With the rise of consumer genetic testing, private individuals and academic studies have taken advantage of the lowered costs in order to research the recent and deeper human past. In the Jewish genealogy world, consumer DNA testing has proven to be a valuable tool, helping genealogists break through brick walls, reuniting families torn apart by the Shoah, and providing a wealth of data for multidisciplinary academic research. At the Genetic Census of the Jewish People project, popularly known as Avotaynu, they asked what DNA tells us about Jewish history, from the very beginnings 3,000 years ago to today. Over eight years ago, the project launched a study into the global non-Ashkenazi Jewish world. Their first target was the Sephardic Diaspora, ranging from India in the East to the New World in the West. In this lecture, co-administrator Michael Waas will provide a brief history and definitions for "Sephardic", discuss autosomal, Y, and mitochondrial DNA, and provide some case studies and preliminary findings from the Avotaynu study.

This program is sponsored by the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at the Center for Jewish History (CJH) and Ancestry

About the Speaker
Ever since he was a young child, Michael Waas has been interested in history and the world around him. Following a conversation in high school with his cousin about family lore that the famous union leader Samuel Gompers was a cousin , he began his journey into genealogical and historical research. That beginning led him to the path where he is today:  Michael is a Heritage Professional specializing in historic preservation and multidisciplinary research into the Portuguese Jews and Ottoman Jewry.

He received his BA in Anthropology with a specialization in Historical Archaeology from New College of Florida, and the subject of his Senior Thesis was "The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis of the Seminole People of Florida," under the direction of Dr. Uzi Baram. Michael recently completed his Masters in the Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa under the direction of Dr. Ido Shahar and Dr. Shai Srugo. The title of his thesis was “Istorya i oy: A comparative study on the Development of Jewish Heritage of Three Jewish Communities of the former Ottoman Empire.” In addition, he has been volunteering with AvotaynuDNA since 2016, where he is the anthropologist and historian of the research.

Michael is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the Society for Sephardic Studies and he is the Associate Director of the Sephardic Research Division at JewishGen. Currently, Michael is pursuing a JD at New York Law School.