A Puerto Rican Look at : A Generational Exploration of African Ancestry

Recently, I bought a few AncestryDNA test during their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. With those tests I was able to add 3 new members of my family to the site: my father, my mother, and my maternal grandmother. I still have one more test left and I'm hoping to test my maternal grandfather, but I'd have to travel to Puerto Rico to personally test him myself. After a few weeks of waiting for their results to process, I finally received them. Wanting to extract the most information as possible from their results, I decided to do some research ahead of time to have a better idea and understanding of what I was looking at.

Thanks to FonteFelipe's blog on Tracing African Roots I was able to specifically read about "Puerto Rican Results". Amongst his other posts, there are many that are directly tied to Caribbean and Diaspora African DNA results. There is definitely a lot of information there and much to explore about population genetics and the various tribes and countries involved in the Transatlantic slave trade. Since one of my New Year goals this year to learn more about my African roots, FonteFelipe's blog amongst some of the books I have in mind to purchase will definitely help me reach that goal.

My Results

Here is a quick look at my own personal AncestryDNA results taken about 1-2 years ago:

AncestryDNA [Personal Photo]

As you can see, my regions in Africa range from: Mali, African Southeastern Bantu, Africa North, Cameroon/Congo, and Senegal. I was rather surprised when I saw that I had 12% Mali as it is a fairly high number and a big chunk of my African DNA.

Based off what I know about my family, I know that there is mixed ancestry amongst many of my lines in Puerto Rico across various towns, but I have yet been able to pinpoint any slave ancestors inside of the island itself throughout my years of research, and I have traced many lines to the early 1800s late-1700s which will be important later on when discussing African DNA inheritance. The 'People of Color' mixes in my research so far range from "trigueño", "mulato", "pardo", and the occasional "negro" for my ancestors from Salinas. My research shows that those ancestors from Salinas, the Gustave and Lautin lines, came to Puerto Rico respectively from Guadeloupe and Martinique. These lines do carry African genes as both of these 4th great grandparents were slaves themselves on those islands. I'm hoping that by getting my grandfather tested and having both my mother's and grandmother's DNA I'll be able to have a better grasp into the possible regions of Africa (most likely in the western region) that my Guadeloupean and Martinican ancestors' African DNA point back to. 

One important thing to point out is that I am not going to talk much about the "Africa North" segments of my ancestry. The main reason being because most of these genetic leftovers in my and my family's DNA probably point more towards a Southern Spanish influence. There is the possibility of a genetic geneflow from northern African countries down into the Western area of Africa but for now, knowing what we know about Moorish Spain and my ancestors' presence in Andalucía and the Canary Islands we'll stick to the former theory. 

Some Prior Research

In FonteFelipe's blog post about Puerto Rico, he goes into depth using various Puerto Rican AncestryDNA results and textual sources on the Transatlantic slave trade to begin breaking down and analyzing their various results. Using his blog as a jumping point, I was able to look at my family's results through a different lens and begin to better understand slave trading patterns of the Caribbean and Puerto Rico. Here are some main points I learned from his post and I hope I am not oversimplifying and/or overstating some of the points (if so, let me know!): 

• It seems that on average, Senegal, N. Africa, and Mali were high and/or main ancestral contributions to the DNA gene pool for African DNA in Puerto Ricans. 
• Senegal and Mali specifically create an "Upper Guinea" Founder effect in Puerto Rico, where the genes were entered into the families' genetic pool early on and kept passing down through the various generations. 
• South-central Hunter-Gatherers can be from an ancient geneflow from the Pygmy/San people into the Bantu areas. 
• These higher Senegal and SE Bantu results can be from the 1500-1600s, again causing a Founder Effect. 
• "Mali" in the AncestryDNA categories is a hard category to fit into a box. From the colonial period, "Mali" DNA can be from Guinea Conakry and Sierra Leone. Some of the slaves from the region were known as "Bambara" and others as "Zape" (these mainly the Temne from Sierra Leone) and there was definitely a presence of these peoples throughout the slave trade in Puerto Rico. 
• There are three main regions that FonteFelipe works with when looking at the African DNA break down in AncestryDNA, these are: 
• A) Upper Guinea: Senegal, Mali 
• B) Lower Guinea: Ghana/Ivory Coast, Benin/Togo, Nigeria
• C) Central Africa: Cameroon/Congo, SE Bantu, Pygmy/San (South-Central Hunter-Gatherers) 

To have an idea of the regions and the various countries involved* in the Transatlantic slave trade, see below.
*When I say "involved", please take into consideration this does not mean that these countries willingly and purposefully took part. Remember that there are many elements at play such as: colonial powers, brute force, unequal trading, false beliefs, etc.

