Goldfoot Genealogy

 Nadene Goldfoot   

               Dad, known in South Portland boxing circles as Billy Meshke, AKA Morris Goldfoot, son of Nathan Abraham Goldfoot, below:

                     Nathan Abraham Goldfus b: 1871-d: 1912 

My brother was tested with the Big Y haplogroup test offered by Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) and it is QBZ67. Earlier before the Big Y test, David was listed as a Q-M242, and Q-Y2200   I have traced the Goldfoot line through David to our father, Moshe Goldfoot/Morris Goldfoot/Maurice Goldfoot to our grandfather, Nathan Abraham Goldfoot/Goldfus (Nathan "Nokhim Avram"Abraham" Goldfus Goldfoot) to Telsiai, Lithuania who had immigrated to England, then Dublin, Ireland where he lived with other Goldfoots.  He even married briefly and then somehow got to Council, Idaho and married our grandmother (Bubbie) Zlata Jermulowski/sky.  We knew our grandfather only as Nathan Goldfoot.  I was not aware of any middle name until I did genealogy searches, or where he was born.  Census only said "Russia."    

One thing I can be sure is that the whole line of Goldfus that I found were from Telsiai going back to about 1730, and that there were many on our tree.     

The problem is that I do not have paper evidence as to Nathan's parents.  I chose Movsha ben Josel (John) Goldfus born 1836 in Telsiai, Lithuania from others because of the first name which was probably Moshe as my father's was on his birth certificate.  Otherwise, I might not have realized that his name of Morris was the chosen anglicized form for Moshe (Moses).  The Jewish custom was to name after the deceased.  Movsha of Telsiai (Telz) was a distiller.  (a person or company that manufactures liquor."barrels that the master distiller deems to be of superior quality"). 

  Ian was in track and field at the university in Austin, Texas.  He was a fast runner.  Nov 4, 1934-Feb 9, 2022.  

Then I was found by Ian Goldfoot who had moved to the States from South Africa.  We talked and realized at once that we were of the same Goldfoot line.  Ian tested his haplogroup DNA and was an Q-M378, a little different from my brother's Q-M242.  

The direct lines of both Nathan Abraham Goldfoot, my grandfather, and Ian Goldfoot and to his half-sister, Denise, my contemporary-born in 1934, and my 3rd cousin,  is as follows:

Me: Nadene Goldfoot b: 1934 Portland, OR; f: Moshe,Maurice Goldfoot b: 1908 Portland; to Nathan Abraham Goldfus b: 1871 Telsiai, Lithuania to Movsha Goldfus b: 1836, to Iosel Josel Symka ben Yankel Goldfus b: 1798, to Iankel Yankel ben Abram Goldfus b: 1768-1774

Ian: Ian Goldfoot b: 1934 Krugerdorp, South Africa, f: Solomon Shlomo Solly Goldfoot b: 1904, Dublin, Ireland;  Hyman Haim Goldfus Goldfoot b: 1867 Telsiai, to Avraham Haim Goldfus b: 1825 Telsiai, to Iankel Yankel ben Abram Goldfus b: 1768-1774

Therefore, as far as I can tell, Ian and my connection goes back to 1768 in Telsiai,Lithuania to Iankel or Yankel ben Abram Goldfus and his wife, Khana. Ian is 3rd cousin to my brother and myself and to my contemporary 1st cousins from my father's family.   

1.  IANKEL YANKEL BEN ABRAM⁶ GOLDFUS  (ABRAM⁵, IONES JONAH⁴, UNKNOWN DNA MATCHING³, JACOB², SALTMAN¹ KALONYMUS, DARSHAN, JAFFE) was born Bet. 1768 - 1774 in Telsai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania, and died December 06, 1860 in Telsliai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania.  He married (2) KHANA UNKNOWN Abt. 1800.  She was born Abt. 1778 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania. 

Notes for IANKEL YANKEL BEN ABRAM GOLDFUS:

3/9/08  I found a Rachel Clare Goldfoot b: 4 Feb 1906 and died Oct 1986 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire at age 80.  She may have been a widow of a Goldfoot, I don't know. 

