Thursday, July 06, 2023
Famous Left-Handed People-And My Family- The How and Why
Nadene Goldfoot
Grandfather Nathan Abraham Goldfus/Goldfoot 1st Son, Charles "Haskel" Goldfoot Below, 2nd son of Nathan and granddaughter

Besides being Jewish, which my brother and I are, and my cousin, which means we belong to a small population group of 0.02% of the world population, and we Jews are only 2% of the USA population. We belong to only 5% of Jews since we have the Y haplogroup of Q (QBZ67), and we belong to another group as well. We both are left-handed, which happens to only 10% of world population in the first place. Our father's brother's only child was also a lefty. That's three of us born as lefties amidst right handed people. It's our generation and from the two male Goldfoot children that are left-handed. The two sisters did not have left-handed children.
Only about 10 percent of people worldwide are left-handed, experts say. They're more comfortable writing, throwing a ball and doing other manual tasks with their left hand. 10% of .5% of 0.02% is what? A teeny-tiny group of us left-handed Jewish Qs. Good grief! Our two male 1st cousins, Nate the Lefty-son of my father's brother and Don, right-handed, son of a sister of my father.Here's former President Obama signing a paper. He's a lefty.
I curve my hand above like Obama, too ! Left handedness is not following a mendal-type law of dominant and recessive genes. Something is figured to trigger the event today, but how could my mother, Mildred and Nate's mother, Helen have hormonal problems at the same time. Nate and I were born 6 months apart. Mildred and Helen were not even remotely related to each other. My brother came along 8 years later and he also was a lefty.But is there any evidence for a trigger with handedness? I couldn't find much research in people, but some interesting studies have been done with chimpanzees.
In chimpanzees, being right handed is about twice as common as being left handed (as opposed to around 9 times as likely in humans). When scientists studied chimpanzees, they found that the chances for having a left-handed baby increased significantly based on birth order. The first and sixth or later babies had a much higher chance of being left-handed than did the middle ones.
What do the first and later pregnancies have in common? They tend to have hormonal variations that don't happen with the middle pregnancies. And this might be the environmental trigger we're looking for.

There is some evidence in humans that birth order may play a role as well. Nothing as clear-cut as we see with chimps but we do know that older mothers tend to have more left handed children. Also, at least with boys, some studies have shown that later kids are more likely to be left-handed.4
So, handedness is most likely due to a combination of genes and environment. Some people have a greater chance of being left-handed but something needs to trigger it.
Remember, the identical twin story argued against genes being the whole story. It also argues that birth order isn't everything either. If it were, then if one identical twin was a lefty, the other would always be one as well.
So at least right now, we don’t have a good answer for the genetics of handedness. It’s a complex trait that isn’t fully understood, and you can’t reliably predict how it will be inherited in a family. But I can say for sure that it is not a simple Mendelian trait!
Resource:
Labels: dna, handedness, Jewish, mendel's law, triggers
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Grandfather Nathan Abraham Goldfoot and His Town of Birth, Telsiai's History
Nadene Goldfoot
below: Zlata Jermulowski/e
Under 5' tall Almost 6'tall
Nathan Abraham GoldfusAfter the 1917 Russian Revolution when my ancestors, Nathan Abraham Goldfus/foot and his wife, Zlata Jermulowski/y, were already here, the Communists took a new census and destroyed the 1897 census that was so complete and loaded with information. Many copies stored in local or regional archives have been lost because of war, fire, flood and other disasters.
Portions of the original returns still exist in the archives in Vilnius, Lithuania, Riga, Latvia, Grodno, Belarus, and archives in the Ukraine, some places and Russia and possibly elsewhere, at least since 2002.
