Skip to main content

MyHeritage Update For My Mother, My Paternal Aunt, and Me

 

MyHeritage's Ethnicity Estimate updated their ethnic analyses again. My mother's ethnic analysis and my paternal aunt's ethnic analysis were finally updated.


During over a decade, I have learned to take ethnic analyses with a strong grain of salt and focus mainly on DNA relative matches.



My Genealogical Ancestry


I am a multicontinental American that is highly multiethnic, and I am related to many of my fellow Americans in many different ways.  


My paternal grandfather's father's ancestry was African American.  He had some European ancestry.

My paternal grandfather's mother's ancestry was African American.

My paternal grandmother's father's ancestry was African American.  He had some European ancestry. 

My paternal grandmother's mother's ancestry was African American with English, Acadian (French in what now known as Nova Scotia), Polish, Swiss, and German.  

All four of my paternal great grandparents were born in the Acadiana region in Southern Louisiana. All of my paternal 3rd great grandparents were African American slaves in Southern Louisiana with the exception of my paternal grandmother's maternal grandfather's European American father who was the son of  English American plantation owner Benjamin Cross and his 3/4 Acadian wife Anastasia Bourgeois.  Anastasia's maternal grandfather William Stubens wasn't an Acadian. William's parents were Stanislas Stubens and Anne Scalsen.  

My maternal grandfather's father's ancestry was Cape Verdean (Portuguese and Sub-Saharan African) His parents were immigrants when Cape Verde was still a Portuguese colony.

My maternal grandfather's mother's ancestry was Puerto Rican (Spanish, Sub-Saharan African, and Taino) on her father's side and Madeiran (Portuguese with Sub Saharan African) on her mother's side. Her father was born in Puerto Rico. Her mother was born in Hawaii when it was still a kingdom. Her maternal grandparents immigrated to Hawaii. 

My maternal grandmother's father's ancestry was Colonial European American that was mainly English with some German, Swiss, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, and Frisian.

My maternal grandmother's mother's ancestry was Ashkenazi Jewish American. Her father immigrated from Romania and her mother immigrated from an area in the Russian Empire that became Latvia. 


Because of the Transatlantic Slave trade, I know very little about my Sub Saharan African ancestry. Africa has over 3,000 ethnic groups, and that includes Nigeria having 371 ethnic groups.  My Sub Saharan African ancestry is highly likely to consist of many Sub Saharan African ethnic groups. I have some Indigenous American segments on my paternal chromosomes and not just my maternal chromosomes and X Chromosome. I have some Danish paternal DNA relative matches.  From examining my European American paternal DNA relative matches, I learned that my father was a descendant of John Turner and his wife Patience Smith on the side of one of his enslaved African American 2nd great grandparents.  John was the son of English American slaveowner Thomas Weathersbee and an unknown enslaved African American woman. He is my most distant known enslaved ancestor. Patience was 3/4 European and 1/4 Sub Saharan African. Her mother Rachael was Irish. Her father was half Sub Saharan African, half European.  There is an argument for Patience having been a European American woman.  She purchased her husband's freedom from his father in 1769 in Halifax County, North Carolina. They and their first three children relocated to Marion County, South Carolina.  Their children married into European American families.  I share segments on Chromosome 2 with some of John and Patience's European American descendants that consist of what 23andme shows as being predominantly Southeastern African with a little Filipino/Austronesian . A French man with a paternal grandmother born in the Southeastern African island Madagascar matches me in the location that is Filipino/Austronesian, and there are people that match both me and him in the same chromosome location. 23andme shows him as having Southeastern African and Filipino/Austronesian ancestry. His paternal grandmother was part Malagasy.


My highly mixed, diverse ancestry is reflected in my DNA relative matches at AncestryDNA, 23andme, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, and GEDmatch.



My MyHeritage Updated Ethnicity Estimate

72.6% Sub Saharan African 

22.7% European

3.2% Middle Eastern

1.5% Indigenous American


23andme has me as being

49.7% Sub Saharan African

47.5% European

  1.7% Indigenous American

  0.6% Northern West Asian

  0.3% Broadly Chinese/Southeast Asian

  0.2% Unassigned


AncestryDNA has me as being 

51% Sub Saharan African

46% European

  3% Indigenous American


My Sub Saharan African is way too high, and my European is way too low.  The percentages are around those of the average African American. I don't have any known recent Middle Eastern ancestry.  

I wasn't assigned any ancestry in connection to my maternal grandmother's father.  I have many maternal European American DNA relative matches on his side of the family.  They're matches through Colonial European American ancestry that's mainly British.  I also have British ancestry from British American slaveowning families on my African American father's side, and that shows in my paternal DNA relative matches. 

I wasn't assigned any French in connection to my paternal Acadian 4th Great Grandmother Anastasia Bourgeois. The vast majority of my European American paternal DNA relative matches are matching through Acadian ancestry.  They match me on mainly my European segments on Chromosome 5, 15, and 20.  There are also people with Acadian ancestry that match on my European segments on Chromosome 8 and 9. 





My mother's Updated MyHeritage Ethnicity Estimate

90.5% European

  9.5 % Sub Saharan African


23andme has her as being

86.3% European

10.1% Sub Saharan African

  1.9% Indigenous American

  1.0% Northern West Asian

  0.2% Arab/Egyptian/Levantine

  0.2% Broadly Western Asian/North African

  0.3% Unassigned


AncestryDNA has her as being

85% European

12% Sub Saharan African

  3% Indigenous American


My mother should have been assigned some Indigenous American from her Puerto Rican Paternal Great Grandfather.  Some of my Indigenous American was inherited from her. 


