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I'm African American and like most of us African Americans I'm not 100% African but more like 80%. That's the genetic equivalent of having a white grandparent as DNA from grandparent is not passed down evenly no surprise there.
Well it seems I have 78 cousins in the UK. Now that was odd because these were as close as second cousins and most of my white ancestors came to the Americas in the 16 and 1700's so cousins in the UK would be more distant so I got curious and it turned out all my UK cousins that were closer than 3rd had small amounts of African DNA mostly between 8-13%. I talked to many of them and they mostly had no idea they had any African descended ancestors. One lady a 3rd cousin I talked to for 3 hours(she was a blast) she was a blue eyed blond who had no idea and she has 11% African DNA and she couldn't wait to buy kits for her parents(she is married to a black guy and her parent took issue with it so she thinks it's funny that one of her parents may have more than her lol.
Any way I found who I think the common ancestor may be, a 2nd great grandfather who was in the UK during WW1, I found his army orders sending him there, he was listed as mullato and pictures I found he could pass for an south Italian or southern Greek, I'm guessing he had fun over there, but he was not that far back it's possible he could have been alive in my lifetime if he made it to his 90's how would nobody there know about him or Rumers of him?
LOL a lot of white Americans are delusional with those white passing parents and grandparents.
Did you ever learn the name and details about your black great grandfather? Or the circumstances with your great grandmother? As a genealogist, that's fascinating stuff, I would be digging as deeply as I could.
I got the feeling that it was my great grandmother who was black and, if I had to guess, so was my great great grandfather. My parents thought my great great grandmother was Haitian. (Thus my great grandmother, too, was black). I had wondered how a Haitian could have ended up in Puerto Rico in the late 1800s. A cousin on my Dad's side said that right before slavery was ended in PR, if a slave owner wanted more slaves, they would get them from Haiti. Since both my father's parents had died before I was born, he knew very little about his ancestors, especially on his mother's side (that was the side where the black great great grandparent came from). His father's side was where the Amerindian blood was from. I could see that in the photo I have of my paternal grandfather, as well as a photo I have of that grandfather's mother.
I have tried to dig as deeply as I could when it comes to my father's family. On ancestry, I saw a 4th cousin had a detailed tree from my grandmother's side. She filled in some details for me, which I appreciated.
I did learn my great great grandmother and great grandmother's names. Yet, I could never be certain of the names of my great great grandfather or great grandfather. Ancestry has given me a leaf or two that give suggestions as to their names and time lines fit.
Well, I don't have any African features, family lore is that we have some Cherokee and some Choctaw blood on the matrilineal side. So I would be surprised, but not necessarily dismayed, if I found out via 23 and me or whatever I have some African DNA. If I could trace back to a Zulu lineage, I would only be surprised I am not taller, and not more of a warrior. As Uncle Jeff noted in his writings, just to name one, Zulu heritage ought to be a source of pride, if anything.
I would be equally surprised if I shared some DNA with Genghis Khan, or Bluetooth. The family lore just does not include these people. But I would be quietly proud if I found that DNA, on the other hand, if I am related to these war lords, why have I been such a quiet peacenik in comparison?
I don't understand being proud or ashamed of one's ancestry. Given that these people were ancestors, I hardly had any input on who begat who.
I got the feeling that it was my great grandmother who was black and, if I had to guess, so was my great great grandfather. My parents thought my great great grandmother was Haitian. (Thus my great grandmother, too, was black). I had wondered how a Haitian could have ended up in Puerto Rico in the late 1800s. A cousin on my Dad's side said that right before slavery was ended in PR, if a slave owner wanted more slaves, they would get them from Haiti. Since both my father's parents had died before I was born, he knew very little about his ancestors, especially on his mother's side (that was the side where the black great great grandparent came from). His father's side was where the Amerindian blood was from. I could see that in the photo I have of my paternal grandfather, as well as a photo I have of that grandfather's mother.
I have tried to dig as deeply as I could when it comes to my father's family. On ancestry, I saw a 4th cousin had a detailed tree from my grandmother's side. She filled in some details for me, which I appreciated.
I did learn my great great grandmother and great grandmother's names. Yet, I could never be certain of the names of my great great grandfather or great grandfather. Ancestry has given me a leaf or two that give suggestions as to their names and time lines fit.
Have you tried building a tree on Family Search? Family search is a public tree site like wiki but they have records. It's one profile per person, either dead or alive so that it would make one huge world family tree.
That's the best suggestion I have. You may luck out that someone already started trees for some of your branches, you'll just have to connect them. Also pay attention on whether there are any duplicate profiles that need merging. On each profile, in the top right corner, it will show research help, then search records, click family search, it will open the records that match. You'll sometimes luck out that it's attached to another profile when you go to connect the source. I right click to grab the profile info to open in a new tab, then I merge once I know it's my relative.
