Most previous genetic studies completely neglected Bukharian Jews and only a handful included them.1 Fortunately, a growing number of Bukharian Jews are having their DNA tested. Some of them participate in Family Tree DNA's Mizrahi Jewish DNA Project administered by two Caucasian Mountain Jews, Emmanuel Izilov and Sergei Davidov, and are displayed on public results pages,2 enabling us to learn more about Bukharian Jewish DNA than we had known before.
A Bukharian Jewish lineage that connects to many other Jewish and Levantine populations is the Y-chromosomal haplogroup J-Z18271, the Expanded Cohen Modal Haplogroup, which was surely an ancient Israelite lineage that would have been found among the ancient priests in Jerusalem. Various branches of J-Z18271 are found in Yemenite Jews, Iraqi Jews, Iranian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Syrian Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Algerian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Greece's Romaniote Jews, Sephardic Jews from Greece and Turkey, and Portuguese and Hispanic descendants of Sephardic Conversos. The Mizrahi Jewish DNA Project has a Bukharian Jew belonging to J-Z18271 whose paternal line comes from Tajikistan. Also, YFull has a Bukharian Jew with a paternal line from Tajikistan's Sughd Province in haplogroup J-BY101844, a branch of J-Z18271's J-BY64521 cluster, because he bought a high-resolution test from Nebula Genomics.3 A Nebula tester at YFull traces his paternal line to Maronite Christian men from North Lebanon and belongs to J-BY101844's direct descendant clade J-A13776.4 Joshua Lipson found a Galilean Orthodox Christian from the Galilee region of Israel in J-BY64521 at Family Tree DNA. Lipson later found Lebanese Christians within J-Z18271 at that company. As of August 19, 2024, Family Tree DNA estimated that J-Z18271 dates back to around 700 B.C.E.5
Another Bukharian Jewish haplogroup that is sometimes associated with Cohenim is L-BY106184. Family Tree DNA assigned this to a Bukharian Jewish Cohen tester with a paternal line from Samarkand, Uzbekistan who uploaded his Y chromosome to YFull.6 As of August 19, 2024, Family Tree DNA estimated that the most recent common ancestor of all L-BY106184 testers in their database lived in approximately 1950 B.C.E.7 although their 95% probability range is 3297-866 B.C.E. At the same time, YFull estimated that L-BY106184's most recent common ancestor lived about 4,100 years before 1950, that is, around 2150 B.C.E.8 YFull determined that the Bukharian Jew as well as a Lebanese patriline from North Lebanon9 and a Turkish patriline from central Turkey10 all belong to a branch of L-BY106184 called L-FT2061 because they have four extra SNPs. This again demonstrates the substantial Middle Eastern roots of Bukharian Jews. Its ancestor L-BY106184 has also been found in modern Italy and medieval Sweden.
A third Cohen haplogroup among Bukharian Jews is E-CTS8411, represented by a Bukharian Jewish Cohen whose paternal line comes from Uzbekistan. As of the time of this writing, he has only tested 37 markers on his Y chromosome and not upgraded to the high-resolution Big Y level. However, two different Bukharian Jews with paternal lines from Bukhara, Uzbekistan did test with Big Y and have been determined to belong to its E-CTS8411's descendant branch E-Y199604, as determined by YFull.11 Their closest matches inside YFull, in a branch they call E-BY8500, are a Jewish man with a paternal line from Gaziantep in south-central Turkey,12 where some Sephardic Jews had settled, and a man with a paternal line from Spain (perhaps a descendant of a Sephardic convert to Catholicism), who both tested with Family Tree DNA.13 All of those testers belong to varieties of haplogroup E-BY8508, which YFull estimated as of August 19, 2024 had a most recent common ancestor who lived around 2,500 years before 1950, that is, in approximately 550 B.C.E. but with a 95% confidence interval of 1350 B.C.E. to 250 C.E. Directly descending from E-BY8508 is the branch Family Tree DNA calls E-BY8502 because it includes the SNP BY8502, which is also part of the definition E-BY8500. As of August 19, 2024, Family Tree DNA estimated that E-BY8508's most recent common ancestor lived around 700 B.C.E. and that E-BY8502's most recent common ancestor lived around 300 B.C.E. and they found E-BY8502 carriers with paternal lines from Turkey, Egypt, Spain, and Yemen.14 The last one is a Yemenite Jewish Cohen.