I found and met Stanley Goldfoot in Jerusalem.  He is my  3rd cousin.  Stanley was a contemporary of my mother. Stanley was born in 1914 in South Africa.  His father was Simon Goldfoot b: 1874 in Telsiai, Lithuania,  and grandfather was SOLOMON-Shlomo Zalman Goldfus/ Goldfoot b: 1848-1849. then his father was Avrohom Abraham Haim Goldfus b: 1825 in Telsiai, making Stanley and Ian related through Abraham Haim Goldfus as 2nd cousins. 

               Stanley and Helen, his 2nd wife, living at Dor v'Dor  Street in Jerusalem.  (Stanley-May 2, 1914-Nov 24, 2006)  

Stanley was the Chief of Intelligence for the Stern Group, called the Stern Gang by the British who were holding the 30 year mandate of Palestine.  He had immigrated to Palestine at age 18 right out of high school in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa.  Meeting him in Jerusalem at the King David Hotel was a thrill !  We met several times after that at his home.  

3/11/08  Oral history from Stanley Goldfoot and Denise's father, Solomon Goldfoot, was that they were descendants of  Vilna Gaon, who was Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman.  1720-1797.  Talmudist.

                   About the Vilna Gaon, very famous Rabbi: leaves about 20,000  descendants as of 1975 starting from the birth year of 1750 starting with the children of thee Vilna Gaon of 8 children. p. 8. 

He was born in Lithuania and was early famed for his scholarship.  From 1740-1745 he traveled among the Jewish communities of Poland and Germany, settling in Vilna where he taught and later founded his own academy.  He lived in seclusion and refused rabbinic office.  He was called a saint and a scholar.  He led the opposition to the Hasidim in Lithuania, ordering their excommunication and the destruction of their literature.  His obdurate attitude checked the spread of Hasidism in Lithuania.  When he was about 60, he set out unaccompanied for Palestine but returned before reading it.  His reputation lies primarily in the field of halakhah.  He sought to establish critical texts of the authoritative rabbinic writings, resorting also to emendations.  He avoided pilpul and based his views and rulings upon the plain meaning of the text.  He regarded highly the early kabbalistic works, and was extremely critical of philosophy.  He was interested in secular studies insofar as they threw light on the Torah, but he opposed the Haskalah.  His works include commentaries on the Bible, annotations on the Talmud, Midrash, and Zohar, works on mathematics, the geography of Palestine, Hebrew grammar, etc.  He exercised a vast influence on his own and succeeding generations, the Mitnaggedim regarding him as their spiritual leader. 

from Geni:  Dear Ezra,

Looking at your tree it appears that someone has given your patriline the identification of: Haplogroup Q-M242 / Q-Y2754 Y-DNA (in the about section of your father's profile and in the pedigree up to Moshe (Movsha) Magid). Do you know how this Q-M242 identification came to be associated to your pedigree? ( b: 1791 in Vilnius, Lithuania).  

From the GENI tree it appears that Moshe Magid is the patriline great grand nephew of HaGRA. If all of this is correct and verifiable then it seems that indeed HaGRA is a Q-M242. Can you please cite the Maciamo Hay paper?

If this above holds true than you yourself may be a patriline relation of HaGRA. Have you done your yDNA testing?

Cordially and Appreciatively,
Adam  (when researching about Vilna Gaon) 

4/1/15  and 6/17/15,  Yankel died at age 92 from old age, on Lithuania death list of LitvakSIG.  On Tevet 5.  also from Jewishgen through Dennis Khan.  

Q-M242 is believed to have arisen around the Altai Mountains area (or South Central Siberia), approximately 17,000 to 31,700 years ago. However, the matter remains unclear due to limited sample sizes and changing definitions of Haplogroup Q: early definitions used a combination of the SNPs M242, P36.2, and MEH2 as defining mutations.