Having this knowledge in hand I went forward to look into my own family's African results. 

West African Countries/Regions [Wikipedia]

Generational Puerto Rican African DNA Results

In this snapshot of my family's African DNA there are four members shown: Myself, my father, my mother, and my maternal grandmother. I was born in the US and the rest of these members in Puerto Rico, however we are all "Puerto Rican" through Ancestry. I have talked extensively about my family in this blog but TL;DR - my family's results are quiet mixed: European (mainly an influence from Spain and potential countries such as France); Native (Taíno from Borinquen with a potential smidge of Carib/other), Jewish/North African (most likely a remainder of the Sephardic Jews of Spain and the Arab influence in southern Spain), and an west African mix most likely all introduced via slavery. Dividing these last results into the 3 categories mentioned above of "Upper Guinea", "Lower Guinea", and "Central Africa" this is how our results fair: 

African AncestryDNA [Personal Photo]

As you can see our African DNA is sprinkled into each of the three regions but mainly distributes itself into Upper Guinea first and then Lower Guinea, which goes along with what is mentioned in the blog. Interestingly enough I do not inherit any "Lower Guinea" DNA but my dad has only 2% Ghana/Ivory Coast while my mother and maternal grandmother have DNA from each of those regions.

Something important to mention is the odd disproportion of Mali DNA in my genes vs that of my parents. I inherited 12% while my parents only show 2% and 1% and my maternal grandmother herself at 2%. This makes me question my 12%, could there have been an error in that calculation? When you click on "Mali" for my ancestry my range is given as 4%-18%, could there have been an oversight there? I wonder how much of that "12% Mali" might be genetically attributed to other countries nearby. Nonetheless, the presence of the Senegal and Mali like mentioned in the blog might be a result of the Founder Effect of slaves brought onto the island early on. As I've mentioned in this blog and on this post, most of my family has been on the island since the early 1700s and some branches reach the 1600s, so whichever ancestors carry African DNA have yet to be identified as "esclavo" (slave) or even "negro libre" (free black - a term used for descendants of free black persons) in documents. More digging into the church records over time will hopefully begin to divide my ancestors further into more accurate categories. 

Mali Results [Personal Photo]

Looking at the other results, you can see where certain parts of my African DNA are inherited from. For example: it seems that my mother passed on segments of her Cameroon/Congo and SE Bantu genes to me. Something important to also consider is that lower numbers such as 1%, 2%, or 3% may be found in the "trace regions" of the DNA, which means that this might not mean direct ancestry from that country if not a mix already present in Africa before arriving to the New World.

Looking at the results, this makes it interesting to look at my parents' ancestry and their potential slave narratives in their family trees. For example, my father only has about 11% of African DNA on Ancestry (a bit higher than in 23andme). 7% of his 11% is found in the Upper Guinea region and 2% in Ghana/Ivory Coast. (The 1% of Pygmy/San again might be an ancient geneflow influence). Most of my father's families can be found in the mountains of Puerto Rican in areas such as Lares, Adjuntas, Utuado, and Yauco while his paternal branch mainly hovers around Toa Alta and Corozal. This Upper Guinea DNA was probably introduce early on and integrated fairly quickly into the branches of my paternal tree. Both sides of my paternal branches from my grandmother and grandfather carry African DNA so probably various groups from Senegal, Mali, and Ghana/Ivory Coast were introduced to various branches which ultimately gave my dad his 7%. It's also important to note that my father carries an African maternal haplogroup as well, which so far I have traced on paper to the early 1700s in Yauco, Puerto Rico to a woman named "Ana del Espíritu Santo".

