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From: "Roberta Estes" <>
Subject: [DNA] 23andMe and Proving Native Ancestry
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 11:01:40 -0400


The most common question I've received about the new test is if it will
detect Native ancestry.
Ironically, I've spend the past 10 years trying to get people to understand
about paternal dna lines (yline testing) and maternal dna lines
(mitochondrial dna testing). And everyone has done a great job of learning
that, so now folks are having trouble shifting gears.
The answer is yes, it will help you determine if you have Native heritage
AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MALE OR FEMALE LINES OR IF MALES OR FEMALES
TAKE THE TEST.
This test tests over half a million locations of your DNA. Compare that to
the various yline tests which test 12, 25, 37, 67, etc or the mtdna test
which tests between 1000 and 16,000 locations, depending on the test your
order. This is a different kind of test entirely and does not replace those
kinds of tests.
In this test, you will receive your percent of ethnicity divided between
European, African and Asian. In our case in the US, Asian would equate to
Native heritage. So if your Native ancestor is far back in your pedigree
chart, you can expect to see a few percent of Asian heritage. This answers
the question of "if", but not the answer of "who" the ancestor is who
contributed that Native heritage. For that answer, you'll need to revert to
the traditional yline and mtdna testing which, if you find enough people to
test in your tree, will eventually show which of your ancestors was indeed
the Native heritage contributor. Unfortunately for many of us, it will be
one of those women whose first name we have and nothing more, or perhaps
someone yet unidentified in our charts, making tracking people descended
through a female only line impossible. For us, just knowing positively that
we do, or don't, have Native heritage may be the best information we will
ever be able to glean. On the other hand, if we do have Native heritage, we
can use the Relative Finder feature to locate cousins and then we can ask
them if they too have Native heritage, so we can probably eliminate some
lines in that fashion. We can also arrange for others to test who are in our
pedigree chart to see if they too have native heritage, although one has to
be careful with drawing conclusions from others tests because Native
heritage might have entered their lines from another source. The best bet
would be to have have our parents test so we can see where it came from. If
parents aren't available, full siblings of the parent would be the next best
bet.
So, the answer to this question is yes, this tool can be useful in
determining whether you have Native ancestry or not.
Roberta



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