Family Tree DNA: Greenspan video

TO watch a video interview with Family Tree DNA president and CEO Bennett Greenspan, who explains about DNA testing, security safeguards, what can be discovered and much more, go here, scroll down to Bennett's interview and click VIEW NOW.

In the video, Bennett speaks with Avotaynu editor Sallyann Sack and Arline Sachs about the major Jewish DNA database at Family Tree DNA, and the likelihood of finding matches within the system. Says Bennett, "We are all related if you go back far enough, but that's anthropology, not genealogy."

Family Tree DNA receives calls from people around the world who think they are Jewish or believe they have a Jewish ancestor.

In 2004, for example, the company was able to match a Polish Catholic man with three people in their database and with five or six others in another Jewish Ashkenazi database.

The results showed that his mother's story - she was a "hidden" infant given to a Polish couple a few days before the town's Jewish community was liquidated - had a basis in fact. His mother's DNA matched only Eastern European Jews.