Chromosome 7 - An African American Connection

Chromosome 7 - Myself [Personal Photo]

With the continued use of DNA Painter, I have been able to see (in a sense) my results through a more magnified lens. Being able to break down genetic cousins via a comparison to my other tested family members has allowed me to better parse down a bit from which branch of my tree they come from. To learn more about DNA Painter you can read my previous post. As I continued to add cousins to my DNA Painter, I noticed that on Chromosome 7, I matched up with a few cousins via my mother's side of the family that had no known connection to Puerto Rico. Intrigued I decided to continue exploring this specific segment and set of cousins, two of which were African American.

European Ancestry - Spanish & Portuguese [Personal Photo]

Above you can see the highlighted segments in my Chromosome 7 that are attached for example specifically to Spanish and Portuguese DNA. My focus however are to the smaller segments that are cut up and distributed more unevenly across Chromosome 7 - amongst those pieces of DNA you can see Native American, Congolese, Senegambian & Guinean, and Ashkenazi Jewish. Knowing where these segments lay and where your cousins fall amongst them may be helpful to better understanding the genetic diversity of your ancestor from which you descend. Keep in mind that this doesn't mean that ancestor was 100% Native American, for example, but carried those genes in that chromosome which allows you to match with other cousins.

Mixed Ancestry - Indigenous, African, and Jewish [Personal Photo]

Simple Generational DNA

Remember that just because you match with someone on a certain segment of DNA doesn't mean that all of your siblings for example will match them as well. Each sibling may receive a range of combinations that might be similar or a bit different to your own. In a "simple generational" comparison, looking at my brothers and myself on Chromosome 7, you can see there is a difference in inheritance on that section. Below you can see exactly what I mean:

Chromosome 7 - Myself  [Personal Photo]

Chromosome 7 - Older Brother [Personal Photo]

Chromosome 7 - Younger Brother [Personal Photo]

My older brother for example received a Congolese + Senegambian/Guinean segment towards the end of his Chromosome 7, we both share the Congolese bit while my little brother seems to have received a mix of Native American and Senegambian/Guinean but no Congolese DNA in that segment. Notice however that he does share the Ashkenazi DNA segment with me while my older brother does not. DNA is crazy, huh?!

To strengthen my theory here a bit more, I searched both of my brothers' DNA relatives on 23andme. My younger brother does not share the African American cousins while my older brother does share them on his relative list. Analyzing this on a deeper level would probably show us that my younger brother received a different segment from a different maternal ancestor compared to my older brother and I who received this same bit from the same maternal ancestor.

Complex Generational DNA

Looking backwards a few generations, you can see where these segments come from. I knew going in that these African American cousins matched me via my mother, I have been fortunate enough to have tested my mom along with her parents which allowed me to easily make this distinction. The question now was: Would my mother, and one of her parents also have Congolese DNA on this segment? See below to see where the Congolese DNA segment can be found: 

PARENTS' GENERATION

Chromosome 7 - Mother [Personal Photo]

Chromosome 7 - Maternal Uncle [Personal Photo]

GRANDPARENTS' GENERATION

Chromosome 7 - Maternal Grandmother [Personal Photo]

Chromosome 7 - Maternal Grandfather [Personal Photo]

GREAT-GRANDPARENTS' GENERATION

Chromosome 7 - Maternal Great-Grandfather [Personal Photo]

As you can see, my mother and one of her brother's inherited the Congolese DNA (there's another sibling but currently he is not tested). At the next level you can see that this piece of DNA was inherited from their mother (my maternal grandmother) and not their father (my maternal grandfather). At the 3rd generation you can see that my maternal great-grandfather did not have this Congolese DNA, which would mean that they inherited it from my great-grandmother. Testing my grandmother's siblings would probably give me a better idea as to who inherited which DNA from my great-grandmother amongst them. 

