My Ancestry: An Adventure of Discovery!
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What tuold said. What a great "thing" DNA plus historical records. Like most things, some for, some against or disinterested. I am completely into it and think it to be ultra-cool.
My Mother's sister did a thorough family tree and found Davy Crockett to be a cousin. I guess his family got around. 
She also found enough info to get into the Daughters of the American Revolution. I'd love to do the DNA testing someday. I'm sure I've got Neanderthal blood since my little brother and I look like cavemen.
She also found enough info to get into the Daughters of the American Revolution. I'd love to do the DNA testing someday. I'm sure I've got Neanderthal blood since my little brother and I look like cavemen.
@bigpond wrote:
I found none of that shocking since I already have most of those conditions anyway =)
The sheer volumes of information can be intimidating. There must be hundreds of pages of data. This program I used called Promethease, (really a web based database) comes with various filters you can use put the data in whatever order you want. You can put all the red flag stuff first or the green flag first, and so on. I hope the genetic markers that show a resistance to some cancers outweigh the one that indicate a correlation with cancers occurring.
I'll let my doctor know I have this information at my next checkup, but I doubt it will be of any use.
Here's one tab from report:
There is that danger of needlessly worrying yourself depending on your personality type. I found out I had markers for hypertension, tinnitus, cataracts, have blue eyes and predilection for arthritis and prostate cancer, etc, etc.
I found none of that shocking since I already have most of those conditions anyway =)
The sheer volumes of information can be intimidating. There must be hundreds of pages of data. This program I used called Promethease, (really a web based database) comes with various filters you can use put the data in whatever order you want. You can put all the red flag stuff first or the green flag first, and so on. I hope the genetic markers that show a resistance to some cancers outweigh the one that indicate a correlation with cancers occurring.
I'll let my doctor know I have this information at my next checkup, but I doubt it will be of any use.
Here's one tab from report:
I've always thought that a lot of people claim to have Native American ancestry, especially celebrities, compared to here in Canada. I would like to try this sometime, I know that my parents both came from Manchester England and my father said that he was told we come from " the north " not sure what that means though.
davet
They had a lot black Americans on the show who were shocked to find out they had up to 20% white European ancestry.
I'm not so interested in broad genetic origins myself. I'm more interested in the stories my ancestors have to tell and how they lived their lives. Why did my 15 year-old grandmother leave her father's farm in Missouri in 1910 with her older sister and head west to San Francisco when they had no relatives there? The census records, the death certificates, immigration and tax records all gave the "wheres and whens" but not the "whys". That's why it's so important to interview your relatives before that information is lost.
There were a couple of ancestry related shows on awhile back that featured celebrities who thought they had Native American ancestors. I think all of them turned out to be negative. It doesn't always mean their family stories weren't true. If they only had one NA ancestor and it was 4 generations ago, it's possible they just were not dealt those genetic cards. They could turn up in a brother, sister or other relative though. I'm not really sure why having that ancestry is any more desirable than another.
They had a lot black Americans on the show who were shocked to find out they had up to 20% white European ancestry.
I'm not so interested in broad genetic origins myself. I'm more interested in the stories my ancestors have to tell and how they lived their lives. Why did my 15 year-old grandmother leave her father's farm in Missouri in 1910 with her older sister and head west to San Francisco when they had no relatives there? The census records, the death certificates, immigration and tax records all gave the "wheres and whens" but not the "whys". That's why it's so important to interview your relatives before that information is lost.
A lot of times people claimed their relatives were Native American in order to cover up their true lineage. They would "hide" these lines so that they would not face the racism so prominent back then. They would hide the fact that they had a Jewish ancestor, a black ancestor, or even a mixed race ancestor such as Melungeon.
Black Dutch was also a common "heritage" used by those trying to hide a family secret.
Black Dutch was also a common "heritage" used by those trying to hide a family secret.
The main reason for claiming Indian blood was the census. People didn't want to be labeled as, at that time, colored in the census because it would affect the familiy's future. In many parts of this country you only need to be one sixteenth black to be considered black and in the South would have been subject to segregation laws.. Native Americans were listed as "I" while Black Dutch or other such inventive ancestry received "W".
My wife and I found out differently in the State of Oklahoma, searching for her Fathers family and talking to local historians, it was worse to put down Native American sothey put down Black on the census form.The Indians were treated much worse than the Blacks. Might not have been like this all over but that's how it was in Oklahoma.
A thought provoking thread. I'm not sure I have absolute confidence in the accuracy on these commercial tests, but I assume they have some validity. I wonder what percentage of results go back showing heritage of various ethnicities that have been treated less well historically. Then what happens? Do the recipients re-invent a family story that includes this identity, and/or do some burn the paperwork and live in dread of being "found out?" Do they share the news with their families? Do they embrace the new information personally? I think many families identify with only part of their heritage, even when the rejected part of the family line is not overtly different. Personally, I'd feel somewhat phony trying to claim some aspect of my lineage that wasn't acknowledged by my family, even though the DNA results were accurate. Would I change religions, manner of dress, household culture? I think instead I might just shrug, and go into mourning for the part of me that I hadn't been allowed to accept into my identity as I went through life. If one does this, it would be good to do it early, even before marriage and kids, so as to embody the whole history to some degree. But the process and decision to test or not to test is an intriguing one. Good thread.
