Angela
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Grazie, Maleth. Very interesting post. More likely a coincidence but the Tuscan area (Livorno, Pisa) from where the OP's ancestors are said to come from had the largest Jewish community in Tuscany, the so called "Nazione Ebrea" ("Hebrew nation") composed of Sephardi and Italkim. The other important communities were in Florence, Siena and Pitigliano (Grosseto) but not only. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany had laws generally tolerant towards the Jews but according to many sources there were many converts ("neofiti") though. J1 has clearly many different sources, most could be of Neolithic or Chalcolithic origin indeed.
I agree with all of that. The major problem is that while R1b and R1a have been heavily analyzed and many subclades discovered and tracked, that hasn't been done for J1. Different migrations would have had different J1 subclades. One of the reasons I like the Boattini et al study is that at least it separates out the J1e which is heavily present in both the Arabian peninsula and among Jews. It is not very frequent in the Caucasus. That said, even J1e could have been part of prior migrations because, as I said, the thinking, to the best of my recollection, is that J1e formed in the north, moved south with certain groups of herders, and through patriarchy and a huge founder effect, is the predominant J1 lineage in the south. We just don't know yet.
All of that said, it's true that some of the J1e anywhere in Europe in currently non religiously or genetically Jewish people could be the result of conversions in the past. If it's within the last 2-300 years the Ashkenazi part, at least, would show up in the autosomes as measured at 23andme. The specifically Sephardi type might not, although through intermarriage with Ashkenazim, that portion of the ancestry might shown up, and might, given the area, alert the tester to Sephardi ancestry.
In terms of the important "Jewish" areas in Italy, as I'm sure you know but others may not, there were also large communities, perhaps the largest, in Rome, where Jews were resident since the days of ancient Rome, and in Piemonte, where the landscape was dotted with synogogues, the largest and most impressive being in Torino. The Jewish community of Torino was numerous, very influential after emancipation, active in the movement for Italian independence, in industry, and in the arts, and highly assimilated. Then there is, of course, Venice, which is where the word "ghetto" was first used. Sicily once had a large Jewish population, and although most of them were expelled, there is a record that some remained and converted.
The English language Wiki article is informative and pretty balanced in its representation of the see saws between tolerance and persecution in Italy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Italy
Still, the numbers of Jews present in Italy since the Middle Ages at least are infinitesimal compared to the numbers in eastern Europe. While being not at all dispositive, I've never seen an Italian score anything more than noise level Ashkenazi at 23andme. On the other hand, if posts at 23andme are anything to go by, quite a number of eastern Europeans score between 1-2% Ashkenazi. Of course, any admixture into the populations of Italy from two thousand or more years ago would be impossible to trace through 23andme, and there is difficulty, as I said, with tracing the Sephardic portion at all times.
For Italian readers, I quite like this second volume treatment of the Jews in Italy after the expulsions in Spain and Portugal up to more recent times:
http://www.librimondadori.it/libri/...olume-secondo-riccardo-calimani#9788852048753
For a cheaper price it's also available in e book format.
The earlier periods are covered in the first volume.