Looking towards my mother's side I can make some guesses as to what my maternal grandfather might have contributed. It seems she definitely received some Ghana/Ivory Coast from him and some SE Bantu. No doubt there are probably influences from Senegal and Mali in her DNA from him as well. I'm itching to get him tested because he is my highest African DNA family member. My mother on AncestryDNA has about 35% African DNA and based off his 23andme results I wouldn't be surprised if his AncestryDNA results bring him into the 40% range!

Conclusions/Take Aways

With this type of research, it's very difficult to really come to conclusions! Ultimately, it's important to see how my African DNA is distributed amongst my parents and what that means for me as their child. Having read FonteFelipe's blog (which I definitely need to go back and read much more of!) there are interesting patterns that are important to take into consideration when thinking of my African DNA and the history behind it. There's a segment in his blog where FonteFelipe talks about Puerto Ricans whose results fall under "African>25%" and "African<35%" and how the "African<35%" seem to have a closer chronological input of African DNA in their genetic pool. This seems to hold true with my own family as my mother who is 36% and her father surely over 35% as well have a genetic African influence from Martinique and Guadeloupe that was introduced into the family in 1895 with the birth of my 2nd great grandfather, Julio Correa Gustavo (50% Puerto Rican, 25% Martinican, 25% Guadeloupean). Meanwhile, my father falls into the "African<25%" groups and his African input seems to be chronologically much older.

There is still much to learn about, research about, and inquire about in my family tree. I hope that as time continues, the African DNA on both 23andme and AncestryDNA become much clearer as it is an important piece for those of us who do not know where our African ancestors come from. Luckily, I think a better picture has begun to be painted in regards to my family's African ancestry with the help of genetic testing and with the help of texts such as books and blogs and primary sources such as the Civil Registry and Puerto Rican church records, thus allowing me to be able to put together a more cohesive picture and story of our past. Excited for what the future holds when it comes to African DNA! 

A Puerto Rican Look at: DNA Circles

DNA Circles [Ancestry]

Fairly recently (in the genealogical world), Ancestry.com has been working on a DNA matching portion of their website called "DNA Circles". I've been waiting to write a post about DNA Circles until I got my first match, and very recently this occurred (this post has been sitting in "drafts" for a while now haha). Here is the definition of how DNA circles works below straight from Ancestry:

DNA Circles Description [Ancestry]

Initially I wasn't in any DNA Circle and that is mainly due to the fact that my tree had been set to private and couldn't be connected to anyone. I am very, very hesitant about setting my full tree to public because of people creating false connections and just taking entire branches off your tree and transplanting it onto theirs, so I decided to create a simpler public tree for DNA circles.

DNA Circles is supposed to find connections to other members who have tested and create a place where you can connect with these matches, see how you match them, and hopefully extend your family trees. AncestryDNA has been hard to manage as a Puerto Rican for various reasons, the main one being that it constantly creates false connections to people and I do not necessarily understand why. Under my "hints" tab, I rarely match anyone correctly. For example, one hint says I have a cousin matching my 3rd great grandmother Antonia González Padilla but it's connected to their ancestor who's last names were "Nieves González". I'm guessing the system is confused by the use of two last names and doesn't know how to properly connect cousins.

So my one circle is to "Estebania Rivera Rodríguez" but as you can see the connection is labeled as weak and there were 831 - now 952 - connections listed.

DNA Circles - Estebania Rivera Rodríguez [Personal Photo]

Entering my DNA circle, more information is given about what this Beta program does:

DNA Circles - Estebania Rivera Rodríguez [Personal Photo]

Within the circle, you can see a relationship lists of those who are believed to be attached to Estebania Rivera Rodríguez. The "strongest" match listed has a public tree but when you check out how we are connect, it doesn't really add up.

DNA Circle Match [Personal Photo]

Notice how my tree goes up from my 2nd great grandmother Ramona Rivera Rivera to my 3rd great grandmother Estebania Rivera Rodríguez and on the other tree it ends with an unknown González. It is very likely that I share with this cousin DNA but I'm not quite sure that it's through Estebania especially when you compare it down the line and the other descendants.

Ironically I DO match with others through paper trail and have figured out where they match me through my family tree but no DNA circles have populated for them. Some of their trees have been set to private while it also might not have enough "connections" for the DNA circle to be created.

