By Chaim Freedman 23/08/2018
The family of Chaim Freedman holds a
tradition of descent from the Vilna Gaon.
is explained in Chaim Freedman’s
blog,
With the advent of DNA testing as a
valuable aid in genealogical research, it is now possible to validate the
Komisaruk descent from the Vilna Gaon including relationships with some
prominent figures such as the President and the Prime Minister of Israel!
Chaim Freedman began his genetic
testing about ten years ago through the company Family Tree DNA.
Knowing families whose descent from
the Gaon was definitely established, Chaim searched his database of DNA marches
and located a number of such families with whom he shared a genetic match.
The Family Finder of Family Tree DNA
searches for markers on all of the autosomal chromosomes and measures the
degree of overlap with each individual in its database.
An explanation can be studied on the
FTDNA site
In order to establish that his
matches were through the Komisaruk line of his ancestry, and not via other
lines such as his father, Chaim was granted access to two cousins’ databases:
1) Mel Comisarow whose
great-grandfather Velvel Komisaruk was a brother to Chaim Freedman’s great
great grandfather Rabbi Pinchas Komisaruk.
2)Stella Krasik whose
great-grandmother Reizel Kogan was a sister to Chaim’s two great-grandfather’s
Meir Komisaruk (father of Chaim’s maternal grandmother Chana-Reizel
Komesaroff/Kaye) and Menachem-Mendel Komisaruk (father of Chaim’s maternal
grandfather Shlomo-Zalman Komesaroff/Kaye).
Thus, Chaim was doubly descended
from the Gaon through his mother’s Komisaruk two grandfathers.
A third line of descent is through
the Zmood family as can be seen from the attached chart, yet to be verified by
genetic testing.
These two cousins, Mel and Stella
also matched the same families, as did Chaim, known descendants of the Vilna
Gaon.
Chaim contacted several branches of
the Gaon’s family to add further proof to the relationships. These families
allowed Chaim to access their databases. Chaim discovered that such families
not only matched his DNA, but also matched each other. Thus, a genetic source
control established a means of testing the claims of families for a
relationship with the Gaon.
In some cases, the families, which
held such a claim, were compared with Chaim’s list of genetically related
families and if there were no matches, it was established that those families
were not related to the Gaon.
The connections appear in the
attached table which to date includes seventeen descendants of the Gaon through
his children and grandchildren and seven members of the Rivlin family,
descendants of the Gaon’s great uncle . In addition appears the Netanyahu
family reputedly descended from an unknown cousin of the cousin of the Gaon.
This genetic match confirms such a relationship although the identity of such a
cousin has not been established.
An earlier ancestor of the Gaon,
Rabbi Moshe Kremer is represented by a match with his descendant, the late
Chief Rabbi of Israel, Isser Yehudah Unterman. So it seems that the ancestry of
the Gaon may be confirmed by the use of genetic matches between his ancestral
families and Freedman‘s genetic marker list.
Chaim is currently searching for
other links based on families that appear in his book.
To add additional families to the
growing list of Vilna Gaon descendants whose descent can now be proven by DNA
testing Chaim is encouraging his relatives and others to do the test, only at
Family Tree DNA in order to endure matching with Chaim’s database.
Gary
Mokotoff asked:
“Is
there a Vilna Gaon “gene”? That is, can a person tell if he is descended from
the Vilna Gaon by taking a DNA test?”
Yes,
absolutely!
I discussed this with a cousin who said, “We
don’t have the DNA of the Gaon.”
But
we do!
All
the people on the list of my DNA testing matches carry the DNA that we received
from the Gaon.
We
are preserving the DNA of the Vilna Gaon.
The
later Rebbitzen Devora Shternbuch, from whom is descended a prominent Charedi
rabbinical family, once commented when she heard people boasting of their
ancestry, “Yichus alone is not enough. It is obligating !”
Caveat:
The principle upon which the above research is based takes into
account the statistical probability that two persons whose DNA matches each
other, to whatever degree of centimorgans, and who also match
people who all genetically match each other, and hold a tradition of descent from
the Vilna Gaon or his blood relatives, provides scientific evidence of their
relationship with the Vilna Gaon.
