DNA results: 97% European, 3% Sub-Saharan (American, percentage, Caucasian, white)

[TootsieWootsie]

If anyone understands the testing done by Ancestry.com then the 3% Sub-Saharan could just be a hiccup of the machine? Am I understanding that right?

Course, I would consider it a kick if I were 3% Sub-Saharan....but I think I read it right on the results. Yes? No? Anyone understand this confusing stuff?

From what I gathered, when a small percentage like 3% shows up it is the machine burping and you have none of whatever the Race is in you.

[waviking24]

Not necessarily. You may in fact have an African ancestor in the past 200 years or so. Do you have a black great-great grandparent?

[TootsieWootsie]

Originally Posted by waviking24

Not necessarily. You may in fact have an African ancestor in the past 200 years or so. Do you have a black great-great grandparent?

Mother's maternal side: Italian as far back to great great Grandma.

Mother's paternal side: No idea. Grandpa looked Caucasian, said he was Cherokee but that would be impossible since the test came back 97% European. Grandma said Grandpa probably was lying. They were divorced, so guess Grandma knew Grandpa...LOL!

***How many generations would I have to go back to have 3% Sub-Saharan?

[waviking24]

I think four

[TootsieWootsie]

I read somewhere this morning it would be a great great great grandparent or 5 generations. Close enough.

I figure that would make it about 1875 or earlier. Around the Civil War era...not surprising.

[Lucky★]

I've been trying to figure it out for myself.

I - You
II - Parents
IIII - Grandparents
IIIIIIII - Great-Grandparents
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII - Great-Great-Grandparents
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII - Great-Great-Great-Grandparents

32 Great-Great-Great-Grandparents

1/32 = 3.125%

Is that right? There was a post a while back where someone said you don't inherit exactly 50% of your DNA from each parent. Not sure about that, but maybe it explains why it's not exactly 3%.

[Lucky★]

Or it could have been more than one person going back more generations (guessing).

[TootsieWootsie]

Thanks, Lucky, for that. It confirms what I figured out this morning.

[GrandviewGloria]

Originally Posted by TootsieWootsie

Mother's maternal side: Italian as far back to great great Grandma.

Mother's paternal side: No idea. Grandpa looked Caucasian, said he was Cherokee but that would be impossible since the test came back 97% European. Grandma said Grandpa probably was lying. They were divorced, so guess Grandma knew Grandpa...LOL!

***How many generations would I have to go back to have 3% Sub-Saharan?

The Italian ancestors are probably where the Sub-Saharan component came from. Rome was the greatest slave-driven empire ever: worse than Imperial England, The Ottoman Empire, or Imperial Japan, by far.

Where I'm from, 'Italian' is code for Sicilian. Sicily was transformed, via forced immigration and importation of slaves, into a vast land of agricultural serfs, forced to feed Italy-proper. This system continued, really, until Americans modernized the Island around WWII (with also a brief moment of benign rule under the Normans, many centuries back). Some of the imported slaves were African. And some Africans were imported into Italy-proper, where some probably were bred to the vastly more numerous white slaves.

My 'Real Daddy' was Sicilian, so I've studied the Island, traveled there, and read a bit on the subject. I would particularly recommend Sicily: three thousand years of human history/Sarah Benjamin . This is not light reading. Be prepared to spend the winter reading it, if you want to get your money's worth from that analysis of the three-thousand-year history of the Sicilian People.

[bjh]

Small percentages mean more distant ancestry. If we're looking for the ancestor who was "entirely" one race, then yes it can be generalized to, say, a 4 greats grand parent, though it may have been a bit less neat than that.