DNA Painter

Using my DNA matches from 23andme I began to set out which cousins I received from my maternal grandfather and maternal grandmother - here on out just referred to as "grandmother/grandfather" seeing as how this is all on my maternal side. From there I was able to see who matched my great-grandfather and any cousins who might match anywhere in between. Below you can see that the yellow bit inherited is from my grandfather while the rest of the chromosome is from my grandmother. The light green denotes my great-grandfather while the darker green my grandmother, these dark green segments I imagine are from my great-grandmother. The beige color is for a cousin who matches me with 2nd great-grandparents via my Meléndez-Sánchez great-grandfather while the purple segments are cousins I match via my Dávila-Orozco great-grandmother. As more cousins match me on these sections with a paper-trail the better I will be at figuring out from which great-grandparents and further this DNA came from.

DNA Painter- Chromosome 7 [Personal Photo]

Chromosome 7 - Luis Rivera [Personal Photo]

Looking at where the Congolese DNA is, you can sort of see that it falls where the dark green chunk of DNA my grandmother passed onto me in Chromosome 7. Expanding the matches, you can see where various of these cousins fall. 

Expanded DNA Matches - Chromosome 7 [Personal Photo]

Above you can see that the 2 African American matches fall in the square of matches inherited via my grandmother. In that same box are 3 more segments on top, these being Puerto Rican cousins. Usually when matches fall under one another, it means that they probably share DNA and are related to you via a same ancestor as they are to those cousins as well. The question now was: Could these African American matches also share DNA with those Puerto Rican matches on Chromosome 7? Would they also match each other? It was time to test out my question!

Taking the cousin who shares 15cm with me, I compared that cousin to my Puerto Rican cousins and to my other African American cousin match within that shared segment. Below you can see that YES! they do share DNA with one another, both the African American cousins and to the Puerto Rican cousins. This mostly likely means that somehow on my grandmother's side of the family we all descend from a shared ancestor(s). With the ranges being between 11-16cm, this would mean that the relationship would be rather far back. DNA Painter estimates that at those CM the match lies at a ~60% chance of being anywhere between a 4C2R (4th cousins 2x removed) to as distant as 8C (8th cousins) - there are other scenarios such as 3C3R, 6C2R, or 7C1R. We would have to triangulate using everyone's results and family trees to be able to start to figure out and narrow down from where exactly we match. 

Chromosome 7 Comparisons [Personal Photo]

Taking a look at Chromosome 7 for my Puerto Rican cousins, you can see that they also inherited the Congolese DNA in that area as well.

Puerto Rican Cousin #1 [23andme]

Puerto Rican Cousin #2 [23andme]

African American Cousins

These two cousins have roots in the South and towards the mid-West respectively which makes it a bit harder to say exactly where they might match me since they don't overlap in similar states. However, these are probably recent states of residence and going further back might show an overlap in family both being from a certain state in the south, for example.  A look at their Chromosome 7 shows one cousin with "Broadly West African" and another with Congolese DNA in that general area. It is possible that they might have other cousins themselves tested who can help narrow down which side of the family I would match them on. 

African American Cousin #1 [23andme]

African American Cousin #2 [23andme]

You can also see that there is no European DNA in those areas for both cousins which would mean that our match is likely through an either mixed ancestor or ancestor directly from Africa. It is kind of amazing to see that amongst these 10 people, 9 of us have a classified Congolese DNA piece there. 

Many slave ships made their way first to the Caribbean and later made their way to either North or South America. It is very possible that along one of those routes a slave or various slaves were left in Puerto Rico and another, genetically related either as a parent, sibling, cousin, etc., was brought to the south in the United States. Take a look at "The African-American Migration Story" from PBS to learn more about the journey from Africa to the Americas. There are many sources that talk about the transportation of slaves to the New World, the various journeys taken, and the various stops the slave ships made. 

"Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte oder Die Geschichte der Menschheit", William Rednbacher, 1890 [Wikipedia]

Further Research

I was both surprised and not surprised when I came across these DNA segments. For starters, I knew there were slaves in my family which was not surprising, but to be able to narrow it down to a Congolese segment inherited through various family members and traced back to my grandmother and shared by two African Americans was surprising. It's interesting to see how much can be discovered with the advent of genetic genealogy - these types of discoveries were only considered dreams back in the days. I'm lucky to live in a time where this type of genealogical work can be completed. 