Nonetheless, I am excited for the day that I can get a DNA circle and have it match correctly to my DNA cousin and use it for further my genealogical research. Until then, I patiently wait and continue to try and match and confirm through paper trail. :) 

Puerto Rican DNA Crumbs

Every time I search my DNA matches, I'm overwhelmed by Puerto Rican results which makes sense right! Well, it does… in a sense. Since my family is from Puerto Rico and has been since at least the 1700s/1600s, easily it makes sense that most of my DNA matches come from Puerto Rico. Though at the same time, I have seen others say that though are 1/2 or even 1/4 Puerto Rican, their results are overwhelmed with Puerto Rican matches, which genetically shouldn't be. However, this is frequently explained by the "founder effect" that has occurred on the island, since many arrived early on and then whether on purpose or by mistake, married into their families through close and distant cousins thus causing DNA to be recycled through various generations of contact. I've mentioned before that my own parents are cousins, and not because they wanted to be but because their families through time moved around the island and then my parents had no idea they were related 4-5 generations back.

However, I occasionally find what I call "DNA crumbs", small pieces or fragments of DNA that may point to other origins outside of Puerto Rico somewhere further back in my tree. For example, I have received two cousins that were particular interest to me - one with ancestry in Angola and the other in Zimbabwe which tells me that my ancestors, specifically my slave ancestors, might have been from those regions themselves. What's even more interesting is when these DNA fragments also match other people in my list of DNA cousins that also aren't Puerto Rican!

For example, I have been able to find a cousin who matches me exclusively through my maternal side. Though he doesn't not match my mother, he does match my maternal uncle, my maternal grandfather, and even my maternal great grandfather, therefore my mother did not receive this specific piece of DNA. This cousin is mainly descendant from Ashkenazi Jews and it definitely show in his DNA. So I wanted to see if where we matched had any pieces of Ashkenazi traces. The chromosome in question was Chromosome 12.

Taking a look at my own Chromosome 12 I could tell that I had no Jewish DNA there, and neither did my mother.

Chromosome 12- Luis [23andMe]

However, when I checked my family members who matched this cousin I noticed that they all had inherited this piece of DNA, and all in the exact same spot!

Ashkenazi DNA Chromosome 12 [23andMe]

As you can see, this cousin has ancestry mainly from Ukraine and Poland while my family comes from Puerto Rico. That same piece that my great grandfather had my grandmother inherited and passed it to her son but not her daughter. Below you can see how this cousin compares to the maternal members of my family.

Cousin #4 vs. Maternal Family [23andMe]

Though I'm not sure where this DNA came from exactly in my family, I'm not surprised to see I have Jewish ancestry. My historical guess would be that this match has a Sephardic Jewish ancestor who traveled to this region and was absorbed by the local Ashkenazi Jewish community there, just a guess of course based on what I know about my own family's countries' of origin histories.

When I started digging a bit further I started finding some more interesting things, also dealing with Jewish cousins! I had noticed that I had a match who 96% Ashkenazi Jewish, another cousin 95%, and one with 50% Jewish DNA. All of these cousins where from European countries (all three different areas) and none had ties to the Caribbean. Individually I had compared them to my family and then I had an idea -- could they match each other?! And I was astonished when they did! When I compared them in Ancestry Tools > Family Inheritance: Advanced, I noticed that not only were they matching my family on Chromosome #1, they were also matching each other! Even more interesting is that two of these cousins have full Ashkenazi Chromosomes but none of my family members have Ashkenazi DNA there, just an European segment that is common amongst all three. Not sure how to genetically explain that, though! 

And then something else more interesting happened, I noticed that each had the surname Ross (or a variation of the name: Rosenberg, Rosen, etc.) in their list! Below you can see how these cousins match my family, this time the segment was received by both my mother and maternal uncle by their father, my maternal grandfather. 

Chromosome 1 Comparisons [23andMe]

Of course, the connection of the surname "Ross" could be a coincidence, but I thought it was interesting that these cousins not only matched each other and my family but also had this surname associated to them as well. Not sure that I would ever be able to find this connection and/or triangulate how I am related to them but I think it's interesting that DNA does allow this sort of analysis.