More About IANKEL YANKEL BEN ABRAM GOLDFUS:

Name 2: Iankel Yankel Goldfus

Name 3: Iankel Yankel Ben Abram Goldfus

Date born 2: 1768

Date born 3: Bet. 1768 - 1774, Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania

Died 2: Tevet 5  6/12/1860

Cause of Death: old age

Census 1: 1811, age 37 Telsiai

Census 2: August 17, 1816, age 42, Revision, Iankel, Abram, head of household

Census 3: August 17, 1816, Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lith. age 42 (Revision List)

Citizenship 1: May 23, 1846, Well-to-do, 8 kopecks, with family, Candle Taxpayers

Citizenship 2: 1855, Wooden house worth 500 rubles in Kaunas, real estate owners tax,

DNA 1: ca1775-ca1867

DNA 2: 1804, Czarist law: registration of Jewish births

Occupation: May 23, 1846, Tax & Voters Lists: KRA/1-49/1/1381 

More About KHANA UNKNOWN:

Census 1: August 17, 1816, Telsiai, age 40 , wife of Iankel son of Abram, Rvision List

Census 2: August 17, 1816, Revision, Age 40, wife of Iankel 

More About IANKEL GOLDFUS and KHANA UNKNOWN:

Marriage: Abt. 1800

To find the connection of a 3rd cousin is quite a feat.  However, we Jews make up only 0.02% of the world population, and of the Jewish haplogroups, Qs make up probably about 5% or less of this group as well.  We're a rare group !  May we continue somehow!  We're going to depend on those who did not change their names and are still Goldfus. It takes a male to keep the surname going.  

 From What Haplogroup WE Be?  from another of my blogs:  

Q1b1: 5% of Ashkenazi Jewish men are found to be Q1b, of which is my father’s haplogroup (Q1b1a or Q-L245) and the latest is called Q-Y2200, updated to Q-BZ67.  Q originated in Central Asia 15,000 to 20,000 years ago and the men migrated through northern Eurasia into the Americas. Q3 became Native Americans coming from a mutation that happened 8,000 to 12,000 years ago. Q1b’s are from the Altai Mountains in Mongolia, Siberia and parts of Turkey. Khazaria may be the home of Q1b’s, and therefore these men could be part of the Ashina Royal Dynasty. Their common ancestor was a man 1,000 years ago. New Q SNP test results in: Q-L245 is Ashkenazi, Q-Y2780=ca 1400 CE; Q-&Ip1071=ca 700 CE, Q-&Ip1010-11 YP1008=800 CE, Q-&P1009=1400 CE ; ?????

4/21/10: P.S.Now we're not positive if Q1b comes from Khazaria though if I had to bet I'd bet that it is. It hasn't been accepted by the main body of scientists who decide such things. To me it's the most logical place, but we have no actual proof. We need more, perhaps several bodies with teeth that could be tested for the Ydna from Khazaria. Most likely the population of Khazaria was made up of a mixture of people from various haplogroups, but it's the Royal family that we're hoping to turn out to be Q1b's as the Royal family converted to Judaism but did not force their people to convert. 
Researcher: Prof. Alfred Krupa: " As for my Ashina of Khazaria certification,  it has been issued by the largest genetic company IGENEA of Zurich, after agreement from the worlds largest genetic company FTDNA of Houston. Bennett Greenspann has been advised about all elements of formal papers and my own research,and approved such conclusion".
Update: 5/10/2012 Q1b1 is losing out in being considered as coming from the Royal family of Khazaria.  DNA expert Rebekah Canada reports that they're thinking maybe G types and R1a1a types more likely candidates.
Double Update: 5/10/2012 from Rebekah Canada: 
Updated on SNPs 5/26/16  to Q-BZ67.  
Is Q-L245 found in modern Arab populations?  Yes
Is Q-L245 found in modern Anatolian populatons?  Yes
Is Q-L245 found in modern Iran and Iraq?  Yes
Is Q-L245 found from the modern locations of the Ancient city of Ur down to the tip of Saudi Arabia and Oman?  Yes
Does that cover the places where ancient Israel, Judah, and Sumaria were?  Yes.

