Sneak Preview: Michelle Rodriguez!!

I usually post about a Finding Your Roots episode after it comes out but I'm SUPER excited for this one! This Sunday will feature both Michelle Rodriguez and Adrian Grenier. I'm excited to see Michelle's family tree because one of her sides is Puerto Rican!! I can't wait to see what they discover, where her family is from and how long they've been in Puerto Rico.

The clip that's up now (which I linked to her name above) shows Henry Louis Gates Jr. presenting Michelle her Puerto Rican family tree which he says is a tangled web. Which is very true for most families somewhere down the line because of the inbred population that results from the small island.

The genealogist who helped trace the family back in Puerto Rico puts it best when he states, "a beautiful depiction of the consanguinity and the endogamy of 19th century Puerto Rican families".

There are many reasons for stuff like this, keeping families "pure", small rural towns where everyone is somehow related, etc. For example on my dad's side of the family, we see a similar example where two first-cousins married. Here's the tree:

Blasina Rivera y Rivera has a set of great grandparents twice

We see here that Blasina's Rivera y Rivera (my 1st cousin, 2x removed) maternal grandfather and paternal grandfather are brothers.

I can't wait to see what they say on the show, and hopefully they include a detailed DNA portion of the show seeing as how the series is about to end (This might be the last episode?). Hopefully this episode can give me some insight to my own family tree!

Can't wait until the new episode!!

Finding Your Roots: John Legend and Wanda Sykes

This past Sunday there was another great episode on Finding Your Roots featuring John Legend and Wanda Sykes! (All of the episodes have been awesome though!)

This episode was particularly interesting because it was able to trace their family back to free people of color that were able to break their families from slavery before the civil war and the emancipation of slaves. There were two very interesting stories featured in both families. In John Legend's family there was the story of his ancestor Peyton Polly (This link leads to a book with more details about what happened). Peyton Polly's seven children after having moved to Ohio to escape the slavery they were freed from were stolen in the dead of night by a group of white men who then sold them back into slavery in the states of Virginia and Kentucky. After a series of court battles and testimonies the four children sold back into slavery in Kentucky were released but those in Virginia had to wait until emancipation to be released.

The other story was the story of one of Wanda Sykes' ancestors who was able to gain one branch's family's independence seeing as how she was a white indentured servant. She had an illegitimate child by an African slave and that child was born free. Elizabeth Banks (Wanda's ninth great grandmother), was the woman who "fornicated with a negro slave"giving birth to her eighth great grandmother Mary Banks. Seeing as how her mother was a white indentured servant and not a slave, the status from the mother was passed down to the child granting her freedom.

Towards the end they used DNA analysis again to find the African tribes the guests' mtDNA belongs to, also they were able to find John Legend's y-DNA connection.

John Legend's mtDNA connection to the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone

John Legend's y-DNA connection to the Fula tribe in Guinea-Bissau 

Wanda Sykes' mtDNA connection to the Tikar/Fulani tribe in Cameroon

Margarett Cooper's mtDNA connection to the Temne tribe in Sierra Leone

It was really cool again to see this analysis and maybe hopefully one day I'll be able to get it done for the father's mtDNA line which is part of the Haplogroup L from Africa found mainly in Bantu speakers. 

Finding Your Roots: Samuel L. Jackson, Condoleezza Rice, and Ruth Simmons

This was probably one of my favorite episodes from the Finding Your Roots series so far! Mostly because it helped three African Americans find some roots in certain Africa tribes. Granted, some could have other mixtures from other African slaves brought to the US which married into the family through other lines, seeing as how this only tested the mtDNA which is present in both males and females having been passed down from their mother's mother's mother's line.

With the 23andme testings I have done I have gotten some interesting results for my mtDNA Haplogroups in my family. A study was conducted in Puerto Rico which states that many Puerto Ricans carry Taino Haplogroups, Taino being the originally people to the island before Columbus got there later in 1493. Not everyone carries a maternal native group as you'll see in some of my examples. Provided below are the various maternal Haplogroups from my family. These include: two Indigenous Haplogroups (A2, C1b4)- most likely from Taino/Arawak ancestors, one European (U5b1b1b)- from the Basque area in Spain or the Saami in Northern Scandinavia and then finally one an African Haplogroup (L2a1)- commonly found in Bantu speakers. Here are the Haplogroup maps provided below:

My mother's maternal's grandmother haplogroup

My own maternal Haplogroup

My paternal grandmother's haplogroup

My maternal great grandfather's maternal haplogroup

What was really cool about the show was the exams they took pointed toward exact tribes in Africa, I don't know too much about the process/ science they used to reveal these African tribes but none the less I found it very interesting and amazing! Not every family is able to 'jump the pond' with paper trail, and it isn't too common in African American communities as well in communities effected greatly by diasporas (Jewish, African, etc.) and chattel slavery where slaves had no name or identity.

With Samuel L. Jackson, Condoleezza Rice and Ruth Simmons they were able to trace back to a tribe in Africa. Ruth Simmons was an interesting case, her maternal Haplogroup was ACTUALLY an indigenous haplogroup which Henry Louis Gates Jr. mentions isn't too common among African Americans. Yet they tested Ruth's Y-DNA through her brother (Y-DNA is only passed down through the males in the family) and found her connection to Africa through her paternal line. 

Connection to the Kota tribe from Gabon

Connection to the Tikar tribe in Cameroon

Connection to the Benga tribe in Gabon

Hopefully one day I'll be able to connect myself to my other ancestors, the ancestors who either made their way to Puerto Rico looking for new opportunities, where there from the beginning or were brought over against their own will. Which tribes from Africa contribute to my family? What Spanish towns did my ancestors live in and dream of a new or better world? What did my native ancestors think as they saw the boats reach the shores of Puerto Rico filled with White "Gods"? And who's stories have I yet to unravel.