When I'm filling out forms that ask for ethnicity I always feel a bit conflicted when I check "White" and leave the "Hispanic Origin" blank. AncestryDNA (autosomal) reveals that my heritage is 17% Iberian Pennisula and 3% Native American. So technically, my origins are about 20% Hispanic (Mexican great grandfather). However, the rest of my DNA is mostly English, Irish and Scandinavian and my cultural roots are definitely working class, Methodist, English speaking, etc. No one in my family spoke Spanish at home or identified themselves as Mexican. As a young adult 40 years ago I learned to speak and read Spanish, lived in Nicaragua for 2 years and then worked with a Mexican social service agency in the US for 5 years, partly in an effort to recapture some of my lost heritage.
Now that I'm retired I suppose it doesn't really matter, except in some statistical sense. But, I'd be interested in hearing what other folks on this forum think about the Hispanic Origin question.
What you mark would be based on what group you relate to the most. I'm white on my father's side, Mexican on my mother's. Since my parents divorced when I was very young, and I never had contact with him or his family, I identify as Mexican, Chicana to be be exact. I do not feel white, tho physically I don't really look Mexican, and I could pass for ethnic white (Italian, etc.).
OTOH, I have, until recently, marked white for race, when ethnicity is a separate question. Some of my more radical friends mark Native American for race, and I've started doing that too. I figured that since I'm haplogroup B2 and Mexican culture is mainly Indian, that I'd start marking that for race.
Laura Gonzalez
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Laura,
I too have resorted to marking documents that ask for my race as Native
American. My Autosomal DNA says I'm 23% Native American or New World,
therefore my statement is truthful. It also says I'm 59% European, 7% East
Asian, 3% Middle Eastern and 3% African.
Alicia
On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:37 PM, wrote:
> What you mark would be based on what group you relate to the most. I'm
> white on my father's side, Mexican on my mother's. Since my parents
> divorced when I was very young, and I never had contact with him or his
> family, I identify as Mexican, Chicana to be be exact. I do not feel white,
> tho physically I don't really look Mexican, and I could pass for ethnic
> white (Italian, etc.).
>
> OTOH, I have, until recently, marked white for race, when ethnicity is a
> separate question. Some of my more radical friends mark Native American for
> race, and I've started doing that too. I figured that since I'm haplogroup
> B2 and Mexican culture is mainly Indian, that I'd
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Your 7% East Asian actually comes from your Native American ancestry and if
you have any Northern Siberian in your European it is most likely from your
Native American ancestry also. So your Native American is actually at least
30% which is close to the average for the Jalisco, Aguas, Zacatecas region.
23andme, AncestryDNA, and Gedmatch do a better job of calculating the
Native American because they included Native American populations that
FamilyTreeDNA did not include such as Pima, Mayan, and Colombian. You'll
notice that they are missing in the report at
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/family-finder-pages/myorigins-metho…
Armando
On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Alicia Carrillo
wrote:
> Laura,
> I too have resorted to marking documents that ask for my race as Native
> American. My Autosomal DNA says I'm 23% Native American or New World,
> therefore my statement is truthful. It also says I'm 59% European, 7% East
> Asian, 3% Middle Eastern and 3% African.
>
> Alicia
>
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Armando, the 7% North East Asia is actually focused on Korea and Japan, the
5% Central South Asian is focused in India. The 2% West Africa is over
Cameroon/Nigeria and the 1% East Central Africa's focus is Kenya/Tanzania
and the 3% Middle Eastern is Morocco/Tunisia. The 59% European is Southern
Europe, primarily Italy and Sicily, followed by Albania, Greece Portugal
and Spain.
On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 6:27 AM, Armando wrote:
> Your 7% East Asian actually comes from your Native American ancestry and if
> you have any Northern Siberian in your European it is most likely from your
> Native American ancestry also. So your Native American is actually at least
> 30% which is close to the average for the Jalisco, Aguas, Zacatecas region.
>
> 23andme, AncestryDNA, and Gedmatch do a better job of calculating the
> Native American because they included Native American populations that
> FamilyTreeDNA did not include such as Pima, Mayan, and Colombian. You'll
> notice that they are missing in
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Alicia, I was well aware of where the Northeast Asia and others are
focused. The problem is the methodology that FTDNA didn't use and the
methodology that 23andme, Ancestry, Gedmatch, Geno 2.0, Dodecad, Eurogenes,
MDLP, and Harrapaworld did use. Since FTDNA didn't use enough Native
American populations they didn't have enough Native American autosomal SNPs
to compare your DNA with and therefore they split your Native American DNA
into 2 or more regions where the DNA match due to the lack of a closer
match.