Nathan Goldfus/foot came from the Telsiai (Telz) District as far as I know, most likely born there. On this 1897 Ccnsus of the Russian Empire for selected districts in Lithuania, I see that the total population was 183,351. Out of that, 22,695 were Jews, which was 12% of the population. More Jews came from the Kovna (a city in the Kovno District) with a total population of 227,431 and in which 45,353 were Jews. That made up 20% of their population. In 1870 Telez had 6,481 residents, including 4,399 Jews which was 68% of the population. Grandfather Nathan A. Goldfus was born January 1, 1871. His father, Movshe, died in 1878 when he was only 7 years old.
The Jewish numbers in Telsiai had gone up. In 1797, only 2,500 people lived in there. Out of that number, 1,650 were Jews which was 66% of the population. The % of Jews remained pretty much the same, the majority being Jewish. At this time it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom, when the 3rd division of Poland by the 3 superpowers of those times, Russia, Prussia and Austria, caused Lithuania to become partly Russian and partly Prussian. Telz was in the Czarist Russian ruled area, 1st from 1802 as part of the Vilna Province (Gubernia) as a district administrative center and from 1843 as part of the Kovno Province. Kovno Governorate or Governorate of Kaunas was a governorate (guberniya) of the Russian ... and Northwestern Krai. The governorate included almost the entire Lithuanian region of Samogitia and the northern part of Aukštaitija.
Jews there suffered from the " BLOOD LIBALS" one in 1758 and the 2nd in 1827. In both cases, the so called "accused" were released by the court, but as a result, the Jewish population suffered through a period of fear.
These are the tools from early American distillers in making corn whiskey. Moonshine?
There were also plots by estate owners who saw the Jews as competitors in producing and selling alcohol. I believe that my grandfather, Nathan Goldfus's father was Movsha ben Josel Goldfus (b: 1836-d: 1878 in Telsiai). That's because my father was Moshe Goldfoot, probably named for him. Movsha died at age 42. Strangely, Nathan died at 41. Our Morrie died at 59, a great improvement.
Great grandfather, Movsha was a DISTILLER. The distiller mixes yeast, water, and sugar (or a sugar-containing grain) in a fermenter, aka a mash tun. After three to seven days of voracious fermenting, the yeast has consumed most of the sugar, turning the mash into a wash (10 or 12 percent alcohol by volume). A pump moves the wash into the pot of the still. Craft distillers have a great job. And sure, they do oversee the production of a beautiful liquid that makes many people very happy. But there’s a daunting degree of unceremonious routine required to fill every bottle. So if you’re thinking of cashing it all in pursuit of your life goal as whiskey maker, consider what goes into each day on the job. Think this is some magical, carefree existence? Dream on. Jews, of all the people on earth, have a very low % of alcoholics, or rather, have had, since we use wine in our religious beliefs, and not for fun, except on Purim, when we are allowed to get drunk if need be. Today, people are changing. I hope we're not in this case.
In 1825, the nobles asked the Tsar to expel the Jews because they.....spread diseases....and threaten to rob and to steal... Duh, Jews usually in every case of epidemics or contagious diseases were least likely to catch it because of their law of Kashrut which includes cleanliness. That made them the targets of spreading the disease, because they didn't catch it.
In 1879, Jewish women established a vocational school for girls and nearby a boarding school for girls from oor homes. Feige Lurie was head who donated money for maintenance. Poor children studied at the "Talmud-Torah" schools and others at institutions of the "Kheder" type, where they learned reading and writing. and bible with "Rashi" commentaries and "Gemaera" (Talmuid). Grandfather Nathan, at age 8 but whose father was dead, would have started maybe at the age of 5 and was learning reading and writing and a little Bible. My father remembered sitting on his lap and he had a beard then.
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| Charlie on left, Moshe (Morris) on right |
Nathan, dying in 1912 in an accident, left my father at age 4 without a father. His brother, Charlie, was only 6. It's good that Zlata had a brother living nearby for emotional support. She had many half-siblings. Bessie and Jenny were still living in Council, Idaho with their husbands. Louis and wife Dinah and Lilly and husband Frank might have also been in Portland or Council. Charles could have been in LaGrande along with sister Alice.
