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.

Disadvantages of Generalized Consumer Information

Recently I was introduced to two sources: Snpedia.com and James Licks haplogroup reader. Originally I began an excel chart looking for a map/result of correlating my major rcrs differences to known markers of each subclade. When I completed my cursory search and had found only some related to the in typed mutation I was quite disappointed. Through a happy coincidence I searched that marker coming across a blog post which indicated James Licks haplogroup reader using phylotree data. Indeed I had found what I was looking for! When I third party transferred and took my mtDNA test with Family Tree DNA they had not yet differentiated the basic and full sequence test so while I thought I was getting a awesome deal I was indeed being short changed. For most people knowing your major haplogroup is probably very helpful. The general information will no doubt apply to at least part of your research and you may choose to look no further. In researching H I began to try and guess which subclade I might be. I began to notice that much of the research on Haplogroup H was inconsistent. When I first looked it up I was told H stood for Helena featuring most women found in the area of Greece and Turkey. More recent clippings will tell you it is actually a young line found in Norway and Scotland....the inconsistency being an east or west haplogroup. 

Running the James Lick emulator for my true subclade has been invaluable to discerning not only my origins but also understanding why information is so distorted suddenly on the topic of line H. The result from inputting my hrv1 and hrv2 differences was H2a2a1g. Major research has been done recently in recovering that haplogroup from the eurocentric viewpoint and possible selection biases. My own upper subclade of H2 is perhaps one of the least European of all the H derivatives with H2a2a1 represented in highest amount among Saudi Arabian women. H2a is also the only of the H2 subclade to have integrated back into Asian phylogeography after initial migration towards Europe. [Correction: As of Fall 2015 that build was replaced for giving false positives related to H2a2a. That is not my haplogroup.]

On advisory from a more seasoned genetic genealogist than I was the idea of charting matches to the most recent common female ancestor in the States. Of course for me this actually means Canada. Indeed my female immigrant ancestor of the mtdna line is Elizabeth 'Betty' Beck (1814-1874) who came from Dumfries-shire, Scotland to settle in Grey, Ontario, Canada with her husband John Swanston (1808-1891). From there I am to work backwards into Europe but I have a feeling the separation between North America and Europe might be better served by a more popular female such as Sebithy Ann Coultis (1857-1951) of Manitoulin Island who married William Henry Bryant (1864-1939).

Conversing on Ancestry.com has become even more limited without a subscription much to my annoyance so it will be hard work to find people matching my MRCA to compare mtdna results. Incidentally I noticed that the interactive genealogy map I made sometime ago has a strange overlay with the known path for the development of the H haplogroup both the predominant Eurasian and European subclades. Heatmaping the sources of my major subclade H2a2a has also been helpful though I intend to revise it further with matching recent populations excluding deep ancestry.

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http://dna.jameslick.com/mthap/

Statistical Work in Aborigional Ethnicity Prediction

Last year I set out to comb through the rough of my DNA sampling with many algorithms until I found the clearest percentages. In doing this I clustered Asiatic derivative groups under the heading of tricyclic populations as direct relation to the genealogical evidence of First Nations ancestry. However I did not at the time have a major justification for doing this except that these evidences were non compliant with the majority of my recent generational admixture. I also had my mtdna tested which is passed down from my farthest known matrilineal ancestor who came from Kirkgunzeon, Scotland. The result was the mtdna haplogroup H. I had not considered anything further about haplogroups until today.

Someone had also recommended to me that it could be useful to make a genealogical data map. I decided to place within it known birth locations as well as the locations of genetic populations I matched. The variability of genetic population was in some ways shocking. It did however follow the typical water trade routes in it's spread. The deep Asian line however and the Americas seemed not to be related with the exception of two locales of Aleut. Recently I provided information to the younger sister's of my husband about their own native history as Saginaw band of Ojibway. I did this with only name places, some stories and a map. It surprised me how much a map can say and so I thought of this again for myself.

My statistics produced the average of hard 19%, and soft 20% if one accounts for decimals, of Native genetic material per gene. This 20% however was also not a solid component. 53% was of Inuit derivative, 38% Americas proper including Central/South and lastly a unresolved 21% that was more closely related to Asian heritage. Some strict populations that occurred were Aleut, Inuit, Pima, Maya, Ecuador, Colombia, Peurto Rican. The more exotic was Samii, Tibetian, Han, Thai.