I'm hoping that as genetic research keeps advancing and more people continue to test, I will be able to match more Puerto Ricans who can confirm my connection to them on their tree. Also, thinking about testing more cousins to see if I can divide up how I have done with these cousins to find where these matches originate from down my tree. Time will tell! 

How DNA Uncovered a Family Secret

It's taken a while to sit and write this, originally I learned about this back in May but since then I have left it on the "back burner" of genealogy to process the information. I mostly wanted to write this post because I think it speaks volumes to the power of genealogy, but especially to genetic genealogy and how it not only can be helpful to you but also to others. This post is about how I figured out that one of parents had a (previously) unknown half-sibling through 23andme.com. In order to provide privacy to my living family members, I won't be using any actual names.

23andme homepage [23andme]

I guess you could say this story began like any other day for me. I was home visiting my parents and it was a typical lazy Sunday. I decided to log onto my 23andme account just to see if there was anything new going on on the site. Recently, I've been logging on less and less to the site and I am not sure why. Maybe because I am focusing more on other things than genetic genealogy and/or the buzz for me has died down, but I occasionally go on to see what new relatives I might have gotten or any news such as possible sales.

Except logging in this time was very different than the last times I have done it over the last past 6 years. As I logged into my account on the right top hand corner it said, "We've found a genetic relative! Add your 1st cousin" and my originally thought was, "Hmm, how weird!'. I'm pretty sure I know all my first cousins and so having this pop up was weird, but yet again Puerto Rican genetics work different than most others because of DNA that has been recycled… but not this recycled right?! So I decided to check my other accounts. Having various accounts for my family members allows me to easily see where and how a person matches me with other family members. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten good enough to do triangulation and cross-checking since like I mentioned there are high odds that this person will match me on my mom's side and my dad's side if they're a full Puerto Rico. Sometimes, even half Puerto Ricans match both of my parents which makes it tough to find one branch of our tree or an ancestor we match through.

So I logged onto both of my parents' account seeing who would receive this match, and then I came across this message that dropped my jaw:

23andme Genetic Message Relative Message [Personal Photo]

All of my years of genealogy had not prepared me for this! Initially I denied it, and not because I did not want one of my parents to have a half-sibling but like I mentioned I knew that genes had a weird way of arranging and working themselves. But I had read enough forum messages and personal stories on 23andme about adoptions and family secrets revealed that I knew that something had to be up. I immediately jumped over to the relative finder to see how this could be! Right up on the list, appearing second (right after me, son) was this half-brother. Though there wasn't much information I knew that with the Y-DNA and MtDNA I would know what side of the family this match was from. I noticed that they shared the same MtDNA and not Y-DNA with one of my parents and so I knew it had to be from their mother. But wait, how was that possible? I knew both of my grandmothers and I knew them fairly well… or did I?

Having this conversation with my parents was difficult, how could I tell them this without shattering their world? But fortunately, genealogy had prepared for me for this in a sense. I had always been the one asking random questions and wondering about our origins that no genealogical conversation was too random for me. Luckily, the conversation went well… surprised at first, questioning, but then understanding. We were able to deduce when and where and between what time frame this sibling would have been born. There were no hard feelings on our end and we knew that life made people make tough decisions sometimes. Some phone calls were made to Puerto Rico to see if anyone had heard anything, even a potential murmur of this, but it seems that mum was the word in our family.

I initially decided to give this person some time for them to reach out to me but then doubt started to sink in. What if they never search their relative finder? What if they just log on once and then never again? What if they don't know how to manage the site and don't see their matches?! So I decided to reach out to this sibling the next day and explain what the results were showing me. Luckily by the end of the day I had a response! The person knew they were adopted but did not know much about their story so we exchanged some messages back and forth and discussed my family origins, sending them some pictures along the way. I am not sure how this person must have felt but knowing there was someone out there directly related to me in such a close way but not knowing them was hard in a sense for me. Maybe it's because I'm the family genealogist and I spend so much time crafting and editing my tree, that every ancestor and their story in a way speaks to me. Hopefully I'll get a chance to chat more with this person and hopefully have them meet our family.

