Juhls,
The "Hebraic Roots" question is complicated for a number of reasons. I do believe there are genetic identifiers that clearly (in my mind) identify Israelites, but there are some that I'm not yet sure about, especially in the mt-DNA realm (that of females). Part of the reason this is a complicated subject is because of the "mixed multitude" that left Egypt with the Hebrews, who themselves became integrated with the people as Hebrews. Caleb is probably an ideal example of this reality. He was integrated in with or became a "companion" to the tribe of Judah, but he was NOT a carrier of Judah's y-Chromosome. Caleb simply embraced the El of the Hebrews and crossed over to His Way. We know this is also going to be a phenomenon in the future because of the Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 37 prophecies... where Ephraim and Judah both have "companions" who presumably have non-Israelite DNA.
Even so, if you begin to look and consider the sheer number of your own ancestors (think of it as an upside down tree), you likely have thousands of ancestors who descended from Ephraim and/or Judah and/or one of the other tribes. Ephraim was prophesied to become "the fullness of the nations" in Genesis 48:19 and his descendants are found all over the world, even within the camp of Jew-dah/Judah... which is why I believe Y-Haplogroup R is so common in Jewish males.
There are alot of ongoing studies on mt-DNA and many papers already published. Check out FTDNA's mtDNA Library of Scientific Papers.
Having your father and/or brothers tested would be one way you could find out your father's y-Haplogroup. Have you already purchased a mtDNA test?