• Q1a2 (L56, M346): found in Kazakhstan, Russia, Armenia and Hungary
• Q1a2a (L53): found among the Mongols
• Q1a2a1 (L54): found in Mesolthic western Russia
• Q1a2a1a (CTS11969)
• Q1a2a1a1 (M3): the main subclade of Native Americans
• Q1a2a1a2 (L804): found in Germany, Scandinavia and Britain
• Q1a2a1a2a (L807): observed in Britain
• Q1a2a1b (Z780): found among Native Americans, notably in Mexico
• Q1a2a1c (L330): the main subclade of the Mongols, also found among the Kazakhs and Uzbeks, as well as in Ukraine, Turkey and Greece (probably Mongolian and Turkic)
• Q1a2b (L940): found in Central Asia, Afghanistan, India, Russia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland and Germany
• Q1a2b1 (L527): found almost exclusively in Scandinavia and places settled by the Vikings
• Q1a2b2 (L938): observed in Anatolia, Lithuania, Britain and Portugal
• Q1a2b2a (L939): observed in Britain
• Q1a2c (M323)
• Q1b (L275): found among the Tatars of Russia, in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan
• Q1b1 (M378): observed in Kazakhstan, India and Germany
• Q1b1a (L245): found in the Middle East, among the Jews, in Central Europe and in Sicily
• Q1b1a1 (L272.1): found in Sicily (probably Phoenician)

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_Q-M242

Book:  Eliyahu's Branches by Chaim Freedman, the Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and his family, 685 pages, large heavy book, but lists people, not dna.  

Labels: dna, ian Goldfoot, Nathan Abraham Goldfoot, South Africa, Stanley Goldfoot, USA, Vilna Gaon genealogy connection, What Haplogroup We Be? Jewish Facts From Portland

 Nadene Goldfoot                                      

                               My brother David, our Mom and cousin Don

This morning, I'm thinking about my family;  1st cousin, Don and how part of his youthful life was spent with our Bubbie, our grandmother Zlata Goldfoot nee Jermulowske/i.  Bubbie, or Hattie, a name on the census for her that I never heard in connection with her, was born in Lasdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania which was on the border with Poland. 

What am I remembering?  Measuring my height against hers.  She was so short.  Bubbie eating her favorite;  boiled potatoes with pickled herring.                        

Orson Welles (arms raised) rehearses his radio depiction of H.G. Wells' classic, The War of the Worlds. The broadcast, which aired on October 30, 1938, and claimed that aliens from Mars had invaded New Jersey, terrified thousands of Americans. © Bettmann/CORBIS

 Also, my memory goes back to being at the house when all of us were there and being told that the Martians had landed and that my father was going to drive us to the mountains to escape them. That was radio news of the moment.  All of the family were in shock and awe.  It could be we were together for Yom Kippur .

        Aunt Hammie (Ann), our Bubbie and Cousin Harriett in about 1943-1944.  Harriett was born on June 25, 1941.

She immigrated to the USA as a teen-ager, around age 17 and arrived in the USA in 1903-I believe.  Zlata was born on January 11, 1886 and died December 9, 1950 in Portland, Oregon. She was the daughter of Joshua Charles "Hatzkel" Isaiahel Jermulowskie and his first wife, if my genealogy searches are correct, Esther   "Essie" Decatsky Decad Frank.  Being I have found a DNA match to a very nice man with the surname of Decad makes me think that this is correct.  Joshua's Essie died and he married again and gave Zlata more siblings.  Now, of course, Decatsky is not coming up on FTDNA for my checking but I did find this:  the 1940 U.S. Census.

Morris Decatsky was born about 1881 in Russia. In 1940, he was 59 years old and lived in Kings, New York, with his wife, Tillie, son, 2 daughters, and grandson. 

As it turned out, Zlata never went to school as she was illiterate.  She couldn't read or write in any language, and only spoke Yiddish.  Evidence is that she was home as the baby sitter taking care of her siblings.  All of them did become literate.  There was from Esther  (Essie) ;   Bessie, Jennie and Louis of the 1st marriage, and then there was from Deborah (Dora);  Lilly, Charles and Alice of the 2nd marriage.  I've also found an unknown;  Abram Owsej Ajzykowicz Jermulowski who I wonder since born in 1898, if he's a sibling, too.  He was born in Bialystock, Poland.  Maybe he's a cousin.  Also, the tradition in Judaism is that when a wife dies, she is replaced with her sister.  Were Esther and Deborah sisters?  I need DNA tests to tell.  Most likely not.                        

  Zlata's children include two PhDs with Don and his MS in the grandchildren with  most all being college graduates.  Don had gone on to be head of all the hospitals in Oregon except those in Multnomah County in their economic issues.  That was quite a responsibility.  He had to travel all over Oregon and check on their situations to keep them out of the red.