It's funny how one day a simple message can change your life, we know only so much through paper trails and genetic genealogy is truly opening up a new way to see family history and genealogy. There are a lot of skeptics out there about genealogy, I was even told once that Ancestry.com was a scam because it was just built to find connections to anyone out there… which obviously is not true and I'm fairly sure this person had no understanding of census records. But here genetic genealogy floored me with something I did not expect to find in my recent family. Yet again, there are many family skeletons in all of our closets, it's just being opening to dusty out those closets and being open to what's inside! You never know what you'll find! 

5 Years and 10 Genotypes Later!

As the year 2015 comes to a close, I've decided to do some reflecting on the genetic side of my research! It's kind of crazy to think that it has already been 5 years since I first got my DNA tested with 23andme and currently I am up to 10 genotyped family members!

23andme home page [23andme]

Getting my DNA tested back in 2010 was an amazing and wonderful decision. I remember getting my DNA tested because I wanted to learn more about my family (duh--- right?) but I had VERY little information on my family at that time. I had heard about 23andme on TV and was interested in this test for a project I was interested in going into at the time. Since I had to start my family tree from scratch, I only knew the name of 6 of my 8 great-grandparents, and that was about it! At this point I was 20 years old and still naïve with certain things about genealogy since I had only known about the census records. Testing with 23andme opened many doors, I was introduced to various cousins and especially one (dunno if she reads my blog) who took the time to speak to me about the Puerto Rican Civil Registry, and other records, and how I could further my lines with their use. Since then I have searched other records online, in microfilm, and even in Puerto Rico allowing me to reach the 1600s in some lines and I have also discovered that I have ancestors from Martinique and Guadeloupe! Of course I was able to learn about myself genetically, but finding out about this community was really a refreshing breath of air; I had only known myself and co-worker who were interested in genealogy since no one in my family could be bothered, really.

After I tested myself, I decided I wanted to get other members of my family tested for various reasons (Y-DNA, mtDNA, disease inheritance, etc.) and so I decided to test various members of my family during sales, 9 besides myself including: my mother, father, maternal uncle, maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, maternal great-grandfather, maternal cousin, paternal great-aunt, paternal great-aunt. Sadly my great-grandfather and a paternal great-aunt have passed since they have tested and I am eternally grateful for their contribution to our genealogy.

Testing these members of my family allowed me to see how I have inherited certain DNA from both sides, for example: my mother contributes ~11% of African DNA to me while my dad only gives me ~5% and European-wise I get about ~35% from my paternal side while my maternal side gives me about ~28%, which isn't too different. My native DNA is pretty similar from both sides also as well my Middle Eastern/North African. I have also been able to learn more about the Y-DNA and mtDNA my ancestors carry, so far I've gotten European, African, and Asian haplogroups with African and Asian being only maternal haplogroups. With my grandfather, his J1e could be Jewish/Arab (there is still a debate as to what group it can specifically be attributed to) which is interesting since his last name Correa is popularly known as a Sephardic surname. On the other hand, my great-grandfather has a haplogroup which is commonly found amongst the Irish which was interesting to learn about as well. Also, I have tested another cousin through ftDNA who is a male descendant of my 4th great-grandfather Jean Charles Chaleau and I'm hoping to learn more about his mixed ancestry from Guadeloupe.

Parental Split View [23andme personal photo]

One thing that has been extremely difficult for me though is using my DNA to find and match cousins. Since Puerto Rican genes have been recycled throughout the years with endogamy and it being such a small island, sometimes it is difficult to see which side of my family a cousin comes from. A lot of the time, the genetic cousins match both my sides and those that I can bring down to a certain side - it's still difficult to pinpoint which of our ancestors match. Things like limited researched genealogies and limited documents on the island make it hard to find cousins through the site for many Puerto Ricans, not just myself. To this day I haven't been able to confirm through paper trail and genetics a cousin who I haven't previously known about on 23andme. Maybe I'm doing something wrong especially since I have so many family members tested, but so far no luck! A lot of it also is two-sided, I can't figure out our connection just with your parents' names or by telling me all of your ancestors are from Spain, but luckily there are cousins who we have been able to pinpoint a specific town and/or certain surnames but we're just missing the actual connection between us two.