These places however share a major component of Haplogroup. Indeed in map review of the locales it is quite evident that the underlying mtdna associated with the portions of my DNA would be Haplogroup A. The great evidence of this is that Tibetan only hosts A of those also present in the Americas. Asian haplogroups are the predecessor of native american strands which is why it is proper to review them together especially in the absence of actual Asian heritage.

Since Catherine Dufour spoke French-Cree I have come to the assumption that she was Métis-Cree herself as other varieties of Metis would speak their own aboriginal language. Of the localized groups the Cree associated with the region she lived refer to themselves as the Innu. I would not however assume to be exact on which regional tribe of the Cree Catherine came from until we ever have the exact name of her mother. There remains as well the possibility that her father Peter was also of mixed ancestry. Within the Boussey family work I am lucky to have not only a exact name for Anne Marie dit Metisse but also the Indian settlement she lived. Port Royal, Nova Scotia is under the Bear River Nation of Mi'kmaq today. It would be lovely to have exacting answers but native american DNA methods are extremely limited.

Graphing FTDNA for Native Blood

It's common for people to find a unsubstantiated family myth regarding a long lost great grandparent of some tribe. It's part of the Rousseau ideal that native culture is somehow noble through its simplicity and to be admired. Indeed looking just at the surface of things at the time of first contact they had more advanced systems of hygiene and significant ecologically-sensitive agriculture. Those of us with genealogical evidence often find it scant due to the nature of the times regarding the personage and citizenship of a native person in the imperial Americas. As a Metis woman I am at a disadvantage that besides the myth and a lucky interview provided by James Sweinhart, a published journalist, that there is no physical connection I can grasp.

Cherokee Nation at Kansas City, 1994

As a anthropologist, I maintain a certain outlook from multicultural perspective but I have found it fails me when working with more traditional native american individuals. Often I am met with hostility which I believe is less to do with how I look, as some might presume, and more to do with the socioeconomics of tribal living. I certainly don't intend to be a bother and the only community I intend to pursue citizenship with would be the Metis peoples in my local Canadian/US sector. Due to the degree of mixture it simply seems idiotic to sequester anything more specific when indeed I am not specific. 

It is that mixture exactly that is the true topic of this post. After my 3rd party transfer to Family Tree DNA completed I uploaded it into GED Matches album to compare with ancestry original interpretation. It is notable to mention that ftdna actually reevaluated the chip itself not just the raw composite to my knowledge. For the most part I saw predictable and minute changes. Side by side I noticed that ftdna cited more africanized Moorish DNA as apart of my Iberian spectrum. When I reviewed MDLP 22 by chromosome it suddenly occurred to me to class out the asian decent populations and revise it for my native american blood. Trycyclic populations including the middle east are often misplaced amounts of plains native which is so intermixed that it more often registers as middle eastern.

On average I found that 20% of each chromosome was Asiatic derivative. Since the middle eastern connection is still debatable I also went a step further in removing the trycyclic and Asian components to search for individualized known samples of native american DNA. On average this left a 10-12% of each chromosome to be confirmed native american source which is above the threshold for founder markers. Each of the remaining populations confirmed in my chromosomes were set in known genetic regions allowing me to percentage out the confirmed strains by region. Of the 10-12% confirmed; 53% was Northern Hemisphere (Inuit derivatives), 38% was Americas proper, & 21% was trace matching aboriginal societies in the eastern hemisphere. Percentage peaks for the northern group rested on chromosomes 7, 16, 18 & 22. The Americas group peaked at 13 & 20, but only 20 was highly above the margin of error. Lastly the trace societies were highest peaked on 8 & 15 but not as impressively as the other groups. Overall it was North Amerindian which received the highest proportion spikes but it was also one of the least spread matches across the 22 chromosomes.

So I may be lucky enough to have numbers but it also comes down to personal experience and identity. Personal experience has always pushed me to look at aboriginal life in a learning capacity much like a child watching their parents. Even now I am writing my final paper for my degree program on Native American Studies. The expectations of that work is for me to be a participant but I've always been a participant even in times where I was so far away from the source. Part of my most loving experience was the short time I spent with the Cherokee Nation in Missouri. Despite outward appearance I was drawn in and allowed to participate culminating in a honorary membership. While it may have just been words it started me off on a journey I am still following now, as a Metis.