Don was the one who learned to really speak Yiddish with Bubbie.  He recalls favorite sayings with her to this day, part of the far distant memory that we all have.  We tend to remember the past but forget to take our pills in the morning.  If anyone heard Bubbie's favorite stories, it would have been Don, and he has told me a few.  He adores repeating the Yiddish he did learn from Bubbie.  It gives him his place in line with the Jewish people, if you can understand that.  Though his life didn't follow the Jewish culture as much, he did have that part of his childhood to remember.  

Bubbie, as it was, lived with her last child, Ann.  Ann was born several months after her father,  Nathan Goldfoot,  had died in a horse and wagon accident in SE Portland.  He had the horse and wagon, given to him by a Jewish group who helped the immigrants provide a living for their family.  As it happened, he was not used to handling horses.  His peddler experience was by foot.  So one time the horse was frightened by a noise, came to a halt and this threw Nathan Abraham Goldfoot out of his seat and he hit his head, was knocked out and never did wake up again.  All this occurred on a Friday.  Bubbie did not find out till a friend came the following Monday and told her he was dead and at St. Vincent's Hospital.  She went through  trauma herself, Shabbat and pregnant with 3 babies and a missing husband.  

Ann was born November 11, 1912 and her father had died July 19, 1912, 4 months before.  Can you imagine the state of mind that Bubbie was in?  She already had Charlie, Moshe (my father) and Essie-Elsie and had suffered earlier the death of her 3rd child, a boy-Abraham, who died in infancy at 5 months and 10 days in 1909, the year after my father's birth.  He evidently died of crib death though he slept with his parents in a feather-bed.  

Ann married possibly the last Jew to leave Germany, Werner Oster, who got out in May 1939.  Germany entered Poland in June 1939.  It was not an easy thing for his family to get him out, either.  He had already been picked up and kept in Aushwitz just before it became the Holocaust center of death.  He was picked up for hitting a cow with a stick on the path to the slaughter house of his father's.  It was a stick used to keep them on the path, a leading stick-not a stick used to hurt the animal.  The Germans used any reason to pick up Jews. After a horrendous experience of torture, he was able to return home then.  But his family had to figure that he would be the only one to survive.                                     

Ann had my 5 female cousins for Bubbie to care for as they appeared; Harriett, Darlene, Francis, Rose and Sandra.  They got to live with her and Don who was also there as a brother figure during several of the years.  His mother, Elsie, worked, and during those times, he was with Ann when not in school.

Werner on the right holding Darlene (2nd child) and my father on the left holding my brother, David.  Behind David's head is my mother's brother-Uncle Kenny holding Charlotte.  Cousins Diane, Harriett (1st child) and Donny and myself.  Don and I are 3 years apart.  I look so big and he so little, but as adults, he shot up and was a also a great basketball player, playing into his 80's in contests, even.  His grandson is even taller, I hear.  I love it that our family intermingled with each other, getting to know the other, as we children were born.  Children bind more than we realize.  

Werner was under great stress all the time as a butcher with my father in that he kept tabs on his family through a radio receiver that was against the law to use as I understand it.  Imagine trying to lead a normal life when your parents and then 16 year old sister's lives were threatened and eventually taken, of course.  Though Werner had been a great athlete in his teen years, it was so hard on him.  That would have also been transferred onto my aunt Hammie (Ann) as well.                                            

Life.  Even though we physically escaped the Holocaust, it left its mark on all of us Jews.  One wonders, wonders about what brought our Bubbie to America in the first place in 1903 and thankful, so thankful that it did.  I didn't even mention that she wound up in Council, Idaho, a little mountain town with some of her sibling members and new husband, Nathan. 

 She was even working washing dishes and such in a restaurant in Cuprum, Idaho.  Cuprum is an unincorporated community in Adams County in the U.S. state of Idaho. The community is located 27 mi (43 km) northwest of Council. Council is a beautiful spot.  Cuprum is Latin for “Copper,” an apt description as this remote part of Idaho likely still has huge untapped copper deposits. Several mines were in the area, leading to the need for a town. A hospital was built here in 1897, and a Post Office was established the same year on December 1st.  Cuprum is now a ghost town and hard to get to.   *Note* Two wheel drive accessible only in summer months. Kleinscmidt Grade is an historic road known for it’s steep grade.  From Ontario, Oregon head north on US-95 North for 44 miles. At the town of Cambridge Idaho, take a left on to ID-71.....How did she get there?  Probably by horse and buggy. 