Anyone that has at least one Mexican parent and has tested with another
company other than FTDNA will have more Native American in their results.
Are we to believe that those other companies and Gedmatch calculators have
incorrect results and only FTDNA has the correct results? That's very
doubtful especially when they used fewer populations and the other
companies also consist of leading scientists such as Spencer Wells. FTDNA
didn't even include the Maya or Pima of which both have
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Thanks Armando for this very detailed explanation, meaning that we can't
take all of this as 100% factual. Maybe one day they will get it right, or
if not right, get it a bit closer.
Alicia
On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Armando wrote:
> Alicia, I was well aware of where the Northeast Asia and others are
> focused. The problem is the methodology that FTDNA didn't use and the
> methodology that 23andme, Ancestry, Gedmatch, Geno 2.0, Dodecad, Eurogenes,
> MDLP, and Harrapaworld did use. Since FTDNA didn't use enough Native
> American populations they didn't have enough Native American autosomal SNPs
> to compare your DNA with and therefore they split your Native American DNA
> into 2 or more regions where the DNA match due to the lack of a closer
> match.
>
> Anyone that has at least one Mexican parent and has tested with another
> company other than FTDNA will have more Native American in their results.
> Are we to believe that those other companies and Gedmatch calculators have
>
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Armando thank you for your explanation on this topic, it was so obvious once I read it but I couldn't see the forest because of the trees.
Ancestry has my Native American at 8% and Finland and Northwest Russia at 1% and FTDNA has Native American at 5% with East Asian at 2% and Finland and Northern Siberia at 4%.
Randy McNeal
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Armando,
I am confused: You said in the e-mail below that Spencer Wells, Phd, (whose name is familiar to me) is not at FamilyTreeDNA? I believe the lab at FamilyTreeDNA handles the tests for Genographic.
Dr. Spencer actually works with Mr. Greenspan, CEO of FamilyTreeDNA, as part of his team, and he sits on the advisory board. Mr. Greenspan said he would ask someone on his team to look into getting more Native American samples, but he mentioned someone else, whose name I can't recall now. I know how hard it is to get Natives to test, even those in the US, because of their beliefs and internal politics.
See link below about "Who is Who at FamilyTreeDNA:
https://www.familytreedna.com/about.aspx
Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
> Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 12:55:48 -0600
> From: fandemma@gmail.com
> To: general@nuestrosranchos.org
> Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] What to mark for ethnicity
>
> Alicia, I was well aware of where the Northeast Asia and others are
> focused. The
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Emilie, Spencer Wells didn't create myOrigins. Razib Khan and Rui Hu did.
Their names are at the top of the myOrigins White Paper.
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/family-finder-pages/myorigins-metho…
Spencer Wells is the head scientist over the National Geographic
Genographic project.
When they say it is hard to get Natives to test they are talking about
Natives without even 1% Native American ancestry. The Maya and Pima
populations show a tiny bit of European ancestry and that is why Razib Khan
didn't use that population and it is why myOrigins is under reporting the
Native American ancestry. When they it is hard to get Natives to test the
talk more about Natives from what is now the U.S. and they are the ones
that don't want to test. The Native Americans of Mexico aren't against
being tested.
You can see the National Geographic Genographic results of Amerindian
(Mexico) at
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/reference-populations/
Then compare it to the Mexican
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FTDNA:
European 56% (British Isles 52%, Southern Europe 4%)
East Asian 23% (SE Asia 16%, NE Asia 7%)
New World (Native American 10%)
Central Asia 5%
African (West Africa) 4%
ME (North African 3%)
Ancestry:
European 56% (British Isles 18%, Ireland 16% Scandinavia 9%, Iberia 5%)
Asian 18% (E Asia 14%, South Asia 4%)
Native American 15%
African 6% (Bantu 4%, North African 1%)
Polynesia 5%
So, for Native American,
FTDNA: 33%
Ancestry: 33%
I thought I read somewhere that central Asia might be Roma people, probably via Spain.
Laura Gonzalez
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Jose Ignacio Anaya Gomez Hello Mr , Ms scompton I congratulate you for trying to find your roots . I went through the same process when I lived in USA for a short time .when I had to fill any document and they asked me my race I could not answer even though i knew that being Mexican is a nationality not a race they did not know it and ended by saying , race - other .
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that's your choice. race is a social construct, hence why people don't define races such as 'white', 'black' etc. all the same.
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What to mark for ethnicity