You'd be surprised how far you could get using family search if you haven't used it already. If you do join and have questions, send me a message, I'll be glad to walk you through it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by M3 Mitch
Well, I don't have any African features, family lore is that we have some Cherokee and some Choctaw blood on the matrilineal side. So I would be surprised, but not necessarily dismayed, if I found out via 23 and me or whatever I have some African DNA. If I could trace back to a Zulu lineage, I would only be surprised I am not taller, and not more of a warrior. As Uncle Jeff noted in his writings, just to name one, Zulu heritage ought to be a source of pride, if anything.
I would be equally surprised if I shared some DNA with Genghis Khan, or Bluetooth. The family lore just does not include these people. But I would be quietly proud if I found that DNA, on the other hand, if I am related to these war lords, why have I been such a quiet peacenik in comparison?
I don't understand being proud or ashamed of one's ancestry. Given that these people were ancestors, I hardly had any input on who begat who.
I'm Hungarian. My uncle (dad's brother) has Asian DNA so it's very possible that Khan is somewhere in my dad's family tree. My male cousin in Hungary (mothers side) also has some sort of Asian DNA too but I don't have any. The only DNA that I have besides Eastern European is Italian which came from my dad's side. Unfortunately my dad has been gone 15 years so I can't get DNA from him. He's also been cremated so I can't even consider exhuming his coffin to get DNA if I had the money to do that, I surely would...
Thank you, Roselvr! I will take a look at Family Search. And I appreciate your offer of help.
I'll give you a few tips with your personal information that I finally figured out. You add your real name. I have it set to private. Then there's a user name which I have have set to always private, then there is a contact name which is always public. It says a public name linked to your contributions enables people to send you messages. Then there's Display Name which I also have set to private. It says The display name is displayed on your Family Search home page. All of those private boxes say Roselvr but I think I have them set to private because I couldn't figure out why my full name was showing when I edited a profile, so I made it so that only one setting is set to Roselvr to force the system to show Roselvr everywhere and not my name.
Family search can be a gold mine. PA2UK and I helped with family trees for a few posters here that couldn't find info on relatives, they hadn't checked family search where there was a lot of info for both so you may luck out.
Statistically, it's not likely for white people in the US to have unknown African ancestry, in a study, only about 1.4% of people who identified as "European American" had 2+% African ancestry: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4289685/
People in the UK are probably even less likely to have unknown African ancestry than this, because only about 3% of the population is black (in comparison to the US where about 13-14% of the population is black). So the surprise makes sense, it's just unlikely and not the norm.
Although the UK suffered less from the racial issues the US dealt/deals with, and therefore there would be less motive to hide a black ancestor in the UK, if your theory is correct about your 2nd great grandfather leaving babies behind while he was stationed there during WWI, we are probably talking about unwed mothers who might have put them up for adoption. You say he was light skinned, so his children with white women probably would have easily passed as white, and with an adoption, knowledge of the ancestry was likely lost. Back then, people often didn't talk about adoption, so the whole thing may have been kept quiet - his child(ren) might not have even known they were adopted, let alone that they had a biological father of mixed race. Alternatively, he might have had affairs with married women who were able to pass the baby off as white/their husband's, hence the need for secrecy.
You say most of your white ancestors came to the Americas during colonial times, but what about the others? And how much DNA exactly do you share with these white estimated 2nd and 3rd cousins?
well my family tree is all over the place as far as cousins in different ethnic groups but most of my American white cousins are in the 70-90Cm's range with a few higher and majority lower. though some of most closely related white cousins who have no African DNA I have traced back to that same 2nd great grandfather's half sister(same father different mother) oddly enough I found a document where his father(who was listed as white) had signed over land to him when he turned 17, and he appears in family photos which was odd at the time(late 1800's) for a white man to include his mulato child in family portraits, I haven't found proof yet but I think my 3rd great grandfather may have been a Quaker.
While the ones in the UK who had small percentages of African DNA mostly are in the 90-200Cm's in common with me(the blond I skyped with had 178Cm's), my UK relatives that did not have any black DNA were usually under 10 Cm's meaning our common ancestor was probably a precolonial ancestor of a slave owner.
If there are any so far it must be a long way back. My results have been what family members have told me they'd be and we were Nordic folks. Looks like the farther visits were to the northern UK islands.
I'd love to go back to where they all came from before their time in northern Europe.
But our generations since me will reflect a rainbow of the western world's peoples and some Eastern as well. The family tree has really branched with changing times and attitudes.
Well i guess by watching US TV commercials, you would guess that the US's population is 65% black, with most of them being in interracial marriages, so wouldn't almost everyone have some black ancestry?
Of course the reality, as stated in the second response to this thread is much different, with only 1-1.5% of white people having any black ancestry.
Of course the reality, as stated in the second response to this thread is much different, with only 1-1.5% of white people having any black ancestry.
What the post said was that percent has over 2% African ancestry. There is a much higher percentage that have under 2% African ancestry.
I have between 1-2% African ancestry and 19 out of my 20 closest matches on my Southern (paternal) side in 23andMe also have African ancestry between 0.2% to 5%. So it's extremely common for whites with colonial ancestry in the South. The races started mixing right from the beginning of slavery creating a large mixed population, and many generations later those mixed ancestors now have tens of millions of descendants, and here we are today seeing it in our DNA. It's a mathematical reflection of social history.
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