Levites Who are Not R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites and R1a Ashkenazi Jews Who are Not R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites

[This page was written in 2013. Since that time, little work has been done with regard to the Y-DNA of Levites who are not R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites.]

About 50% of Jewish men with a Levite tradition are not R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites.

In their 2003 study, Behar et al. identified six Y-DNA haplogroups, other than R1a1a, with a substantial number of Levites: (1) BR* (xDE, JR) (3.33% Ashkenazi Levites, and 19.35% Sephardic Levites); (2) E* (xE3a) (20.0% Ashkenazi Levites, and 9.68% Sephardic Levites); (3) J (10.0% Ashkenazi Levites, and 32.26% Sephardic Levites); (4) K* (xL, N3, O2b, P) (3.33% Ashkenazi Levites, and 22.58% Sephardic Levites); (5) L (no Ashkenazi Levites, and 3.23% Sephardic Levites); and (6) P* (xR1a) (11.67% Ashkenazi Levites, and 9.68% Sephardic Levites). (The authors used the Y Chromosome Consortium (2002) nomenclature to identify these clusters.)

There is also a relatively small group of R1a men who are of Ashkenazi descent (including some men who have a family tradition of Levite status) but who do not have the SNPs that are characteristic of R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites; in their 2013 study, Rootsi & Behar et al. found that 8.1% of R1a men of Ashkenazi descent lack those SNPs. Those men, although they are R1a and Ashkenazi (and, sometimes, Levite) do not belong to the R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite cluster.

If you have information or links concerning Levites who are not R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites, please e-mail jeffwexler@ca.rr.com with such information or links for possible inclusion on this website.