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Did you see the episode of "Who Do You Think You Are" with Emmit Smith where they trace celebrities' ancestries?
Smith found white ancestors, but he also had a DNA test done to determine where his ancestors came from. He was 81% West African, 7% Native American, and the rest European. The woman who did the testing said that 81% African is high for a black American.
Did you see the episode of "Who Do You Think You Are" with Emmit Smith where they trace celebrities' ancestries?
Smith found white ancestors, but he also had a DNA test done to determine where his ancestors came from. He was 81% West African, 7% Native American, and the rest European. The woman who did the testing said that 81% African is high for a black American.
It was interesting. They all are.
Actually, I think the percentage of African ancestry is around 80% for Black Americans, with West African ancestry being at around 71%.
Actually, I think the percentage of African ancestry is around 80% for Black Americans, with West African ancestry being at around 71%.
If they could determine it was on the male-line that could make it unusual. African Americans are more likely to have a white male ancestor than a white female ancestor as a rule. (That being said there were sometimes white women who would do stuff with the slaves too, but this is less talked of and the woman would likely have been punished if she gave birth to a black child so that might have discouraged it)
I remember I saw this show on African Americans searching their ancestry and one of them said that his family's stories said that no white man had ever fathered a child with them, not even in slave times. The geneticist, also black, stated that this was unlikely and the guy reluctantly agreed but wanted to have respect for his families stories. Well the geneticist ended up surprised because it turned out his family stories were correct. His Y-chromosome, I think it was, showed no non-African genes.
If they could determine it was on the male-line that could make it unusual. African Americans are more likely to have a white male ancestor than a white female ancestor as a rule. (That being said there were sometimes white women who would do stuff with the slaves too, but this is less talked of and the woman would likely have been punished if she gave birth to a black child so that might have discouraged it)
I remember I saw this show on African Americans searching their ancestry and one of them said that his family's stories said that no white man had ever fathered a child with them, not even in slave times. The geneticist, also black, stated that this was unlikely and the guy reluctantly agreed but wanted to have respect for his families stories. Well the geneticist ended up surprised because it turned out his family stories were correct. His Y-chromosome, I think it was, showed no non-African genes.
Some of it depends upon where in the US the black people lived. The Gullah people on the South Carolina/Georgia Sea Islands are descended from African slaves who far outnumbered the white people living on the island plantations. After the Civil War ended, the white people abandoned their property and for generations the descendants of those slaves lived on the islands in relative isolation. Their white ancestry is no more than 3 - 4%, and their Gullah dialect still contains a lot of African words and grammar structure.
I also read that about 10% of Americans who consider themselves black have 50% or less African ancestry.
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