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Since religions cannot confer genetic markers one presumes that those deemed Ashkenazi reflect tribal connections and not Judaic connections. Logic would say such markers must appear in people other than Jews even if through intermarriage they are more common in the group deemed Ashkenazi which just means northern European Jews.

The fact that there appear to be no clear genetic markers linking Ashkenazi, northern European Jews and Sephardim, southern European and Middle Eastern Jews, would indicate that any genetic links have no religious basis.

The inclusion of religious groups in genetic studies seems questionable at best and more so given the unreliable nature of much of ancestry testing.

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