Reference:
Avotaynu, Volume XVIII, #3.Fall 2002
https://www.jewish-heritage-lithuania.org/
Preserving Our Litvak Heritage-a history of 31 Jewish Communities in Lithuania
Distiller's tools: https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02JoupGrnNgP0-ErszV8c0InxgTVg:1611096127266&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=distiller&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwip-_TiiKnuAhUyHzQIHY-pD4EQ7Al6BAgmEF4&biw=1863&bih=901 pictures
Labels: census, distiller, Goldfus, Jewish, Lithuania, Nathan, Telsiai, Telz
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Goldfoot has East-Asian Ancestry
I have a mother who converted to Judaism whose mother was born in Sweden and father who was an American Yankee with distant roots going back to the ship after the Mayflower of 1620 from England or Wales.
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| Mom's Dad on left, born in Illinois |
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| Mom's Mom from Sweden |
I have a father whose parents were Ashkenazi Jews from Lithuania and Poland. I have tested with Family Tree DNA and find I have 3% of my DNA from Asia Minor, meaning Turkey and the area of Georgia and Azerbaijan. By testing with GedMatch.com, I find my East Asian genes amount to 0.41%. Of that, the break-down is Western Mediterranean-11.55%, Eastern Mediterranean-9.78%, Western Asian-2.89%, Middle Eastern-5.18%, South Asian-0.67% and East Asian-0.67%.
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| My Mother |
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| Dad's Father |
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| Dad's Mother |
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| Myself with my Dad |
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| Me, Nadene Goldfoot |
Simply put, I have 49% European, 48% Jewish Diaspora and 3% Middle Eastern. It is that Middle Eastern that I figure is from my Jewish side of Goldfoot and Jermulowske genes, but perhaps not. Out of my European ancestry, 36% comes from Scandinavia; 8% come from Southern Europe and 5% comes from Eastern Europe. My 4 grandparents; the Swede, Yankee, Lithuanian and Lithuanian/Poland would have given me each 25% of my genes.
Then I have found that about 1/3 of Caucasians taking the DNA test show some level of East-Asian ancestry and being Jews make up only 0.02% of the world population, they can't all be Jewish! This East Asian ancestry is a different thing all together. Some Norwegians are of significant East Asian ancestry because there is an admixture with the Lapps (Sammi) who came to Scandinavia from northern Asia and who share a common heritage with Asian Indians, Northern Chinese, Japanese, Ainu and even American Indians. I'm guessing now, but I bet its from the Q Y haplogroup (carried by men). This is interesting. My Swedish grandfather could have Q haplogroup genes and my father's DNA shows he IS Q1b1a or Q-Y 2200.
There are other groups of people with significant East Asian ancestry that may have contributed to my family tree that include migrations/invasions of nomads through Russia as well as other portions of Eastern Europe and are thought to have brought East Asian gene sequences to Europe. That would show my Jewish heritage of Lithuania and Poland were part of Russia at one time. Other migrations may not be known at this time and may have an affect on scores!
About half of the South Asian Indians tested have significant East Asian ancestry, though you would never know by appearance. Just because some of my relatives were born in Europe doesn't mean they were all 100% Indo-European. European boundaries are political, not biological like the DNA test, and immigration/emigration between Europe and the rest of the world has been happening for thousands of years.
Other researchers at Yale and Stanford have shown considerable East Asian admixture in Eastern European, Russian and Northern European populations. The Indo-European group covers the populations from Europe to India, including the Middle East. They are actually fairly similar genetically. People from these regions often generate similar admixture results. The further East from Europe a sample originates from, the lower the Indo-European score. In all the samples tested so far, including samples from the South of India, have Indo-European as the major group in the admix test.
Secondly, these populations are part of a language group termed Indo-European and this is where FTDNA took the label describing this group. What that means is the languages spoken by modern day populations of these regions are descended from a common root language. Put together the genetic data and the linguistic anthropological data and it makes sense that they should be grouped together in the test.
