Community Chat

[cosmic1]

Both my parents sent in their DNA to ancestry and they show as my parents. I think there is confusion due to the type of testing. For males, they can have the Y based testing which will show their haplogroup as passed down father to son. Women don't have Y chromosomes (naturally) and so there is a mitichondrial test that shows the dna passed from mother to daughter and the haplogroup.  Men can also order the mitochondrial test. 

Ancestry just does the autosonomal test. The reason that the Native American does not show up in Ancestry is because many of the north American tribes will not provide DNA for comparison citing privacy issues.

I used gedmatch, which is free, to map my ancestry tests and the NA showed up. They use different algorithms than ancestry does. These results are all determined by statistical probability algorithms.

[goldensrbest]

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@cosmic1 wrote:

Both my parents sent in their DNA to ancestry and they show as my parents. I think there is confusion due to the type of testing. For males, they can have the Y based testing which will show their haplogroup as passed down father to son. Women don't have Y chromosomes (naturally) and so there is a mitichondrial test that shows the dna passed from mother to daughter and the haplogroup.

Ancestry just does the autosonomal test. The reason that the Native American does not show up in Ancestry is because many of the north American tribes will not provide DNA for comparison citing privacy issues.

I used gedmatch, which is free, to map my ancestry tests and the NA showed up. They use different algorithms than ancestry does. These results are all determined by statistical probability algorithms.

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So if my brother would do the test, would the indian show up in his dna?

[cosmic1]

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@goldensrbest wrote:

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@cosmic1 wrote:

Both my parents sent in their DNA to ancestry and they show as my parents. I think there is confusion due to the type of testing. For males, they can have the Y based testing which will show their haplogroup as passed down father to son. Women don't have Y chromosomes (naturally) and so there is a mitichondrial test that shows the dna passed from mother to daughter and the haplogroup.

Ancestry just does the autosonomal test. The reason that the Native American does not show up in Ancestry is because many of the north American tribes will not provide DNA for comparison citing privacy issues.

I used gedmatch, which is free, to map my ancestry tests and the NA showed up. They use different algorithms than ancestry does. These results are all determined by statistical probability algorithms.

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So if my brother would do the test, would the indian show up in his dna?

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Not necessarily.  It depends on the type of test and what is being compared.  I'd suggest if you have done the testing through ancestry to join gedmatch.com and download your dna results there.  My Native American percentages showed up there because they look at markers on the genes instead of comparing you to a base pool of people known to be in a particular group. 

What Ancestry did is they created a control group for each area of the world by obtaining dna from residents there who could trace back 25 generations.  I don't remember if they say how many people were used for each control group.  Once they analyze your dna, they compare it to the control groups to identify your ancestry.  For example, my dna shows that I have 71% of my dna matches dna from natives of the British isles (England, Wales and Scotland).  The typical native matches 60%, so I am more British than the average native.  LOL.  The challenge is that the lines are not distinct and there could be overlap with adjoining areas, such as Scandanavia, Ireland, France, etc.  It's not exact and that is why they call it estimates. 

So, in order to determine Native American ancestry, Ancestry would need to have DNA from all the tribes to use as a control group and then compare everyone to those control groups.  As I said before, people on the site have mentioned that they are unable to obtain those samples.  So, when they give the results, the DNA will be identified as coming from Asia, Africa and the Polynesian Islands since Native Americans came here by migrating out of Africa and Asia across the bridge between Russia and Alaska eons ago.  So, check your results for those kinds of groups as well.  Someone also said that the Iberian Penninsula shows up in folks with Native American ancestry. 

It cannot hurt for your brother to get the Y dna testing.  It's more expensive than the autosomal one.  Family tree DNA offers that kind of testing.  There are articles out there that can explain what these tests reveal.

[Moonchilde]

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@cosmic1 wrote:

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@goldensrbest wrote:

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@cosmic1 wrote:

Both my parents sent in their DNA to ancestry and they show as my parents. I think there is confusion due to the type of testing. For males, they can have the Y based testing which will show their haplogroup as passed down father to son. Women don't have Y chromosomes (naturally) and so there is a mitichondrial test that shows the dna passed from mother to daughter and the haplogroup.

Ancestry just does the autosonomal test. The reason that the Native American does not show up in Ancestry is because many of the north American tribes will not provide DNA for comparison citing privacy issues.

I used gedmatch, which is free, to map my ancestry tests and the NA showed up. They use different algorithms than ancestry does. These results are all determined by statistical probability algorithms.

---

So if my brother would do the test, would the indian show up in his dna?

---

Not necessarily.  It depends on the type of test and what is being compared.  I'd suggest if you have done the testing through ancestry to join gedmatch.com and download your dna results there.  My Native American percentages showed up there because they look at markers on the genes instead of comparing you to a base pool of people known to be in a particular group. 

What Ancestry did is they created a control group for each area of the world by obtaining dna from residents there who could trace back 25 generations.  I don't remember if they say how many people were used for each control group.  Once they analyze your dna, they compare it to the control groups to identify your ancestry.  For example, my dna shows that I have 71% of my dna matches dna from natives of the British isles (England, Wales and Scotland).  The typical native matches 60%, so I am more British than the average native.  LOL.  The challenge is that the lines are not distinct and there could be overlap with adjoining areas, such as Scandanavia, Ireland, France, etc.  It's not exact and that is why they call it estimates. 

So, in order to determine Native American ancestry, Ancestry would need to have DNA from all the tribes to use as a control group and then compare everyone to those control groups.  As I said before, people on the site have mentioned that they are unable to obtain those samples.  So, when they give the results, the DNA will be identified as coming from Asia, Africa and the Polynesian Islands since Native Americans came here by migrating out of Africa and Asia across the bridge between Russia and Alaska eons ago.  So, check your results for those kinds of groups as well.  Someone also said that the Iberian Penninsula shows up in folks with Native American ancestry. 

It cannot hurt for your brother to get the Y dna testing.  It's more expensive than the autosomal one.  Family tree DNA offers that kind of testing.  There are articles out there that can explain what these tests reveal.

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Thank you, @cosmic1 - a far more accurate and complete explanation than I would have been able to give.

I found this article on a NA website and think it should be helpful to all. It seems that when NA DNA testing is offered, it may not give the info that people assume/expect. I didn't know this!

http://genetics.ncai.org/tribal-enrollment-and-genetic-testing.cfm

[cosmic1]

Thanks for sharing that article, Moonchilde! That is a far better explanation than any others that I have read. I am fascinated by dna testing.

[Moonchilde]

For those who may be interested -

Today is DNA Day, and both Ancestry and Family Tree DNA are offering testing discounts today. I believe it's today only. Ancestry is $79 and FTDNA is $149.