My next step would be to try and figure out how we are related, though this task is quiet a big one. I have reached out to these cousins and have already started conversations with one, who equally was surprised to see our match. It might be easier to see how these two cousins are related and see how I am related to the other Puerto Rican cousins and then go from there. Though seeing as how these matches are through an ancestor from Africa, it is possible that we might not, at least for now, know exactly how we are related. 

The fact that we have been able to get this far has been nothing short of amazing!

A Puerto Rican Look at: Generational 23andMe African Ancestry

This blog post will be an updated report on my African ancestry from 23andMe. Last month I had posted about some of my new European Ancestry reports from 23andMe while last year I wrote about my generational African mixes from AncestryDNA (which I'll have to update at some point as well!). Since 23andme has updated their African scores for most (I think at this point all of their past clients as well) I figured now would be a good time to go over these new results and what they look like now.

My Results

Before 23andMe upgraded their results to their current configuration, most of my African results were only listed as "West African", this ancestry tied to my sides of the family that were enslaved in Puerto Rico and my one branch which was from Martinique and Guadeloupe from my maternal side. So when I saw that 23andMe had updated their results to be more specific, I was excited to see what they were and compare them to my AncestryDNA ones. My current Ancestry Composition is listed as being updated "February 8, 2019" which isn't a full month since they've been up - it's also important to note that these results are not set in stone. As more genotypes from around the world are included and updated, there will be more diversity most amongst their samples and the more likely it is to become clearer. Below is a screenshot of my results:

23andMe African Results - Luis Rivera [23andMe]

As you can see there are few categories of African DNA for me, these mainly being: Senegambian & Guinean; Congolese; Nigeria; Ghanian, Liberian & Sierra Leonean; as well as some "broad" categories. For the rest of the blog, I am going to concentrate on percentages assigned to current day countries* and not to those under the "broad" African categories. Also, from my results I have attached my Ancestry Timeline (screenshot below) as well as the Sub-Saharan African genes highlighted across my chromosomes.

*Though these genes are tried to current day African borders and countries, it is fairly likely that some of this DNA poured over from other nearby countries before the modernized African countries as we know them were created post-colonization. This is important to note seeing as how tribes were not necessarily restricted to these modern borders.

Ancestry Timeline - Luis Rivera [23andMe]

From there results, there are a couple of takeaways. To begin with though my Nigerian DNA is listed at 3.1% my Ancestor Timeline shows that this ancestor was probably born between 1840-1900, the only other ancestry at that similar generational spot is "Spanish/Portuguese", which I attribute to my 3rd great-grandfather who came from Mallorca. Also, notice that the other African groups are listed at the early-mid 1700s-1840.

Highlighted Sub-Saharan African DNA - Luis Rivera [23andMe]

In my DNA above, notice that many of the segments are short, meaning that they were probably introduced into my family early on while other segments are a bit longer meaning that they aren't that far back in history. Some of the longer stretches are Chromosome 2 (Senegambian & Guinean), Chromosome 11 (Nigerian), and though Chromosome 14 seems to be a long stretch of DNA it's more of a chopped up mix of various regions and countries. You may also note that I have not included my X-chromosome in the photo above, this is because no West African DNA was transmitted to me through this chromosome, there is a piece of North African DNA but I am focusing on my West African results in this post seeing as how the North African piece can be most likely tied to Southern Spanish Moorish influence or even from the Canary Islands. 

Since I have tested both of my parents, you can see that each of my parents gave me different pieces of African DNA, most of it coming from my mother's side of the family. Notice that "Senegambian & Guinean" and "Ghanian, Liberian & Sierra Leonean" is fairly equal on both sides of my family, while "Congolese" and "Nigerian" mainly comes from my mother's side of the family. 

