holy cow. i sent a message to my nearest dna match. she is adopted.

[wnylib]

41. There is Native American ancestry in my family, too.

Last edited Tue Oct 13, 2020, 07:11 PM - Edit history (1)

It's recent enough that physical traits were very noticeable in my father's generation and in his mother. Her ancestry was English (colonial Puritan descent) and Seneca, plus some Mohawk. We know the time period was the early 1800's for the mixed marriage, but by the early 1800's, many Senecas and Mohawks were using European names, so we can't learn much by the names alone, especially since they include such common ones as Williams and Johnson. Plus there are a few gaps in the names we have from that time period.

My father's father also had some Native ancestry mixed with German, but farther back than my grandmother's.

My grandparents had 9 children. Their appearance varied according to which sets of genes they inherited. One of my aunts looked "pure" European, with light brown hair, very fair skin, and blue eyes. Another aunt looked like she had no European ancestry at all. She had straight black hair, dark black/brown eyes, and medium brown (not beige) skin. My father and one brother had black hair, blue eyes, and medium beige skin. The rest had black hair, very dark brown eyes, and medium to dark beige skin. They also had other features associated with Native ancestry.

Yet, my cousin had a DNA test from Ancestry a few years ago. It showed zero Native ancestry, just British and German. Tests are more thorough now, especially from other companies, on tracing autosomal DNA. Y or mtDNA would miss Native ancestry if there is not an unbroken gender link to the Native ancestor.

The cousins most likely to still carry some autosomal traces of Native ancestry, based on the features of their parent, do not want to do the test.