Cynics Unlimited

Please read Part 1 if you have not already.

Like many who use DNA for ancestral discovery, I didn’t understand entirely what was going to be tested when I first signed up with Genebase. The common mistake is to think that the tests will determine the entire ethnic makeup of your mother or father (not to mention yourself). As explained in part 1 of this series, the yDNA and mtDNA tests simply look down your line of fathers and mothers respectively. In the proverbial family tree, they each follow a single branch, leaving virtually the entire bush untouched.

Of course I figured this out as I read Genebase’s excellent tutorials – which only became available over the past year or so. Indeed, you will find several websites with complaining about Genebase’s processing time and customer support. Most of the complaints registered before 2009 were warranted but now the website is comprehensive and the turnaround time for processing samples is usually much shorter than the estimated 6-8 weeks.

So what was I looking for from this test? Primarily some sort of connection, no matter how arbitrary, to the motherland. Africa’s diverse cultural landscape was compressed to a single label -black- with the Atlantic/Arabic slave trade and the label “black” roughly translates to “lower caste” in practical terms. Virtually any negative stigma that applies to some portion of our population -criminal tendencies, low IQ, lazy, irresponsible- is automatically assumed of the entire population. These images did not reflect my family who count professors, engineers and executives among their ranks, and so they served as my role models as opposed to some street stereotype. Regardless, it became tiresome to hear the self-congratulatory tone of some of the older locals in my rural setting: “You should be thankful you are here under our thumb; otherwise, you would be in Africa eating dirt half naked”. Of course Africa was not always in that state (it still isn’t entirely that way) and in later years I noticed a decidedly less bitter tone among African immigrants when compared to locally-born and Caribbean-born blacks. The primary reason, I realized, is because these African immigrants had a connection to their roots and culture – a culture in which they were the primary actors rather than a (barely) tolerated annoyance. Theirs was not merely a story of slavery, segregation clawing for mere survival. Most of Africa sported a pretty decent civilization at some point, from Egypt’s pyramid-building predecessors in Nubia to the gold-soaked trade routes of Ancient Ghana to the mysterious stone structures of Great Zimbabwe. I wondered whether I had even a tenuous connection to any of these ancient cultures.

Also I was generally curious about what might turn up. Between both sides of my family there is reddish hair, slanted yes, grey eyes and a wild variance in skin tones. Such variation in appearance, even between full siblings, is typical of many families with Caribbean or American roots (I have both).

My Ancestral Journey – Papa Edition

The fist test results I got back were for yDNA which determines the deep ancestry along my paternal line (father’s, father’s … father). I was curious to see which haplogroup passed down his line – perhaps the A-Group common in Ethopians or Khoisan? Maybe it would be the B-Group most common among Western Africans (the largest source for the slave trade)? Alas, the answer was neither -

Genebase’s test results show that I actually belong to the I-Group, a European-based haplogroup that evolved from our earliest ancestors in East Africa. The series of letters shows the exact path of migration and mutation, starting from the original ancestor, changing into the important Egyptian-based F-Group (considered to be the source of all non-African populations) and eventually splintering from the J-Group and K-Group after migrating into Europe. The map provides a more graphical version of my ancestor’s journey. Genebase provides the following description of the I Haplogroup:

The founder of Haplogroup I lived approximately 25,000 years ago in the Balkans during the last Glacial Maximum.  He is the direct descendent of Haplogroup F ancestors who had journeyed from the Middle East into the Balkans.  Today, the highest frequencies of Haplogroup I are found in the Balkans, near the Dinaric Mountain chain in Croatia.  Haplogroup I is strongly associated with Croat populations, namely Slavic people living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other nearby countries.
…
As the ice sheets retreated at the end of the Ice Age, these ancestors continued their journey northward into Northern Europe, in particular Scandinavia (a region in Northern Europe named after the Scandinavian Peninsula).  Today, a large portion of Scandinavian populations in the Adriatic regions, including Denmark, mainland Norway, Sweden, and Finland trace their ancestry to this line.  Vikings also likely descended from this line.  The detection of low frequencies of this haplogroup on the British Isles, France and some Celtic populations may be the result of more recent Vikings raids in these regions.

The last sentence was of particular interest – I have a very Celtic name uncommon among western black populations. Regardless, shock led to questioning, which led to the gnashing of teeth by older relatives and a begrudging admission that my great grandfather was in fact a Scotsman, presumed to be from the highlands. The I-Group isn’t very common in Scotland but was common among the invading Vikings. Thus, my paternal line may not have been in Scotland for very long.

At this point, I could have taken a subclade test to determine where within the I-Group my paternal line resides. However, due to certain genetic markers the initial STR assessment was able to determine also certainly that I belong to the I1a subclade, most commonly found in Sweden and relatively rare in Scotland. It is possible that my great grandfather may have been the long-term product of a Viking raid either directly on Scotland or a nearby region such as the Orkney Islands.

Next, it was time to compare my yDNA sample to all the other users in the database. Who might match me the closest and where would they reside?

Genebase allows users to determine how strict to make the search by setting a minimum number of matching markers and maximum genetic distance (marker values that differ). After clicking Find Matches, the user receives a list of close matches, where they reside from and the option to guess how many generations ago the respective family lines diverged. Genebase also provides a tally of ethnic backgrounds and a google map of current locations for all matches. Note that this data is user-input and sometimes subject to what people THINK their background may be rather than what a “perfect-world” DNA test might show.

Finally, it was onto the really fun test – which “indigenous” ethnic group most closely matched my yDNA sample? My African reunion in shambles, this test was more a matter of determining which part of Scandinavia may have produced the offending Viking.

Once again, Genebase provides the option to set how many overlapping markers to test. More markers generally ensures more accurate results but may result in fewer populations to compare. Users should try to match on the largest number of markers that still provides realistic population samples (see below).

Genebase analyzes yDNA samples and preferences to provide 1 or more population sets for comparisons. Data is taken from many journals created worldwide, providing a best-line-of-fit approach to matching indigenous groups. A good strategy might be to try different options and if one particular ethnic group keeps appearing at the top of the comparisons then there is a good chance your paternal line has something in common with the paternal line of participants in that ethnic samples.

From the results, it can be seen that my two top yDNA matches were both Danish – presumably from different journals, which adds credibility to the result. The rankings are being determined by RMI (relative match index) value, a ratio indicating the likelihood that the sample matches a given group vs the rest of the world population. For instance, these test results suggest that my yDNA line is 29.38x more likely to belong to the top Danish sample compared to the rest of the populations in the world.

Notice there is a group called U.S Caucasian. There are several non-indigenous samples like this across the journals (African American, Brazilians of non-black Decent, Asian-American …) and they seem to serve as controls. For instance, if US Caucasian shows up very close to the top of a yDNA match list, there’s a chance the sample are not matching closely to any indigenous group. A possible solution might be to increase the number of matching markers and re-run the test.

As for interpreting my results … Denmark is at the crossroads of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian worlds, so it’s reasonable to assume that my paternal line moved form Scandinavia to the British Isles by way of invasion, later moving to the West and obviously crossing paths with the Afro-diaspora.

This is about as far as a yDNA can get one for the time being. What is it worth? Depends on what you’re looking for. Due to the not uncommon relations between slave owners and their female slaves, a sizable portion of African American males will have a European y haplogroup (mostly the R-Group which is dominant across Europe) and an African mt haplogroup. Thus, western blacks taking DNA tests must acknowledge the very real possibility that no direct African link will be found by tracing the paternal line.

Next up: the maternal line

Continue to Part 3