Family Tree DNA Questions Reporting about Hitler's Possible Jewish Origins

Press release from Family Tree DNA:

Houston, TX - September 1, 2010 - Family Tree DNA, the largest Y-chromosome testing organization for genealogy and ancestry purposes, announced today that the interpretation given by certain media outlets that Adolf Hitler's ancestry included possible Jewish relatives is highly questionable.  These reports were based on information released by Jean-Paul Mulders and historian Marc Vermeeren.  With a Y-chromosome database containing close to 200,000 samples from different populations, Family Tree DNA's Chief Y-DNA Scientist, Professor Michael Hammer said that "scientific studies as well as records from our own database make it clear that one cannot reach the kind of conclusion featured in the published articles.

Based on Family Tree DNA records, no more than 9% of the populations of Germany and Austria belong to the haplogroup E1b1b, and among those, the vast majority - about 80% -are not associated with Jewish ancestry.  "This data clearly show that just because one person belongs to the branch of the Y-chromosome referred to as haplogroup E1b1b, that does not mean the person is likely to be of Jewish ancestry," said Professor Hammer.

Mulders confirmed the misinterpretation of his account with the following statement to Family Tree DNA:  "I never wrote that Hitler was a Jew, or that he had a Jewish grandfather.  I only wrote that Hitler's haplogroup is E1b1b, being more common among Berbers, Somalian people and Jews than among overall Germans.  This, in order to convey that he was not exactly what during the Third Reich would have been called 'Aryan.'  All the rest are speculations of journalists who didn't even take the trouble to read my article, although I had it translated into English especially for this purpose."

Founded in April 2000, Family Tree DNA was the first company to develop the commercial application of DNA testing for genealogical purposes that had previously been available only for academic and scientific research. Today - with over 300,000 individual records in its Y-DNA and mtDNA databases - and a state-of-the-art Genomics Research Center in Houston, Texas, Family Tree is the prime source for anyone researching recent and distant family ties.