Reuse, Recycle & Revision

Some of you may have noticed a recent post of mine entitled "most recent african ancestor". No doubt it came across as incredibly odd coming from someone so interested in their north american heritage. I haven't perhaps given enough time to the downside of genealogy, especially genetics, and how it can affect family and even your emotional health. We all here the warnings about NPE's and homespun fairy tales such as the cherokee-princess-grandmother. It isn't always however items such as those which really tug on your heartstrings.

Personally I think it is the unknown and the unsaid which are most painful discoveries. A recent genealogy thread I looked at had a entire section dedicated to the family-finder complications. That is to say an only child finding out she has three half siblings from her fathers double life or even just the child who was told the wrong person was her father. Ethnicity prediction is also a big problem for those expecting a certain result. A family of reservation Indians for example finding out they are anything but native though that is the families identity for generations. The MRAA was a push to the limits for me prompted by a small fluke I saw on a single test. The sub Saharan result was possible only as noise or a legitimate marker. As I previously stated:

Most recent intermixed cites percentages, in example from JTest, like Mozabite-Berber, Moroccan, and Algerian. Each is roughly a 2.9-3.2 in distance inside of my intermix. As for Sub-Saharan I had a test the other day ping for both Morocco and Tanzania. I also seem to have a surprising amount of Egyptian hidden around 1.7-1.9 genetic distance in decently large amounts.

Now since I am talking about broken heartstrings you have probably guess right that new testing has rocked my boat. I paid for 23andMe this summer for both the husband and myself in hopes of the mtdna which comes free giving me my subgroup. At the moment it is impossible to classify me though I am somewhere within H1. I won't give out information on my husbands details but needless to say it was a shock on all fronts. Furthermore up came a percentage of African in recent genealogy for myself. Roughly 3-4% as half western Africa and half south African. I am assuming that this may be a sensitivity issue and that what I am really seeing is the African ancestry of my own middle eastern and eurasian predecessors.

Only recently have I come to accept the amount of old world Hispanic I carry. Perhaps the Moorish invasion explains where that might also come from since between ancestry, ftdna and 23andMe my Hispanic percentage dropped. Aggravating to have paid two companies now and no one can give me my mtdna line in exact. But all of this as of late with other changes in my life I find splintering my self identity not strengthening it. Always good to take a break now and then.