDNA which wasn't really accurate for my family due to a lack of Irish samples. We ended up with too many British areas, including some Scandinavian. I even got a small amount of Chechnya and Pashtun so that even more unbelievable than having some Ashkenazi. :) They have been saying they were updating their panels for ages now but still no sign of any changes.

Well still more Euro than myheritage. Give them time and you'll get your regions.

[Smeagol]

I'm not sure how reliable MyHeritage is though. I have 2.8% Ashkenazi there and yet I have absolutely no history of it in my family and nothing shows on any other test although I did get 1% European Jewish on Ancestry but that has disappeared now. If they are giving Ashkenazi out to Irish people like me I'd be a tad dubious as to their accuracy. I'd love to have it if I thought there was any possibility that it was real.

2% is one thing but I doubt that 50% can be a mistake.

[RenaRyuguu]

2% is one thing but I doubt that 50% can be a mistake.

50% is def not a mistake there is smth there then

[Lucas]

I'm not sure how reliable MyHeritage is though. I have 2.8% Ashkenazi there and yet I have absolutely no history of it in my family and nothing shows on any other test although I did get 1% European Jewish on Ancestry but that has disappeared now. If they are giving Ashkenazi out to Irish people like me I'd be a tad dubious as to their accuracy. I'd love to have it if I thought there was any possibility that it was real.

Considering the fact how useless in MH in detecting proper ancestry (for example in your case) I don't trust this research at all.

[Jana]

All my family are from Ireland with long paper trails just in very specific parts of Ireland. This is also obvious genetically i.e on Ancestry I'm 100% Ireland and Scotland and on 23&Me 98% British & Irish so very odd where MyHeritage gets 2.8% Ashkenazi for me? :) Anything is possible though but the evidence is against it.

I score 5% Ashkenazi Jewish on myHeritage, but not on 23andme, FTDNA or gedmatch. My mother suspected some Hungarian Jewish ancestry but most likely it is not the case. To make it funnier, it is my father who also scores some Jewish on MH, but not anywhere else neither he has any known Jewish ancestry.

Don't know what to think about it. Do you have any pure Jewish matches ? I doubt you do. I have only Slavic mixed Jewish matches from Poland and Ukraine, but no pure Jewish relatives.

[Jana]

Considering the fact how useless in MH in detecting proper ancestry (for example in your case) I don't trust this research at all.

I wouldn't be suprised tbh. Number of mixed Jewish people in Hungary who don't identify as Jewish is probably few hunded tousands.

[Grace O'Malley]

I score 5% Ashkenazi Jewish on myHeritage, but not on 23andme, FTDNA or gedmatch. My mother suspected some Hungarian Jewish ancestry but most likely it is not the case. To make it funnier, it is my father who also scores some Jewish on MH, but not anywhere else neither he has any known Jewish ancestry.

Don't know what to think about it. Do you have any pure Jewish matches ? I doubt you do. I have only Slavic mixed Jewish matches from Poland and Ukraine, but no pure Jewish relatives.

I haven't discovered any Jewish matches so it's a bit baffling but I've heard that MyHeritage are doing an upgrade this year so that I'm hope that is the case.

[RenaRyuguu]

I haven't discovered any Jewish matches so it's a bit baffling but I've heard that MyHeritage are doing an upgrade this year so that I'm hope that is the case.

Updates are always important. Hopefully one day all these websites will merge and we will not need updates anymore.

[Grace O'Malley]

2% is one thing but I doubt that 50% can be a mistake.

I've no doubt there is Jewish ancestry in Hungary but I just question the number as Ashkenazi does seem to appear in lots of people's results that don't get it anywhere else.

For Eurovision they did some past and present Eurovision performers and they did Eimear Quinn's and sure enough this is what she got. :)

http://i64.tinypic.com/n6dd89.jpg

They have all her history here; long term Irish.

https://blog.myheritage.com/2019/04/the-voice-of-eimear-quinns-powerful-irish-history/

[Smeagol]

I've no doubt there is Jewish ancestry in Hungary but I just question the number as Ashkenazi does seem to appear in lots of people's results that don't get it anywhere else.

Yes, I agree when it comes to such small percentages, but I mean MyHeritage can't be that inaccurate that it's telling people without Jewish ancestry that they're half Jewish can it?

[Grace O'Malley]

Yes, I agree when it comes to such small percentages, but I mean MyHeritage can't be that inaccurate that it's telling people without Jewish ancestry that they're half Jewish can it?

No not at such large amounts definitely but I do wonder if they give so many people it how accurate they are. It's not common to get it in other tests whereas on MyHeritage they give it to lots of people. They were also giving loads of people Nigerian at one time which was quite funny with some very European people getting it and thinking it was real. :)

[16coresCasual]

Read it all and there's lots of skewed maths and clickbait-tier statements. Not sure why though

[16coresCasual]

Yes, I agree when it comes to such small percentages, but I mean MyHeritage can't be that inaccurate that it's telling people without Jewish ancestry that they're half Jewish can it?

Not exactly jewish related but here - https://www.technologyreview.com/f/610688/up-to-40-of-results-from-consumer-dna-tests-might-be-bogus/

[loschbour_man]

Yes, I agree when it comes to such small percentages, but I mean MyHeritage can't be that inaccurate that it's telling people without Jewish ancestry that they're half Jewish can it?

4.2% out of the test-takers who put "Hungary" as their location are 50% jewish.

it means nothing. a lot of Europeans put Pakistan or Zimbabwe on their profile, because they don't want to share their real location

btw i believe this "DNA study" used this page as a source :rofl_002:
https://www.myheritage.com/ethnicities

[dududud]

I dont get any ashkenazi jew on myheritage. Woooowwwwwwww