My mother's nephew was tested. His father was my mother's brother. His mother had German heritage. He is an R1b1a2a1a1b4 Y haplogroup. On FTDNA, Ken's makeup was 98% European and out of that, 51% came from Scandinavia, 23% came from the British Isles, 23% came from Western and Central Europe, and 1% came from Finland and Northern Siberia! On GedMatch.com, his East Asian amounts to 0.28%., and Western Mediterranean is 16.78%. Western Asian is 4.09%. Eastern Mediterranean is 2.14%, Red Sea is 0.59%, south Asian is 0.73% and Amerindian is 1.55%. On the R1b haplogroup, the first allele on the test is # 393 which is a 12 and not the usual 13. I believe this denotes more eastern heritage. It's not a common result with R1bs.
Resource: http://www.familytreedna.com/faqdnaprint.html.
Labels: dna, East Asia, ftdna, GedMatch, Jewish, Russia, Scandinavia
Monday, June 06, 2016
Billy Meshke, Portland, Oregon Jewish Boxer and Others
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| Billy Meshke aka Morris Goldfoot, 1st generation American born |
Our father, Maurice Goldfoot b: July 1, 1908, had become Billy Meshke, Boxer in Portland, Oregon at the Neighborhood House in South Portland. He had gone professional. Maurice's birth name was Moses on his birth certificate, which became Morris. It's customary to take an English name starting with the Biblical birth name. Morris morphed into Maurice at the suggestion of my mother. Before they had met, he had become Billy Meshke. Meshke is the Yiddish name for Moses. Maurice died July 23, 1967 at age 59 and 22 days. I remember him saying that if the guy looked very tough, he would take a fall. He wasn't about to get beaten up. However, because of his background, his fists were labeled legally as weapons, so he couldn't get into a fist fight with anyone. Maurice weighed 170 lbs and stood 5'8". He could have been classified as a middleweight, I would think. We kept a big poster of Dad that was a drawing of him boxing on the door of my playroom in the basement of our home. His box or boxes of boxing gloves also stayed in the basement for many years until quite brittle.
He had to quit high school and miss most of his senior year because of needing to work to support his mother, 2 sisters and a brother who may have already graduated being his older brother, Charlie, was born in 1906. His father had died in 1912 in a horse and wagon accident. One way of earning money was to go pro in boxing. He lived within walking distance of the Neighborhood House.
It seems that when Billy Meshke got a job as butcher at the local kosher meat market on SW Lincoln, he must have dropped boxing. That's where he was working when my mother passed by with her charges of children that she was walking. He whistled and that was the start of their courtship. She was working and living with the Gurions. He had already been married briefly and divorced, making him a scandalous person in those days. He married our mother on April 29, 1932.
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| Our tall mother of 5'6" with our short great aunt Jenny Criss. Jenny was the sister of Dad's mother, Zlata Jermulowske. My mother had Betty Grable legs, according to Dad.
Dolly Lyons, aka Adolf Lyons, Jewish featherweight who fought against Joe Bernstien in 1899 and lost. There's no picture of him on internet. He was probably born c 1870s. Below is an orthodox
stance of a boxer, but no picture is found of Dolly aka Adolf Lyons.
"A featherweight from New York, Lyons boxed primarily in Brooklyn during his career in the 1890s. At this time, boxing was still considered an undesirable sport by many middle class Americans because of its brutality and the presence of a number of 'lower' sorts associated with the sport. Yet, boxing also attracted colorful characters and Lyons certainly seems to have fit into the latter category. In July 1892, Lyons issued a statement in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The Eagle explained that Lyons 'lays claim to championship of America in bantam weights,' and his statement read: "I want the public to understand that I do not weaken in the match made for me by the Coney Island athletic club to meet Billy Plimmer. I merely refuse to fight...for the $500 purse, $400 to go to the winner and $100 to the loser because they would not pay my training expenses to which I think I am entitled...To show that I mean business, I will fight Plimmer for a $1,000 purse the winner to take all, for the championship of the world...If this is satisfactory the Coney Island athletic club knows where to find me."
