Samaritan's Relationship with Judaism/Are They Jews?
Samaritans are not recognized as Jews by Orthodox Jews despite the clear ethnic and blood ties between the two groups. Orthodox Jews and Rabbi's do not consider them as Jews due to accounts in the Book of Kings, where Samaritans are the Israelites who were "exiled" to Assyria and therefore intermingled with the Pagans there, making their bloodline "unpure".
However, since the 19th century, some other groups of Jews have largely considered Samaritans a Jewish Sect.
In Israeli census and laws, Samaritans are a protected religious minority and group. If a Samaritan wishes to convert to Judaism, they MUST renounce their historical holy place.
This begs the question of: Are Samaritans Jews? I would say that they follow the original traditions and their holy book more closely than their Jewish cousins did and do.