I'm definitely grateful for what I have learned throughout these 5 years and 10 genotypes of my family. I have seen my family tree through a different light and especially how diverse my family is on the inside. I'm proud to know approximately how much I carry of each of my ancestors' European, African, or Native DNA and how that has contributed to who I am today. Hopefully DNA analysis gets much sharper and helps to pinpoint better certain aspects of DNA, for example finding African tribes/regions my African ancestors belonged to (AncestryDNA has gotten into this a bit). Equally, I hope to test some more cousins and learn some more about other lines in my family and help to prove/disprove certain theories I've been building with paper trail. 

Finally, testing with other companies and comparing my DNA has been interesting as well. I'm hoping that more cousins test and build their trees so that we can connect and see how we connect through our DNA. There are some cousins who I have confirmed through paper trail and would love for them to test! So don't be afraid... test primos!!

How has genetic DNA changed your perspective on genealogy? Feel free to share! 

A Puerto Rican look at: FtDNA's myOrigins

FtDNA myOrigins [FtDNA Email]

Recently I received an email about the release of FtDNA's myOrigins; this would replace the old version of the calculations given for ancestry breakdowns. I was pretty excited about this upgrade because it would add another view of my ancestral breakdown by another company. Currently I have 23andme's Ancestry Compositon as well as Ancestry's AncestryDNA. I have also used DNATribes for myself and a couple of other family members. So let's take a look through a Puerto Rican lens of the myOrigins release!

23andme Ancestry Composition

For comparison's sake let's look at my 23andme Ancestry Composition. Here on the left is what my percentages look like in Standard View. I go back and forth between the Standard View and Speculative View, but for this comparison sake let's stick to the main one. You can see that in solid, raw numbers I am approximately: 54% European, 15% Sub-Saharan African, 12% East Asian/Native American, 1% Middle Eastern/North African, and 18% Unassigned. I don't like the large amount of unassigned here in Standard View but we can't live in a perfect genetic genealogical world (Not yet at least!).  

FtDNA myOrigins 

Now take a look at my recently released myOrigin percentages! There are definitely a few similarities and some differences. Here on myOrigins you can see that I am slightly more European at 58%, which is only a ~4% difference from my Ancestry Composition. My African is listed as 21%, a good ~6% higher than 23andme. The Native percentage called here "New World" is a solid 10%. Here on myOrigins there is a Jewish Diaspora breakdown where I score 7% and then a Middle Eastern group where I score 3%. On AncestryDNA I do score 5% on their category of "European Jewish" but 0% on their "Middle East". 

The categories can then be expanded to show a more in-depth look at the main category. For example, my European breaks down into: North Mediterranean Basin, European Coastal Islands, and European Costal Plains. My African breaks down into: Niger-Congo Genesis, and East-African Pastoralists. While my Middle Eastern breaks down into: North African Coastlands (Which if you look at it that way I score a 4% on AncestryDNA). Here are the pictures of the breakdowns for my main categories. Note: New World is Bering Expansion which covers North, Central, and South American while the Jewish Diaspora hovers/radiants over and near Poland. 

European Ethnic Makeup [FtDNA myOrigins]

African Ethnic Makeup [FtDNA myOrigins]

New World Ethnic Makeup [FtDNA myOrigins]

Jewish Diaspora Ethnic Makeup [FtDNA myOrigins]

Middle Eastern Ethnic Makeup [FtDNA myOrigins]

It was definitely interesting looking at these numbers especially at the African and European scores. My African on myOrigins is at 21% while on AncestryDNA it's at 23%, the highest 23andme places me is at 15.7%. Also AncestryDNA predicts that 12% of my DNA is from the Mali region and here on myOrigins 17% of it is labeled as "Niger-Congo Genesis". I was also surprised that I scored 24% on the European Coastal Islands portion and I wonder if that has anything to do with the potential connection through Gustave Jean-Charles and also potentially through my great grandfather's Irish/English paternal haplogroup. 

All in all, I didn't think the ethnic breakdown was too far of from what I have seen with other companies. Whether or not it's true to my family is a completely different story! Since my family is pretty mixed for the last past 200+ years I don't really know where certain parts of Native, European or African come from -- rather it's coming probably from all my lines. I can only guess that my 4th great grandmother was 100% African because she was born on a sugar plantation in Martinique. I'm really interested to see if myOrigins develops a bit further and adds more specific breakdowns for African like AncestryDNA has done.