She was married in November 20, 1905 in Boise, Idaho to Nathan Goldfoot of Council, Idaho, where her sisters Bessie was married to Sam Criss and Jennie was married to Harry Criss and Louis Jermulowske was single and living in Council in 1901 or 1902.  He didn't marry until 1908 and that was in Portland, OR.  She probably lived in Cuprum, Idaho with her sisters, a small mining town close to Council before she married Nathan.  You should see the certificate!  The spelling was so bad that unless you knew the facts, you couldn't translate it.  Sheltered Zlata, suddenly being thrust into cowboy-land or gold-mining land;   cleaning up from them.  

As a teacher, I laugh at the thought of my father and his brother Charlie diving under a bed to escape the broom attack of their mother in Portland.                    

Before Elsie was born, Charlie 4 and Moshe (Dad) 2, perhaps

Dad and Charlie were out  selling newspapers when dad was 4 and Charlie 6 to earn money for them all.  She was a teen-aged mom who was at the mercy of a 6, 4 and 1 year old and the broom was her only aid. The boys were even dismissed from Hebrew School for their antics.  Gosh, how did my father ever produce me,, the perfect school-child?  I don't know.  Must have been my mom's genes.    

Labels: Bubbie, Cuprum, Germany, Goldfoot Family, Idaho, Jermulowske Family, Martians, Oster Family, Robinson family

 Nadene Goldfoot                                       

    Me:   Neanderthal 2.9%  found by 23&Me  After Neanderthal are the Cro Magnons- or homo sapiens.   Our DNA goes back 29,000 to 34,000 years.  Neanderthals lived " during the middle to late Pleistocene Epoch, about 400 000 to 40 000 years ago. Neanderthals lived in Eurasia with traces discovered as far north as present-day Belgium and south to the Mediterranean and southwest Asia. At 40,000 Neanderthals died out and at 29,000 to 34,000 to Cro Magnons lived.   This is why my paternal line only have 2.9%;   became a Cro-magnon with a little Neanderthal DNA.                       

                          Cro Magnons:  early Europeans   

                  A line of Native Americans with Q haplogroup
     Native Americans first arrived on the continent 12,000 years ago.  
Russians...yes, we were from Lithuania--Russia held many times  
                   Possible ancestor looked like this handsome guy                      

     Grandfather Nathan Abraham Goldfoot (August 5,1871-July 19, 1912)

Abraham was not a name we were privy to know about until genealogy research took place.  He had named his 3rd son, Abraham, who had died in infancy, though.  The Jewish custom of naming is for family who have died.  Rabbi Goldberg told me to look and see if we had an Abraham in the family. 

                     Rabbi Goldberg on left-the other, also a rabbi, was killed, too.  
He was connected to us and my helper from Jerusalem.  He was slaughtered in his synagogue during morning prayers later on, a horrible shock to me.  I hadn't even known--he hadn't told me---that he was a well-known rabbi.  

Our Nathan grew a beard because my father remembered sitting on his lap and playing with it.  Zayda (grandfather) died from an accident when Dad was 4 years old, so he really did remember.  

Our family line started with one man quite possibly born in Turkey of Central Asia who migrated to Mesopotamia who migrated to ancient Canaan some 4,000 years ago.  A descendant of his then remained on the land till 70 CE-about 2,,000 years ago only to be transferred to Rome, Italy, possibly as merchants originally or slaves after 70 CE.    From there the family finally wound up in Germany in around the year 1,000 CE, and then found they needed to leave and headed northwards, ending in Lithuania in the year 1321-1398, still part of the Dark Ages.  We had become part of the Ashkenazic Jews.  

We know these facts through genealogy with the modern help of places like ancestry.com;  and our own DNA testing, especially the Big Y test from Family Tree DNA (FTDNA), that shows our one and only male Goldfoot's Y haplogroup to be a rare QBZ67.  Q's are from places like Turkey.  My brother's test was Q-M242 , then Q-Y2200 which  is the predominant Y-DNA haplogroup among Native Americans and several peoples of Central Asia and Northern Siberia. Adele Canada is the project person at FTDNA for our line.  Wikipedia said, "Q-M378's subbranch Q-L245's subclades Q-Y2200 and Q-YP1035 are the only varieties of haplogroup Q that are found in Ashkenazi Jews. Citizen scientists found that some Sephardic Jews carry different subclades of Q-L245, including Q-BZ3900, Q-YP745, and Q-YP1237.."