A Bukharian Jew with a paternal line from Tashkent, Uzbekistan belongs to haplogroup E-FTC17995 and uploaded his Y chromosome to YFull.15 As of August 19, 2024, Family Tree DNA estimated that the most recent common ancestor of all E-FTC17995 carriers was born around 4100 B.C.E.16 The other carrier of E-FTC17995 inside YFull is a man with a paternal line from Lárnaka, Cyprus who had tested with Nebula.17 Its immediate ancestor, haplogroup E-FTC18246, has matches from Morocco and the Netherlands. E-FTC18246's brother subclades are found in Palestinians, Iraqis, Saudis, Egyptians, Italians, and others.
Finally, a different Bukharian Jew with a paternal line from Samarkand belongs to haplogroup J-FT100592, a descendant of J2-M172. As of August 19, 2024, Family Tree DNA estimated that the most recent common ancestor of all J-FT100592 carriers was born around 1150 B.C.E.18 Other Family Tree DNA customers with this haplogroup come from Libya, Greece, Armenia, and Saudi Arabia and another has a Palestinian Arab paternal line from Hebron. Some of them uploaded their Y chromosomes to YFull19 where they are joined in the J-FGC52112 cluster (which includes their defining SNP FT100592) by a German from Germany20 who tested with Nebula and a scientific sample from Sardinia.21 The Bukharian Jew22 displays with his kit number in italics, signifying a somewhat lower level of testing resolution, so we cannot be sure that he's actually in the root level of J-FGC52112, where the sample from Sardinia is, rather than one of its branches that have additional SNPs beyond the root, such as J-FGC52119 where the Arab lineage from Hebron is.
T2c1 is the only maternal (mtDNA) haplogroup that currently has Bukharian Jewish representatives in the project. Both of those testers have maternal lines from Samarkand. Both testers uploaded their mtDNA sequences to YFull, which has given them their own new branch name, T2c1g2, because they have T2c1g's extra mutation T13818C as well as the extra mutation T8772C.23 Interestingly, Iraqi Jews, Syrian Jews, and Tunisian Jews belong to different branches of T2c1, not to T2c1g2.
Despite having lived in Central Asia for many centuries, Bukharian Jews primarily have Middle Eastern genetic origins and, as we have seen, are related to many other Jewish populations and are Children of Israel.
Kevin Brook is the author of the book The Maternal Genetic Lineages of Ashkenazic Jews. His previous article, "The Chinese Lady Who Joined the Ashkenazic People", appeared in the November 2016 issue of Points East.
1 "Founding Mothers of Jewish Communities: Geographically Separated Jewish Groups Were Independently Founded by Very Few Female Ancestors," by Mark G. Thomas, Michael E. Weale, et al., The American Journal of Human Genetics 70:6 (June 2002), pp. 1411-1420; "The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people," by Doron M. Behar, Bayazit Yunusbayev, et al., Nature 466 (July 8, 2010), pp. 238-242; "An ancient autosomal haplotype bearing a rare achromatopsia-causing founder mutation is shared among Arab Muslims and Oriental Jews," by Lina Zelinger, Alex Greenberg, et al., Human Genetics 128:3 (September 2010), pp. 261-267; The Maternal Genetic Lineages of Ashkenazic Jews, by Kevin A. Brook (Academic Studies Press, 2022)
2 https://www.familytreedna.com/public/MizrahiJewish?iframe=yresults and https://www.familytreedna.com/public/MizrahiJewish?iframe=mtresults
3 "YFull YTree: J-S20075", https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-S20075/ (Bukharian Jewish sample YF109060)
4 Sample YF119782
5 "Your Haplogroup Story: J-Z18271", https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/J-Z18271/story
6 Sample YF130774
7 "Your Haplogroup Story: L-BY106184", https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/L-BY106184/story
8 "YFull YTree: L-BY106184", https://www.yfull.com/tree/L-BY106184/
9 Sample YF081982
10 Sample YF015210
11 "YFull YTree: E-CTS8411", https://www.yfull.com/tree/E-CTS8411/
12 Sample YF005142
13 Sample YF066501
14 "Your Haplogroup Story: E-BY8502", https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/E-BY8502/story
15 "YFull YTree: E-BY7700", https://www.yfull.com/tree/E-BY7700/ (Bukharian Jewish sample YF118939)
16 "Your Haplogroup Story: E-FTC17995", https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/E-FTC17995/story
17 Sample YF119069
18 "Your Haplogroup Story: J-FT100592", https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/J-FT100592/story
19 "YFull YTree: J-FGC52112", https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC52112/
20 Sample YF120735
21 Sample ERS256868
22 Sample YF122274
23 "YFull MTree: T2c1g", https://www.yfull.com/mtree/T2c1g/ (Bukharian Jewish samples YF129129 and YF130726)
Bukharian Jews In The Mizrahi Jewish DNA Project
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