DNA Updates and Forthcomings

Well GEDmatch has finally finished with the re-tokenizing of my DNA pack. It seems that some of the simulations had errors which were pinging mostly in unrelated ethnic results but nonetheless gedmatch decided to rerun new editions for errors. This changes my results to a small degree. The smallest changes are to do with my largest portions. My European percentages are now farther east with 47% a solid mix of Fennoscandia and the Slavic countries bordering Russia. At this time my Celtic/British strains are only 6%. I am still left unsure which country provides the dominant amount of my 34% Mediterranean. Northern Italian and Iberian are both cited. The near east populations matches continue to tantalize me if only because I cannot find their source genealogically.  Roughly 10% of my blood is still Persian which I find amazing.

The more drastic changes have come in the form of my smallest amounts. While initially HarappaWorld and MDLP both cited my mesoamerican DNA from the Muscogee it is now something else. In a sense it could be a more accurate result. About 5% of my result is from South Amerindian and Arctic Amerindian. The latter would correspond to my mother's Mi'kmaq heritage. From what I've gathered online the south is most likely representative of Cherokee. I rather guess that does make more sense since there were only small amounts of exogamy in my direct relations. As the Cherokee are fairly wide, the bands can simply interchange children without looking in another region. Eurogenes still says Mayan...Ugh! But it also indicates a southeast Asia portion as well as oceanic which are barely above threshold.

What I do still find strange is my Samoyed and Berinigan DNA. They are very small amounts but I'm not sure which region to classify them under in my processing of this. I gather for the most part I work on a three category system; European, Asiatic & American. If it doesn't fit those groups than it's wasteful knowledge.

I also took a look at the new ancestry ethnicity predictor. I do find it helpful that they separated my Irish and British blood apart. That makes me confused however about whether Scottish is really the same as British. According to their diagrams it is separate and I have none. My new ancestry numbers are: 52% Great Britain, 21% Scandinavian, 15% Irish, 8% Iberian, 2% Grecco-Italian, 1% Eastern European and <1% Western European. At least that is more interesting than my original pie of British, Scandinavian and unknown. Still I find it very odd that Ancestry states my British as high as 50% when all other groups dictate that it is <26%. Consider for one that as of currently all the calculators for gedmatch place me at 6%. I think it makes ancestry look stupid. I still hope however to upload to FTDNA for my maternal test and correspond my admixture there. My tight budget might make it a Christmas gift to myself.

Ancestry: Autosomnal versus MtDNA

DNA doesn't stop with the percentages you find in tests. Often it takes a further investigation into the history of the populations you represent. I have already found a state of questionablity regarding my amount of Middle eastern DNA. In hopes of diving into my alleles and chromosome results representing my aborigional american DNA I also came across the issue of similarity between Appalachian tribes and middle eastern sample groups specifically Berbers. Of special consideration was the Cherokee contribution on my father's side which is intermixed with Muskogee-Creek. The Creeks are known to carry Mayan DNA while the Cherokee often carry, at least autosomnally, markers that are indistinguishable from middle eastern composition to most calculators. The same can be said of other central Appalachian groups while north and south populations are either Beringian or Mesoamerican of some variety, respectively. Therefore for lack of genealogical evidence it is possible that a result as such is perhaps a false positive. 

That brings me to another interesting point regarding researching population groups. My high percentage groups contain the prefix paleolithic. It is important not to overlook this point because it places the history of those people much farther back in the human migration process (it can also indicate a period of isolation). The inclusion of the term beringian also points to a Asiatic admixture of the paleo-eskimo groups spanning from Russian Siberia through Greenland into Canada and Alaska. There is no consideration for any non Inuit first nations group in my results so far. Given my most recent addition of Indian blood I am wondering if perhaps that means the mother of my great grandma Catherine was also a Mi'maq woman along with a more removed grandmother from Nova Scotia. 

I have a favorite photo taken of myself after my parents divorce with a black and white camera. At the time I noticed that I appeared very Asiatic if not Eskimo due to the mongoloid feature of my eyes and wide face, these features are most notable in the mornings. 

A next step I would like to take is ordering a mtdna test, most likely from familytreeDNA for price points sake. It's another consideration I have made regarding Ancestry.com's poor assessment of my little genetic rainbow that perhaps the exclusion of know admixture as "noise" is not the only way they pigeonhole people. While I have a beautiful plethora of source populations I also have very distinct Y-DNA and mtDNA strains from European origin. My father's y-dna is I1a, now called I-M253, which comes from Fennoscandia especially Denmark. This prehistoric movement of  Danish Vikings was apart of the early population of Anglo-Saxon regions in Great Britain. This haplogroup also asserts the fact that according to myth our branch of the Grant clan is a relation of Haakon Siggurdsson and his brood. Haakon's lineage is just one of the possible origins to the Grant clan. 