In some of these studies, parentage doesn't always correspond to the parents on the birth certificate, which is sometimes upsetting.
In some of these studies, parentage doesn't always correspond to the parents on the birth certificate, which is sometimes upsetting.
Have thought about trying it to try to confirm the Scots part of the family tale we're Scots-Irish if it distinguishes Scottish from Irish as I already know my father's line came from Northern Ireland. Also know that 1 set of my maternal great-grandparents came from Norway. So, unsure how much new information a DNA test would give me.
mso489,
I was brought up as a true mongrel American. There was no ethnic traditions, holidays, or even foods in my household growing up. This was due to the fact that the latest any member of my family arrived on these shores was 1847. By the 1970s, when I was growing up, all traditions, beliefs,etc. that had been brought from the homelands had been forgotten. This was one of the reasons I became interested in genealogy. I lived in Northern Kentucky for 30 years. For all those years I would see the Germans celebrating their heritage with Oktoberfest. The Greeks had Greekfest, the Irish had St. Patrick's Day and so on.
Eventually I found out where my people were from such as the British Isles, France, Germany, Italy, and so on. I never did adopt any of the celebrations or traditions from any of these places because I realized I had been wrong. My family had lots of traditions we followed and foods we ate that told who we were and where we came from, Appalachia. Both of my parents families were among the early settlers of East Tennessee. In Tennessee, people who can prove an ancestor lived here before it became a state are classified as a First Family of Tennessee. To me that is the heritage I found.
My point is that I believe that whatever DNA results say it will always prove less important than what you have come to believe about yourself. No matter what I was to find out if I did get the testing done, it wouldn't change anything. I would acknowledge it but nothing more.
I was brought up as a true mongrel American. There was no ethnic traditions, holidays, or even foods in my household growing up. This was due to the fact that the latest any member of my family arrived on these shores was 1847. By the 1970s, when I was growing up, all traditions, beliefs,etc. that had been brought from the homelands had been forgotten. This was one of the reasons I became interested in genealogy. I lived in Northern Kentucky for 30 years. For all those years I would see the Germans celebrating their heritage with Oktoberfest. The Greeks had Greekfest, the Irish had St. Patrick's Day and so on.
Eventually I found out where my people were from such as the British Isles, France, Germany, Italy, and so on. I never did adopt any of the celebrations or traditions from any of these places because I realized I had been wrong. My family had lots of traditions we followed and foods we ate that told who we were and where we came from, Appalachia. Both of my parents families were among the early settlers of East Tennessee. In Tennessee, people who can prove an ancestor lived here before it became a state are classified as a First Family of Tennessee. To me that is the heritage I found.
My point is that I believe that whatever DNA results say it will always prove less important than what you have come to believe about yourself. No matter what I was to find out if I did get the testing done, it wouldn't change anything. I would acknowledge it but nothing more.
mso489, For me it's personalized history. It's one thing to read about the horrible things that happened during the pogroms in Eastern Europe and another to suddenly realize I have ancestors who came here to escape them. It's made history a little more vivid for me. Finding out that I'm part Ashkenazi Jewish was surprising and interesting. I'm still waiting for a Kaplan cousin to contact me =)
Also, I have the ship passenger lists with my maternal grandfather's name on it from 1906. I was able to find the place in Sweden he came from and even the name and a picture of the ship. Why they never talked to me about these things I'll never know. I was too young and too stupid to ask.
Also, I have the ship passenger lists with my maternal grandfather's name on it from 1906. I was able to find the place in Sweden he came from and even the name and a picture of the ship. Why they never talked to me about these things I'll never know. I was too young and too stupid to ask.
I read an article about this recently. During the Civil Rights war in Alabama, many of those on the side against minority voting, found themselves looking for justification for their actions, the atrocities. Claiming a Native American heritage was the number one way they justified their actions as "not racist" if you're a minority, I guess that means you can be racist. They tied themselves to a group of people who were oppressed by the government, identified with a people who hunted, made their own "things," and tried to carve a living out of the land.
The speech writer and adviser to Wallace and Klansman, Forrest Carter, disappeared and then reinvented himself as the writer of "Education of Little Tree." We also have a huge reservation that reinvented itself with very white men claiming Porch Creek Heritage. Look it up. We have one of the largest tribes made up of ex-Klansmen in the nation here in Alabama, and gambling is giving them new energy. It's a very weird thing.
There would have been NO mixing of white and Native American races in the South. This a huge Southern Taboo... until after the 60's, in which white supremacists found it better to identify as Native Americans than...
Anyways, I find this stuff fascinating. I have an uncle who says that our family has Native American blood, but really he is just a drunk with a fanciful mind. :
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...Yeh, you might like my uncle then. He lives in a storage shed behind one of my aunt's house. ::
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Ha ha, Hank Henry! And, Uncle Mark. I could write a book about my Uncle Mark. I think that man has taken every wrong turn and made every wrong decision that is humanly possible.
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