I don't understand why her Portuguese is shown to be connected to only Puerto Rico.  It's also connected to Cape Verde and Madeira.  The former was a Portuguese colony that became an independent African nation.  The latter is an autonomous region of Portugal.  Puerto Rico's earliest European settlers did include both Spanish and Portuguese.

My mother has no known recent French, Breton, or Danish ancestry.






Aunt Carrie's Updated MyHeritage Ethnicity Estimate

94.4% Sub Saharan African 

  4.4% European

  1.5% Middle Eastern


AncestryDNA has Aunt Carrie as being

84% Sub Saharan African 

16% European

  


Aunt Carrie has no known Portuguese ancestry.   She was assigned no French ancestry even though she has French ancestry from her 3/4 Acadian 3rd Great Grandmother Anastasia Bourgeois.  She and I share European segments where people with Acadian ancestry are matching including especially a segment on Chromosome 5.  It's around 90 centimorgans (cM), and it seems to be my entire European segment on paternal Chromosome 5.  It is the longest segment that she and I share. 

She was assigned no British ancestry even though she has Colonial British American ancestry from her English American plantation owner 3rd Grandfather Benjamin Cross as well as from Colonial British American families.  She and descendants of colonial Swiss Immigrant John Ripley Kinsey, and a man in Switzerland match on Chromosome 6. Aunt Carrie and I share a European segment on Chromosome 6, and it is where John Ripley Kinsey descendants are matching. From looking at European American DNA relative matches that descend from John's great grandson Lewis Kinsey that both Aunt Carrie and I have with shared Sub Saharan African segments on Chromosome 2, I learned that it was my paternal grandmother's maternal grandmother that descended from a free mixed European-African descendant of John Ripley Kinsey. Lewis and his children were recorded as mulatto in 1860 Census.  Lewis' wife Sally was recorded as white in 1860 Census.  Lewis was a slaveowner like other John Ripley Kinsey's descendants.  Aunt Carrie and I share an Indigenous American segment that is located next to our shared European segment on Chromosome 6.  Aunt Carrie and I also share a European segment on Chromosome 4 where British people and Irish people are matching. 











Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Many Ethnic Groups and Languages of Africa - The Most Diverse Continent

This is a blog post about the ethnic groups of Africa which is a continent that consists of over 50 countries and has thousands of ethnic groups. What I have noticed about ethnic groups is that there no clear definition of what they are.  That's what I am noticing in countries in general. In regards to Africa,  I am seeing names of specific ethnic groups like Wolof, Mandinka, Fulani being listed for certain countries, and those ethnic groups are in multiple countries.  I am also seeing nationalities being listed for ethnic groups like Somali for Djibouti. I am seeing the continental backgrounds like African, European for Cabo Verde which is where my maternal grandfather's paternal grandparents immigrated to USA from when it was still a Portuguese colony. Of course, there is stuff like Bantu, Berbers, Arabs for ethnic groups I see color race names listed for ethnic groups like White for Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha. The color race names make no sense any w...

My Paternal Grandmother's Descent from Swiss Kinsey Family Through A Branch of The Family That Had African Ancestry

Last year, I learned that my paternal grandmother Mary Alice Gaines descended from a Kinsey family that immigrated to New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina from Switzerland in 1710. She descended from John Ripley Kinsey who was born in 1693 in Switzerland.  He was one of the few of the Kinsey family that survived the Massacre of 1710 by The Tuscarora Indigenous Americans. The Kinseys were not the ancestors of Grandma Mary's maternal grandfather's European American father James P. Cross who was the son of  English American plantation owner Benjamin Cross who was born in Gates County, North Carolina and 3/4 Acadian woman Anastasia Bourgeois who was born in Assumption Parish in the Acadiana region in Southern Louisiana.  They had to be the ancestors of one of Grandma Mary's African American great grandparents.  All of them were slaves in the Acadiana region.   The only one of Grandma Mary's great grandparents that was recorded as being born in the Carolinas ...

Pictures of my Ancestors with Ancestral Surnames

This is a picture blog post  it includes information about ancestry and the ancestral surnames of one's four grandparents my GEDmatch kit number: M001327 my phased paternal GEDmatch kit number: PM001327P1 my phased maternal GEDmatch kit number: PM001327M1 my mother Cynthia Epps' GEDmatch kit number: M181342 my father's maternal half sister Carrie Simmons' GEDmatch kit number: A479363 starting with myself   Raymond Nolan Scott (original last name Andrews) son of Lawrence Nolan Scott (born in New Orleans, Louisiana) and Cynthia Renee Andrews (born in Oakland, California) born October 29, 1971 in San Francisco, California  ancestry: African American, Cape Verdean, Ashkenazi Jewish, Puerto Rican, Madeiran, English, Scottish, German, Irish, Swiss, Acadian, Welsh, Dutch, Frisian, Native American paternal grandfather: Scott, Daigre/Daigle (changed to Scott), Johnson, Hester, Poiner, Robinson paternal grandmother: Gaines, Cross, Johnson, Riley, Bourgeois, Bethea, Goodman, St...