Isn’t this a “no shit” kind of subject? I mean who would be so stupid as to not know their DNA contained all sorts of “sources”.
And a bit of an over-reaction by these folks I think.
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People who think those random lines on a map actually mean something, and have always meant what they mean today, and weren’t constantly crossed and uncrossed for millennia.
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If somebody asked me if I was 100% Irish I wouldn’t even find the question meaningful. Between which particular waves of migrations to the Island is this pure Irishness located? How long does a trait have to been present before it is considered Irish and not Scandinavian, or Anglo-Saxon or Celtic or whatever?
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First off, I am a sap, I cry at anything apparently.
I can already picture some white schmuck trying to use the n word.
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It would be a great-great-great grandparent. Someone born about 1830-40; quite likely a slave in the USA (if that guy’s from the US - no video at work). That’s a significant thing for him to consider.
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They already do, and not just as a slur, but for both general purpose and as a friendly greeting.
But so long ago that it won’t show up in current DNA testing for people who don’t have actual Sub-Saharan African heritage within the last few hundred years.
You are entirely right that many people who were told their great-grandmother was a “Cherokee princess” (no such thing) discover the real story is that there is a small amount of SSA heritage on that side of the family. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in “white” families which have lived for many generations in the southern states.
But most Euro-heritage people in the U.S. whose ancestors came over in the late 1800s or early 1900s will not have any appreciable SSA segments in their genes.
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on average:
50% from each parent
25% from each grandparent
12.5% from each great-grandparent
6.25% from each GG-grandparent
3.125% from each GGG-grandparent
That’s not nothing. Especially for people from the southern states, there are records back much further than that. Finding the ancestor from only about 150 years ago (or less) who gave you that DNA would be do-able for many people.
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I know what you’re saying, but I have met/seen Native American Princesses. I believe it is a ceremonial title for Pow Wows, and several tribes have a pageant where the winner is crowned a Princess.
Ah, methinks you may have forgotten the massive amount of cognitive dissonance that has been fostered in this country.
For many people, what they think they know and what they feel far outweigh actual logic and analytical thought.
Remember, I’m biracial; and in my lifetime I’ve encountered American-born 3rd generation citizens, both Black & White, who have made the unbelievably dubious claim that they were of “pure” blood, having no ancestors/relatives who were anything other than the race listed on their birth certificates.
Upon encountering such poor deluded individuals, I generally have not even bothered to try to enlighten them; despite the glaringly obvious fallacious logic they adhere to, because I know that many people will only believe what they want to believe, no matter how improbable.
ITA.
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Am sure I am a mutt of various origins, but when my brother did one of these he came up 23% Native American.
Deeply skeptical of that number, considering we know our family tree back to the mid-1800’s, and not a whiff of native ancestry. I am not a geneticist, but I would think that for 23% to be true, it’d require ancestry on both sides of my family, with an origin prior to the mid-1800’s.
Still, very cool video. Would totally volunteer for a similar project done in the US.
Don’t forget the power of ignorance as well. It is easy to be deluded with out looking into the facts.
How many of them didn’t come from no monkeys neither?
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Exactly.
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You don’t really need DNA tests to explain to silly people that they are silly. Just the fact that they, whether they want to be or not, are relatives of the common radish.
But if a DNA test helps some people to abandon the nonsense categories and stop linking their identity to them,then the test has done some good after all.
However, I suspect that you’re right. There is plenty of silliness to go around.
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That is a recent adaptation. It’s not a historically-accurate concept (if we’re talking about around 150 years ago), especially not for the Cherokee.
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Depends on what test he took. Some are more accurate than others…although in general if someone shows up with 25% of something, it’s real. You should consider some alternate explanations. If you test as well, it would be the best way to figure out if you BOTH have approximately 25% (which means one of your grandparents is not who you think they are), or if only he does (which means one or both of his parents don’t match yours).
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25% would be interesting, but it was a weirdly specific 23% (that was not a typo).
Which company’s test did he take?
It would be weirdly-specific for it to be exactly 25%, as it would imply that one of your grandparents were 100% pure-blood whatever, and the entire point of this is that there is no such thing.
When everyone’s great-great grandparent is a mix of this and that, 23% is not an odd number. If you go back eight or ten generations (1024 ancestors, probably with some overlap) it’s easy to make 23% from one side of the family, or both sides.
Early 1800 is only, what five generations ago? So 32 ancestors before your records begin. That would been somewhere around 8 of them had a lot of Native American ancestry, or more of them had more mixed backgrounds. In the next generation down, only about 4 would need to be of mostly Native American background. Don’t know whether that’s likely for your family, but it’s certainly possible in general.
Echo what @chgoliz said about taking the test yourself, maybe with a different company.
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