African DNA Parental Inheritance - Luis Rivera [23andMe]

Referencing FonteFelipe's blog (linked directly to Puerto Rican AncestryDNA results) has been very helpful when it came to breaking down my AncestryDNA results. Not only did it allow me to learn more about my breakdown but it gave me some historical insight to the results as well. These were some of the main points I took away which I posted on my blog that were helpful for me when it came to understanding my DNA results:

• 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 gene-flow 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) 

A couple of things to notice in-regards to the differences between 23andMe and AncestryDNA:

• On 23andMe Mali isn't a high contributor to DNA as it was on AncestryDNA, this has also since changed on AncestryDNA with my own Mali scores drastically dropping from what they were before. I also have not seen a specific "Mali" category on 23andMe. 
• Senegal on 23andme is roped into the region of "Senegambia and Guinea" which I would argue still creates a "founder effect" in Puerto Rico which we will see as I compare various family members. This would mean these genes were probably introduced on the earlier side of Puerto Rican history. 

Intending to organize my ancestry into similar categories of Upper and Lower Guinea as well as Central African, some of the 23andMe categories fit nicely while others not so easily. For simplicity's sake, I am going to group my regions as such:

• Upper Guinea: Senegambian & Guinean
• Lower Guinea: Ghanaian, Liberian & Sierra Leonean; Nigeria  
• Central Africa: Congolese

Linked above are FonteFelipe's description of each region with information and maps included!

Family Results

Taking various family members and placing their results into a table on Excel allowed me to compare between them their results and find trends amongst them as well. Below is a chart I created using various family member's results. Note: I used my great-aunt and great-uncle, both siblings of my paternal grandmother, to give me an idea of what my grandmother's results might look like if she were alive. I also grouped the family members that belonged to each side either under my father or mother, hopefully making it easier to see how each of these members contributed to my parents and ultimately to me.

African Results [23andMe]

It is important to note that this is not the total for my family's African results, for example "Broadly West African" was not included into this table and might be added later on when it is associated more clearly as these other groups are. Equally, North African is missing from the chart as well. There are a couple of things that stand out to me right away: 

• The first being the "Upper Guinea" column, as FonteFelipe had mentioned there seems to be a founder effect occurring in Puerto Rico via this category and I think that trend still stands here on 23andMe, you can see that each of my family members for the most part hover between 3-8% range and each of my family members has received a similar amount. 
• The second column of "Ghanian, Liberian, & Sierra Leonean" seems to be fairly small across many of my family members. The highest on my paternal side is my paternal great-aunt on my Rivera side with 1.3% while my mother's results are at 2.9%, my maternal grandmother at 3.0% and my maternal grandfather at 6.8%. Since my maternal great-grandfather only has 0.8% it is likely that my great-grandmother contributed more to my grandmother under this category. 
• The third column of "Nigerian" is very interesting, as you can see many of my family members receive rather low scores. However, myself, my mother, and my maternal grandfather are amongst the highest received percentages. It seems that via my maternal grandfather my connection to Nigeria is rather strong, which I'll talk about more down below. Similarly, my grandmother via her father seems to have some Nigerian DNA there but not as strong as my maternal grandfather. 
• The fourth column refers to Congolese DNA which I seem to inherit mainly from mother's side, specifically my maternal grandmother. Though my maternal grandfather scores 4% himself. 
• Lastly, the 5th column is Sudanese which is interesting seeing as how it's Eastern Africa but my mother and her grandmother receive a small percentage of 0.2% and 0.1% - I don't see it as something super important but I figured I'd add it seeing as how two people in my family inherited in different generations. 

Nigerian DNA

Amongst my three brothers, the difference were inherited is basically zero (only a 0.4% difference really) of the Nigerian DNA. You can also see other African scores as well between us. My little brother received the most African DNA at 18.7% while I come in second place at 17.5% and older brother at third with 16.8%. 