Lyons continued to fight regularly in Brooklyn in 1895 and 1896, including a bout against Maxey Haugh in front of 25,000 in May 1896. The following month, Lyons fought future world champion Solly Smith and in the third round, Lyons "landed a straight right on Smith's left eye and cut it severely, but the bout was "rather tame" and ended in a 10-round draw. Then, in July, Lyons fought Joe Bernstein, nicknamed 'The Pride of the Ghetto,' one of the best fighters from the Lower East Side. The bout ended in an eight-round draw. Lyons and Bernstein fought twice more, with Bernstein winning both bouts - the first on a knockout and the second, a 20-round decision. Lyons' third fight with Bernstein, which took place in March 1899, was his last recorded fight.
Joe Bernstein was most likely his boxing idol. His Yiddish name was Youselle Bernstein.
"Featherweight Joe Bernstein (November 7, 1877 – 1931), died January 21, 1930 at age 52, was one of the first great boxers to emerge from New York's Lower East Side. . He fought for the championship three times, but lost all three bouts, often in close matches. Nicknamed "The Pride of the Ghetto" in the 1890s, his championship fights endeared him to newly arriving Jewish immigrants." Bernstein was only 5'3" and a Featherweight.
Bernstein began fighting professionally at only sixteen in 1894. On July 27, 1896, he met Dolly Lyons, a well known Jewish Bantamweight and Featherweight in an eight round draw at the Palm Athletic Club in New York. Bernstein would take on Lyons twice more, beating him in a twenty round decision in Brooklyn in March of 1899 in what was likely a large audience. Going against a well known Jewish boxer from Brooklyn who could draw such impressive crowds brought Bernstein to the attention of a large Jewish audience early in his career."
Benny Leonard, age 30 in 1926, could have been another idol who was boxing when my father started the sport. " Benny is a member of the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the Ring Magazine Hall of Fame, the World Boxing Hall of Fame, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Benny Leonard (born Benjamin Leiner; Hebrew name דוב בער בן אברהם גרשון [Dov Ber ben Avraham Gershon]; April 7, 1896 – April 18, 1947) was an American professional lightweight boxer." |
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| Sammy Mandell, fighting under a Jewish surname, more likely just Italian. |
Morris was 18 in 1926, which was 3 years before the 1929 Stock Market crash. Things were looking up then until the crash. He was brave to marry in 1932.
Resource:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bernstein_(boxer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Mandell
http://www.niashf.org/inductees/sammy-mandell/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weight_class_(boxing)
Book: Stars in the Ring: Jewish Champions in the Golden Age of Boxing: by Mike Silver
Book: When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=Category:Jewish_Boxers&from=Kaplan%2C+Louis+(Kid)
Labels: Benny Leonard, Billy Meshke, boxers, Dolly Lyons, Jewish, Joe Bernstein, Neighborhood House, Sammy Mandell
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Jewish Q1b1a or Q- L245 now Q-BZ67 Countries Found
Family Tree DNA Jewish Q lists kits and the countries where people were from. This page also lists other Jewish and non-Jewish Q haplogroups and a few others besides. 5% of this haplogroup are found in today's Jewish population which is only 0.02% of the world population; 6 million in USA, 6million in Israel, 2 million in Diaspora.
Our Goldfus/foot grandfather carried Q1b1a Y haplotype. Nathan Goldfus/foot was from Telsiai, Lithuania. Our grandmother was from Suwalki, Lithuania/Poland. In the year, 700 CE, Jews were living in Lithuania. "Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: (present-day Lithuania, Belarus,Ukraine, Latvia and the northeastern Suwałki region of Poland).
Reference: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Jewish_Q?iframe=yresults
Labels: countries, Family Tree DNA, Grand duchy of Lithuania, Jewish, Lithuania, Q-L245 haplogroup



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