He is now denying the validity of dna tests. I don’t want to say the past 35 years of having him treat me worse than he treats his sister had anything to do with his assumptions of my dna, but he was upset to learn that I am more Irish than him. I wonder what he thought of my mother before these results…
I’ve heard before that there is a tendency of these tests to over-report European ancestry and under-report or misidentify ethnic minorities. Something to do with the underlying datasets not being inclusive enough because those populations are smaller and don’t purchase these DNA tests at the same rate as Western Europeans.
There also seems to be a weird fetishisation of First Nations ancestry in parts of the US. I’ve also been told I have Cherokee ancestors, but it didn’t show in my dna ancestory either.
Almost like race is a bs social construct and we are all human who deserve to be treated well
…almost
Inheritance is random
My favorite way to resolve method ambiguities.
Not surprising. My mother was told by her mother that one of her great grandmothers was full blooded native (no specific tribe) which would make me 1/16 native. DNA showed 0% and one my mother took showed 0% for her. She chalked it up to her mother being nuts but it is a fairly common American family myth.
Yeah, I had one of these in my family as well. I didn’t do the DNA test but went on ancestry and kinda pieced stuff together way back to when the majority of the family tree crossed over the Atlantic. There’s maybe one or two people that are suspect (orphan like circumstances). I can’t follow their trees or place them but I don’t have strong confidence either of them were the missing Native American. It’s made harder by the common practice of making Native Americans take more English names.
I do wonder if the DNA testing could get it wrong in any case. There are so few Native Americans still alive to collect the DNA and really get a picture of “this is what Native American DNA looks like.” There were a lot of Native American nations before Europeans showed up … and a lot were driven to near extinction between smallpox and war.
I’m also the only man I know that’s got an effectively hairless chest naturally despite a lot of hairy European lineage… That’s been linked to Native Americans (or was at least more common) so maybe there is something to the stories. I don’t particularly want to take a DNA test to see what it would say.
In my case the story was definitely believable when I was younger. My grandmother and one of her sisters were orphaned and sent to a workhorse because my great grandparents could not afford them. I used to think my grandmother did not know her parents but using ancestry.com my mom connected with someone who she thought was simply a family friend growing up but turned out to be her cousin from her aunt who was not orphaned. Going through my ancestry, there is almost certainly nobody who is native. Grandma may have been a little nuts (one of the caregivers beat her do bad that she lost an eye so being a little nutty is fairly understandable).
Good point on few data points for native Americans. Many of them stay the fuck away from DNA testing nowadays so I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Knew a pastor who this happened to. He was adamant that he was part Native American. After a DNA test it turned out he was zero percent Native American.
He was big enough to embrace it, tho
He wasn’t a pastor in tribal land, was he? That would have been awkward.
I’m just glad I was never awarded any scholarship based upon being Native American. How bad would it have been if I had traced my supposed heritage to the point of applying for one of those tribal citizenship cards? That would have been humiliating!
Sorta depends on the tribe I think. At least for me, my grandfather has his card (Choctaw) and that was the only requirement for me. My DNA test showed something like 0.1% native.
There are lots of tribal card carrying natives who wouldn’t test positive for native ancestry on a DNA test. The tribes don’t even use these tests, they require you to prove ancestry with birth and death certificates from yourself back to someone listed on the final rolls. At least that’s how my tribe works. That guarantees that you are in-fact an ancestor, and doesn’t depend upon tests whose accuracy has been disputed.
Curious on how they separate between Norway and “Sweden & Denmark”. Seems like an odd grouping as arguably Norway have closer ties to both Sweden and Denmark than they do together.
I know, right? How odd. I guess Sweden and Denmark must share some genetics that other countries don’t share.
The worse parts of the Scandinavian genetics no doubt (no bias)
I’m gonna do you a solid on this one, ghost face, and allow you to scalp this dude.
Sprinkle in a small amount of Russian and we’re cousins!
What I think would be cool and novel would be for a European person to claim Indigenous American heritage. Flip the script.
After seeing these countries in my dna map, and having visited many of them in winter, I have to admit, if I ever won some huge amount of lottery money, I would return to those places and gather any homeless locals off the curb and try to help them become Americans. Have you ever been to a country where you literally watched people freeze to death on the street, because no city in the country is warm enough to survive outside during winter? I love Ireland, but I don’t love the fact that some of their locals die on the street by freezing death. The problem isn’t just one country. Even London made the news for having homeless suffering outside this winter. They can’t just bus their homeless to a warmer city. There is no warmer city in those countries. I feel for the governments there. I know they’re overwhelmed already, but it’s inhumane to let people freeze to death on the street without an option to move to a warmer location.
“moving the homeless to a warmer city” is not a solution to a policy problem…
No, it’s a temporary solution. When local governments can’t provide temporary housing, like shelters, and the weather is below freezing, they sometimes opt to bus the homeless to cities where it is warmer.
It was unusual to see Texas take the opposite approach to the migrant situation and bus them to cities where it was colder during winter. Then again, those weren’t American citizens, and it was a different situation than busing American homeless people. I don’t know. I just think that no one deserves to freeze to death on the street, in any country.
This comment is just so weird. If you have a huge amount of money you’re going to make the homeless of Ireland American? Just so they can be bussed to warmer cities in winter? Instead of just helping them get better, get an apartment or a job, your only solution to helping the homeless is making them be homeless in another country.
Ireland is not like America. They would have a better chance at improving their situation in America. Ireland does offer help for those in need, but they have a housing crisis worse than America has. It is also difficult to get a job in Ireland. Try to get a job in Ireland some time. They will be very interested to know who your family is, and why you’re applying for a job at a place that is owned, operated, or managed by someone else’s family.
I’ve been in the USA, I think you’ve already quite a bit to do at home. If it’s about the genes of the people you help, I know of a good book to get you started, but beware, its in German
It’s about family. A lot of Irish people are related. It was really disappointing to see so many Irish people dying in the cold, sleeping on the street, years ago. I’m sorry you think everything is about race.