Nigerian DNA [23andMe]

As you can see, we've each inherited about ~3% of Nigerian DNA, this number goes up to 12.2% with my maternal grandfather. This unusually high percentage in his DNA makes me question where it's from. I imagine that not all of it came from one specific ancestor, especially after seeing that others in my family have inherited Nigerian DNA who are not connected to him, but it does raise the question of who specifically? My grandfather's ancestry timeline says that this Nigerian DNA came about in the years 1820-1880, this would mean that somewhere in his 2nd-3rd great-grandparents someone carried Nigerian DNA and a good amount of it. My grandfather does have long stretches of Nigerian DNA, his entire Chromosome 8 on one side is entirely Nigerian.

Grandfather's Nigerian DNA [23andMe]

There is no perfect science to how much an ancestor will give you but there is an average per each generation. At 12.5%, that would be a great-grandparent's DNA, and I know that I have no Nigerian ancestor that close. However, there is the case of my grandfather's great-grandmother María Paulina Gustave Lautin born in Puerto Rico in the year 1867, could most of this Nigerian DNA come from her parents? Both of Paulina's parents were born slaves on Martinique and Guadeloupe so having recent Nigerian DNA from them is very possible. Paulina's own grandmother (Eglantine Lautin) was born in Africa around the year 1821, fitting into the DNA timeline provided by 23andMe.

Conclusions

For now, I can't be too sure if I am on the right track in terms of finding out if my Nigerian DNA is mainly from my Gustave-Lautin line. I would have to test some cousins from this line to see what their Nigerian score is and see if I can add a brother of my grandfather to see what his score is as well. I also understand that these results feel like they are ever changing, so who knows what they'll look like in a year or beyond. For now, I'm taking my results with a grain of salt but it's interesting to see how each of my family members has inherited different amounts and how those get passed on to different generations and even to people within one generation.

A next step would be to identify on DNAPainter where I can attribute these Nigerian segments along my DNA and find potentially cousins that also fall under those areas in order to find out our Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA).

I am also excited for the day my DNA will be tied to certain individuals in the "old world" and hopefully provide me a glance to where my ancestors were from in Africa before the slave trade.

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! 

Discovering Stories Through Others

Since I'm on vacation and have some downtime, I decide to start reading some of the books I ordered. The ones I got so far are "Black Shack Alley", "Texaco" and "The Diligent". I decided to start with Texaco seeing as how it's a historical fiction book which I thought would be nice to start out with. Texaco is a very interesting book because of the way it is written. So far I've been having a hard time adjust to this type of writing (I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Russian, so a complete different reading style, format and language). There is very little dialogue between characters and is kind of like reading the narration of a story through the narrator's point of view. Marie-Sophie Laborieux is the protagonist but has yet to appear, the story is being set up for her; I'm guessing seeing as how it's talking about her father Esternome and what we went through before her birth. I'm only a little over 100 pages into the book and I find it enjoyable, a bit hard to read, but enjoyable. Especially since the book provides some sort of narrative to the lives Eglantine and her daughter Julienne Malvina would have had while living in Martinique.

Currently in the book Esternome is living in Saint-Pierre and the slaves have just been freed receiving word from France. What I found most interesting, was a little section regarding the Acte d'individualité:

"My Esternome began to live with a heart heavy for his Ninon. It's not as if he saw clear through these times, but it seemed to him that the Sweetie (and lots like her) mistook life for a bowl of mashed arrowroot. In the early days of the confirmation of freedom he danced with her, drank-this and sang-that. They danced even more when the town council opened fat registers to compile a census of the land slaves and give them civil status. After a century in line, my Esternome and his Ninon parked for two seconds before a three-eyed secretary. With one ink stroke, this personage ejected them out of the savanna life for an official existence under the patronymics of Ninon Cléopâtre and Esternome Laborieux (because the exasperated secretary with the quill had found him laborious in his thinking of a name)." (Chamoiseau, 109)

Here we see how they received last names after waiting in line in their town council. We see that Esternome received the last name Laborieux (related to labor in English) because of the difficult time the register had in finding a name. So it made me think, what made the register Eglantine, Julienne Malvina and Pauline appeared before, give them the last name "Lautin"? We see that with one stroke of the quill they gained civil status and were brought out of the "savanna life".