Maternal dna would be a new chapter into who and what I am. The genealogical record unfortunately stops short with Elizabeth Paterson my 8th maternal grandmother in Kirkgunzeon, Scotland. I would assume given her location and the families association with Ireland that my maternal line may be Pict. This could also be gross generalization based on birth location. Elizabeth is a 18th century woman giving plenty of time for known mass migrations including the historical banishments of eastern Jews who migrated west in 1300, 1400, 1600 and 1700 AD. Autsomnally and from rare alleles it is predicted that I have a middle eastern haplogroup though as I said above error is possible. I am hoping for a surprise but I would be happy with any result. Further research is always warranted.

Unzipping My Raw DNA, Part Two

I don't believe that most people are prepared to make the jump in amateur genealogy to that of the intermediate especially with the inclusion of genetics. When the veil is lifted and you see who you are deep in your cells and atoms it can be either encouraging or feel as though all your work has been through colored glasses. Genetic testing is probably a positive for those whose ancestors were static and the acculturated generations match those that actually make up your being. I'm having the rather mirror-house experience where the recent does not match not only who I am as a person, but also is a falsification or at best over-simplification of the real genetic source.

The time it's taken to run the simulators and compile them into a single excel document however has given me enough pause to collect most of my thoughts. I have to remember that the exotic is mostly deep ancestry so it would not be relevant necessarily except for some quirks. Yet the mirror house experience is that, everything is exotic, at least in comparison to the records and beliefs of those still living today. Working first with admixtures there is a varying degree of interpretation still to the amount of 'white' that I am. Ancestry's estimate was 52% British isles/34% Scandinavian, on the whole roughly 80-90% carbon white.

Harrapaworld, Asia map, disputes this number with only a maximum of 48.5% European. 'Africa 9' on Dodecad echo's a similar opinion that I am 67.5% or less European (including Indo-European as strictly white). Dodecad World version 3 places this number closer to 52% with the rest highly africanized Iberian or west/southwest asian. Eurogenes perhaps gave the most honest admixture result due to it's definitive sub sects. North Sea, which includes water bound parts of Scandinavia as well as the British isles rests at only 20%. JTest states that of these European groups only 25.4% is wholly white and inadmissible as Jewish. I am only 3% however above the noise level (2.5%) for Azkenazi Jewish heritage so the direct line there is remote. Yet the large chucks of central and eastern European do echo the ancestry given my fathers genetic test.

Southern heritage is much more pronounced than Ancestry claimed with some rare alleles coming from Cyprus, Lithuania, and East Asia. Spain and Northern Italy are the founders of my southern heritage with only one so far found in the genealogical record. Dodecad World 9, for example places me at 72.5% Atlantic_Baltic, 25.5% Caucusus/Southern European and around 1.5% Amerindian. 1.5 is interpreted over and over as either Asiatic or Amerindian, notably however it is inferred as Mexican/Central American Indian when addressed. It also increases as high as 3-8% given the presence of oceanic, papuan, beringian and east asian derivatives. If this was a test I don't believe that 20-53% is ever a passing grade so why would I ignore the beautiful multicultural heritage I have.

So what about the estimations given by Ancestry.com? Well I think I figured that out partially inspired by a comment by the authors of GEDMatch's algorithms. "It not just the presence of a unique factor but also the presence of that percentage compared to like individuals." Thus unique factors on chromosomes could be viewed as noise and with strict interpretation ignored completely as genetic drift for known populaces. With the wars over centuries of the Germanic tribes then it would be easy to assume a known factor level of 'noise' and thus exclude it altogether. I believe this is how Ancestry.com applies their ethnicity predictor so it is most simplified and accurate for Europeans, no doubt their largest consumer at whole.

So what am I? Very roughly estimated in admixture...

• 26-40% Southern European (Spanish, Italian, Iberian, Sardinian) 
• 18-24% British Isles/North Seas (Great Britain, France, Scandinavia) 
• 12-26% Middle Eastern (Persian, Near East, West Asia)
• 8-10% Eastern European (West Germany, Balkan, Slav)
• 3-8% Asian/Amerindian (Mezoamerican, Beringian; East-South Asia, Oceania)
• 3-5% North African (Mozabite, Morroccan, Byaka)