The Greek in Matthew 1:1 that is translated as “genealogy” in English is translated in the 1941 Yiddish translation by Einspruch as yikhes (יִחוּס‎), a Hebrew-based Yiddish word meaning “lineage.”

Naomi Seidmann (in Elliott / Boer 2012, p. 151ff.) explains: “The first line of Matthew is worth closer examination, since it frames the entire book. The most striking translation choice is the word yikhes to translate the Greek geneseos. The first verse of Matthew has a host of readily available intertextual connections in the genealogies of Genesis and Chronicles, from which translational equivalents could be sought. (…) The Hebraism that stands behind Matthews Greek is clearly toldot, or more expansively, ve’eleh toldot, a phrase Yehoash [the well-known translator of the Hebrew Bible into Yiddish, see here ] renders as geburtn [“births”] in the Adamic genealogy and as geshikhte [“history”] in the different Noahic context of Genesis 6:9. But while Einspruch often follows Yehoash, and indeed quotes his translation of Jeremiah in the epigraph that introduces his translation, in Matthew 1:1 he chooses to use the term yikhes, borrowing an earlier translation from Bergman and others. Yikhes is not totally inappropriate, (…) but I would guess that the more immediately recognizable signification of yikhes, for Einspruch’s average if not ideal Yiddish reader, is pedigree or what could be called high-status lineage, and among its most salient cultural associations are the negotiations by which marriages are arranged.”

In Malagasy it is translated as “the list of the ancestors of Jesus Christ.” Brigitte Rabarijaona (in The Bible Translator 2022, p. 103ff.) explains: “I will turn to the other two elements of Madagascar island identity, the relation of the Malagasy people with their land and their ancestors. The word for ancestor is razana, which is also used to describe the dead in general; in Malagasy culture, as in most traditional cultures, one joins the ancestors and becomes an ancestor when one passes away. The ancestors represent the divine. Malagasy people inherited from them their name, identity, history, language, and land. (…) In the Malagasy conception, the emphasis is not on who came after whom, but who came before whom. In Matt 1:1, the Greek phrase βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, translated in NET as ‘the record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ,’ is translated in Malagasy as ‘the list of the ancestors of Jesus Christ.’”

See also genealogy in Matthew 1 and genealogy.