Hopefully I will learn more about the lives of slaves in Martinique around this time and the difficulties they faced post-abolition. I hope I get used to the style and that I'm able to finish the book quickly seeing as how I have a few others to read (I just ordered another one about women and slavery in the French Antilles!!). I'm excited to finish this book and learn more about my Martinican roots!

Texaco by: Patrick Chamoiseau

[UPDATE]

As I continue throughout the book I'll add in more pieces of the story which I found interesting, or even relevant to my ancestors. This piece which I'll add next, talks about the introduction of other peoples to Martinique after the emancipation of the slaves:

"Ninon saw them get off the boat year after year. She described them to my Esternome. He'd nod his head with its pipe (he had begun to smoke like most blacks in the silence of the hills). She saw Portuguese arrive from the Madeira Islands. They took small steps under the sun. Of the people gathered in their path, they only looked at the long shadows. Their skin knew the sun. Their bodies disappeared under a pile of dark cloth, tied in all directions like scarecrows. She saw coolies with black skin, and those from Calcutta, of a lighter cocoa-red. They wore a blue line that went down to their nose. These would weep at a birth and explode with joy in the cold hours of a death. Wrapped from top to bottom, they lived gathered up like a clump of pigeons and ate strange things. She saw the congos arrive. Calm, disciplined, they nevertheless looked like blooming maroons. She saw the hour when the chinese arrived under their pointy hats, inscrutable as cliffs and cleverer than their torturers." (Chamoiseau, 139)

In this passage we see the introduction of the Portuguese from the Madeira islands, Indians from Culcutta, the Congos, and the Chinese. I know for sure that the Indians and Chinese were used for labor in Martinique as well as other Caribbean countries but I wonder if the Portuguese and Congos really came over as well to work.

David was able to confirm that yes, the Portuguese from Madeira and the Congo did come over to Martinique.

Here is a paper discussing the Madeiran Portuguese migration to the Caribbean. A French article discussing Congo immigration to Martinique, also here is a French preview for a film about the Congo in Martinique. These links were all provided by David. 

Similarly in Puerto Rico other cultures were introduced during the Cedula de Gracias period in 1815. Many came over from Europe in search of land and new opportunities which were being provided by Spain. Many Corsicans, Italians, French and others joined the Puerto Ricans on their island, in the long run contributing various things to our culture.

[FINAL UPDATE]

I just finished reading Texaco! I'm so happy to have stuck with the book and I really enjoyed the adventure it took me on! It was hard to get used to at first, but after understanding the rhythm of the book I was able to read about 100 pages or so a day until I finished. Texaco definitely shines a light for me to the everyday life of the Martinican people and the struggles between classes. It was nice also seeing similarities between the stories in the book as well as what I know of my ancestors in Puerto Rico. For example, seeing that in Martinique people also drink Mabi was interesting to note. Also, how Texaco and other Quarters were constantly under attack from the government because of their illegitimate state reminded me of a story my grandmother told me. Similarly in Puerto Rico, people built houses in areas that belonged to no one and settled there. The government would send people to knock the houses down if no one was there, and so one day when these people came over, someone ran over to a neighbor's house (who was out at the time) and hung up laundry to make it seem like someone was in the house which spared the home from being destroyed.

I would definitely recommend the book to anyone wanting to read or learn more about Martinique! I wish my French was better because I would love to have read the book in its original French but seeing as how it was hard to follow, I'll just settle with having read it in English for now! I think I'll definitely have to reread it, since parts in the beginning were a bit confusing but now having the whole picture in my head should make it easier to follow.

Hopefully my other books won't be as hard to follow as this one! But I'm definitely going to miss the character Marie-Sophie and the power she give herself to be independent in a world predominately owned by the Béké.