I got a notification from Ancestry shortly before Christmas that my DNA report had been updated. Apparently they do this from time to time, as they gather more and more information about global DNA and better refine their data.
You may remember that I first did this DNA analysis nine years ago, and it hasn't changed significantly since then. I am still overwhelmingly English -- and now they can even break down what parts of England I'm from. I have additional Scottish, Welsh and German ancestry, and traces from Ireland, Sweden, and West Africa.
It's that West Africa bit that fascinates me most. I have no idea what the story is there. I do have plenty of family from the South in the years before the Civil War, so it's not impossible that at least one of my ancestors had some African blood. Things like that certainly happened back then, as we all know from Thomas Jefferson's history with Sally Hemings.
What's interesting is how the source of my African DNA changes from one report to another. Initially, Ancestry said only that it was African, and reported it as a "low confidence" result, so I considered it a fluke or a throwback to some distant primordial past.
But with each report it's become more specific -- the second report pinpointed Mali and a few other West African countries as the source. The third eliminated Africa entirely and folded in Norway and Iceland. (It seems to have dispensed with low-percentage results.) The fourth report brought me back to Africa with DNA more specifically linked to Ivory Coast and Ghana, but got rid of that Norwegian connection.
The newest version shifts my African roots to Nigeria. And as you can see above, it's very specific, right down to certain ethnic groups.
I have no idea how accurate this is, but as I said, it's not impossible. The accuracy seems more likely the more specific we get, and this is pretty darn specific. I'm not aware of any stories in my family about ancestors with African connections, but of course that's not the kind of thing anyone talked about back then. In American society, certainly before the Civil War but even afterwards, there were social benefits to "passing" for white.
I can see how it might happen. Let's use Sally Hemings again as an example. She was one-quarter African, but still enslaved, and she was having children by Jefferson, so they would be 1/8 African (assuming the Jeffersons had no African ancestors of their own). With each successive generation there's a greater likelihood that those descendants would marry further into white European-American culture. That kind of intermarriage could seemingly lead, in modern times, to results like mine. (I'm not saying I'm a descendant of Hemings and Jefferson, just that I could be a descendant of that kind of coupling, which was surely not rare.)
It's pretty fascinating. I wish my brother would take a similar test. I'd be interested to see if his revealed anything more, though obviously the DNA he inherited would be somewhat different from the DNA I inherited. He could be less African than me -- or more.
The "journeys" on my mother's side remain very accurate. My maternal grandmother was from southeastern North Carolina, which is shown as a "hot spot" on the map above, and my maternal grandfather's people were New Englanders and New Yorkers.
And on the paternal side, Ancestry zeroes right in on the ancestral home of my father's people in northern Arkansas.
Pretty fascinating stuff!
Fascinating indeed. As you say, the kind of relationship with African connections certainly happened all the time but were not something people would discuss over the dinner table with their children, and written records of births and marriages were often adjusted to better suit the needs and circumstances of the day. But DNA doesn't lie - of course, like you, I don't know the accuracy of the results you get from the ancestry folks, but it has become more and more accurate.
ReplyDeleteOne's ancestry, more often than not, will always say bull-s**t to white extremists. We all descended from wandering tribes in the end - we are a species of a 1001 delights ;)
ReplyDeleteMaybe one of your female antecedents also wondered, 'Is it true what they say about black men'? Btw, I don't intend to write a book review post. The book started interestingly enough, and very interesting to read when the author lived in Melbourne and was involved in a relationship here with a much younger man, but the 'prostelysing' about what it is liked to be a handsome black gay men just went on and on. He could not understand what a racial preference by gay men actually is and condemned those who had racial preferences. If gay personals say 'No Asians', that is offensive. If you state a racial preference, I think that is just a preference and does not exclude anyone. The book was over ten years old. A little research seems to indicate that the black author now lives in a New England US state with his white partner, who is from country Victoria, Australia. 6/10.
ReplyDeleteGoogle results vary with regard to what is the most common male name in Nigeria but the name Musa usually crops up. To honour your African heritage, may I suggest from now on you drop your old forename and become Musa Reed instead? There are a few Nigerian clothing shops in London including Cumo that you may wish to visit.
ReplyDeleteFascinating. I enjoyed seeing mine and the updates I receive.
ReplyDeleteand from where did they come from to arrive in Arkansas? ...
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I took my test probably 20+ years ago and it has changed countless times for me too. But in my case, the areas have all been geographically consistent with western Europe. Only the percentages have really changed and they have gradually gotten more in line with what my research has shown with the two exceptions of it showing 6% of my DNA (most recent analysis) comes from the Denmark and Sweden area. I have yet to find a relative that was even close to that area. Back 20 years ago, it showed none from that area and maybe around 10 years ago those percentages started to increase.
ReplyDeleteThe DNA Journies for me however are laughable. It says my paternal line likely spent many years living in the northern Kansas/southern Nebraska region. It lists one ancestor as being a likely contributor and indeed, she likely passed through that area when she moved from Iowa to Colorado. But in large part, most of my paternal line has spent the last 250+ years in Iowa or parts east. My grandfather, great grandfather, great great grandfather and great great great grandfather of my paternal line are all buried in Iowa, all of them but the oldest only 25 miles away from where I now live!