Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I was referencing to people related to me and what I most often see as their ancestry African ancestry. The ones who are closer to the 73% tend to trend older if they have the profile pictures up. I was surprised myself, since it seemed that several studies seem to indicate the mid 70% range for the average African-American. In my case though, honestly, most of my African-American relatives fall in the 80-85% range when I look at their ancestry profile. Sometimes I wonder if the overall data is somewhat skewed due to the fact that a lighter skinned African American who likely be more curious of their ancestry than someone who is dark skinned. They also would likely have less African ancestry than someone who was darker, although it's not always the case. If I'm correct the study in the link used data from 23&me. So it's using voluntary data, which could potentially skew results.
My test came back as 39% Great Britain. Was amazed, because I have a boatload of German last names. But also a boatload of women with no last names. Luckily, the area where I come from have 5 page censuses, and I found English women who kind of matched and with last names I found a number of new grandmothers.
My uncle, like my mother, is first generation American born Greek. But inexplicably turned up with some Native American with 23&me. Using Gedmatch it seems there is some East Asian influencing this, which is why your result caught my eye.
In some DNA calculators I have seen my Native American DNA, as Siberian or Korean Peninsula.
This is because Native Americans are really Siberians, they crossed into Alaska 22,000 years ago.
There are a couple of ads on TV for genetic testing services that just crack me up. The person says, "I had no idea I was part _______ (Native American, Irish, whatever), now I embrace my heritage." And now they're collecting NA pottery or clog dancing.
I figure your real heritage is what went on in your particular family, not what a bunch of people you never knew were related did hundreds of years ago.
Haha, my sister and I both married and divorced Irish men who were alcoholics. Talk about a stereotype, but in the wake of those disasters, we both said some not-nice things about the Irish and declared how happy we were not to have Irish blood.
That was many years ago, before my sister got into genealogy big time.
And guess what. Great-great-grandmother Mary was born in Dublin.
Not going to be asked to join the River Dance company anytime soon...
Isn't it possible that 1% of anything is statistical noise? And yeah, I bet those fake Cherokees would all be disappointed by that test.
It must have been some sort of common story for parents to tell their kids at bedtime or something at one time that became believed as fact over time. It's almost always Cherokee, and it's almost always a great-grandmother.
If both you and your brother have tested, you should be able to tell how much DNA you share and therefore whether you're full or half siblings, you shouldn't rely on the ethnicity report alone.
If you're trying to identify your biological father, you may be able to do that with a 3rd or 4th cousin. I narrowed my grandfather's bio father down to 4 potential brothers and his closest match on that side was an estimated 4th cousin (actually a 6th cousin as it turns out). I wasn't able to tell which brother it was until his great half nephew tested. If you're male, you may want to consider the Y-DNA test, which might help identify your bio father's surname.
Thank you for that information. I intend to spend more time looking at it. I just need to sit down and do some digging.
I agree with the sentiment here that 1-2% is just statistical noise. There's bound to be a little genetic drift here and there, but just because someone shares a tiny "marker" that is common in one area does not mean that that isn't overridden by hundreds of other markers that occur with incredible frequency closer to the location of your ethnic origin(s).
Sorry, but I am just NOT African or East Asian or Amazonian Native, even if you want to sneak a few percentage points of some of those into my "results". Maybe someone on the Eurasian steppes 18,000 years ago had offspring, and the many dozens of generations of children they had some went east and dozens of generations later some of those crossed the Bering straight into the Americas, lets say. And maybe other offspring of that common ancestor had many generations of children, some of whom migrated west and became Slavs. Does that mean that a Pole and and Seminole are the same? You still wanna sneak in whatever 1-2% of DNA we share and say that I'm Native American even though I am Polish and even though all the elderly men of my family look a heck of a lot like the late Pope John Paul II?
There are core areas where certain "markers" occur with 90% or greater frequency, and outward from there those markers drift down to 80%, 70%, and so forth down to at or near zero frequency. That pattern occurs across thousands of different markers.
Besides, if a genetic marker is, say, 30,000 years old....how differentiating can it be? It's like saying that a chimpanzee shares 90% of the same DNA that a human has.....well, shouldn't we be looking at the 10% that makes us distinct rather than the whole 100%? If, lets say, a grasshopper shares 70% of the DNA that a human has does that mean that we're all 70% grasshopper? That 70% therefore would just be noise that has little determination on our phenotypes.
Last edited by InchingWest; 02-11-2018 at 06:59 PM..
I'm 2.7% Neanderthal, and the rest is Irish/German/English/Finn.
What I can't understand is why anyone would be upset if they found out they had some African ancestors. Wouldn't bother me at all.
And as an aside, I was hoping I was part Native American because I've always wanted to open a Casino....
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