So, a very long time ago, our line split off from the Native American line to become a line of Jews that must have hooked up in Mesopotamia. As far as Jews go, who are a very small group today as it is after the Holocaust killed 6 million of us being only 0.02% of the total world population, This line is one of the small ones of Jews.  

It is a part of the Halpern group, though. The Halpern group is a group on FTDNA of men related to the Halperns whose ancestors were many well-known rabbis of the day in Europe. The genealogy of many go back to King David of Israel (1010-970 BCE). Family lines of Wertheimer and Oppenheim/er are among those we connect with.                                                              

The nice thing for genealogists is that in order to sit on the high court, the Sanhedrin,  the 71 ordained scholars; rabbis who had to present their genealogy scrolls showing their connection to Rabbi Hillel of the 1st century CE  or King David so there have been a few that were able to  still exist today. 

 Interesting to me is that they didn't realize the power of DNA, expecting descendants of rabbis to produce rabbis who would be equally brilliant in their judgements.  For in the days of Hillel, rabbis held debates between each other on point of law
of Moses.  They even had debating partners and practiced debating. My son took debate in high school and went to state (Salem, Oregon) winning almost all their debates.    Hillel had 2 famous teachers, Shemaiah and Avtalyon which is like saying Harvard AND Yale.  Hillel even became president of the Sanhedrin.  Hillel and his debating partner, who was known to take Hillel's opposing side, was Shammai.  They were the last  of the pairs (Zugot) of scholars.  Hillel was well-known for his humility and tendency to leniency.  Usually Hillel was the one other rabbis followed.   

From Lithuania and before WWI, our grandfather, Nathan Abraham Goldfus, immigrated to England and changed his name from Goldfus to Goldfoot, and then from there to Dublin, Ireland seeking a new homeland lived for a short while with cousins who turned out to be the ancestors of Ian Goldfoot who I met a few years ago in Texas.  From Ireland, somehow Nathan moved on to the USA while his cousins immigrated to South Africa, a favored place for Lithuanian Jews since I found many  of our relatives there.

Nathan met and married another Lithuanian, Zlata Jermulowske,  in Idaho where they married in Boise.  They lived in a little mining town there of Council, Idaho for a short while.  After my uncle Charley was born, they rode the train to Portland, Oregon.                  

     Stanley with 1st wife Rebecca Finger and daughters in Israel , I met him in 1981 in the King David Hotel and at his home in Jerusalem.  He was still as tall and slim as he was in this earlier picture.  

When I made aliyah in 1980, the first thing I did was to look up Stanley Goldfoot (1914-2006) .  He was a pioneer, moving to Israel before 1948 and becoming the Chief of Intelligence for the Stern Group whose leader was the famous Avraham Stern who went by Yair, (1907-1942).  In 1939-1940 he left the Irgun Tzeval Leumi, of which he had been a leader, because of its refusal to continue anti-British activities in Palestine during World War II.  He formed an underground organization later known as Lahame Herut Israel.  The British called it the Stern Gang which carried out acts of sabotage, etc.  They did attack the King David Hotel, as it happens--where I met Stanley much later on.  Stern was killed by the British police while being arrested...one of those affairs we have seen happen to Blacks in the states during arrests.  Wouldn't you know it, but Stanley had 2 daughters, no sons.                 

                       Ian on the right.  He was my age (1934-2022).  He also had daughters, no sons.  He had had a scholarship in track in Texas when younger.  He also ran in Israel in the Maccabi Games running the 100 meter race.  Ian Goldfoot and Stanley Goldfoot were 2nd cousins.   

Labels: Ashkenazi, Cro Magnon, dna, ian Goldfoot, lithuanian, Nathan Abraaham Goldfoot, Neanderthal, Rbbi Abraaham Goldberg, Sanhedrin, Sephardic, Stanley Goldfoot, Stern Group, Turkey