The Ancient Ancestors of Darnell L Williams Chapter 2

What about Race?

Yea, what about it? Depending who you are, race may mean a lot to you. Depending who I am with, it may mean a lot or it may mean nothing at all. Race does not exist.  Do you know that race is political?

When I talk to my Black Girlfriends we have a great time talking about White people. When I am with my White Girlfriends, I get anything from "Shut the hell up." to "don't you ever shut down?" To tell you the truth, I can care less but I do like to start drama and talking about race will do it every time!

  

The Black community claims President Obama as one of their own.  The President is a Nigerian/American by  Ethnicity Group.  He is a Asian/Pacific person, another ethnic group.  But everyone claims that he is racially Black  and he is not.  So in the 21st Century, the old definitions do not fit the world civilization as President Obama shows.

However look at what  Malik Miah in his "Race and Class: Blacks Still Taking the Hit", ATC 144, January-February 2010 article;

IT TOOK TEN months before the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) stood up and challenged President Barack Obama. In a surprise move, 10 CBC leaders refused to participate in a key House financial committee vote in December until some more relief is provided to Black businesses.

Black politicians and civil rights leaders have been understandably careful about criticizing the first Black president. Yet facts on the ground, especially the super high unemployment in the Black communities, forced their hand. While their challenge is mild, it is significant.

The impact of the Great Recession has been greatest on Blacks as well as on other ethnic minorities. Official unemployment is nearly 50% higher for African Americans than for whites. What’s most striking is that the Black middle class, including those with Ivy League educations, are having a hard time finding jobs.

The issue of “race” once again is becoming a hot topic in the Black community as qualified professionals and skilled workers with equal or better résumés than whites are being turned down for jobs — going instead to whites with lesser qualifications. It is a reminder of the pre-civil rights era.

At the same time, the gains of the civil rights revolution make it possible for Obama to be president and the Black elite to still hold some major jobs in big business. But there are clear signs of erosion.

One example reported in a front page story in The New York Times entitled, “In Job Hunt, even a college degree can’t close racist gap (December 1, 2009),” notes that many Blacks are altering their names to sound more “white” to get interviews.

A study published in the American Economic Review reports that applicants with Black-sounding names received 50% fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names.

Getting the interview, of course, doesn’t mean you will be accepted in a tight private sector job market where most interviewers are generally white. (Government jobs are different where enforcement of anti-discrimination policies is stronger and more minorities are employed.) Even if you can get into the door for an interview, it doesn’t mean the most qualified person gets the job. There is little talk about “reverse discrimination” in this environment with double-digit unemployment. 

For the most part affirmative action in hiring is nonexistent.

One University of Chicago graduate applying for a business money management position in Dallas told the Times of how one hiring manager became excited while talking to him over the phone about how lucky the company was to hear from someone with a top business school education.

But once the company representatives met him and saw that he was Black, “Their eyes kind of hit the ceiling a bit. It was kind of quiet for 45 seconds.” The company’s interest in him quickly cooled.

A Yale University graduate commented, “It does weigh on you in the search because you’re wondering how much is race playing a factor in whether I’m even getting a first call or whether I’m even getting an in-person interview once they hear my voice and they know I’m probably African American?”

De facto Discrimination Lives

As the Dallas example shows, while it is illegal to discriminate, employers know how to avoid hiring Blacks without blatantly or overtly violating the law. Articles are now appearing in major papers and websites about white and Black professionals seeking identical jobs where the more qualified Blacks don’t even get return calls from recruiters. The old maxim, “last hired, first fired” is not applicable since these qualified Blacks can’t even get in the door.

On top of this, the bailout of Wall Street provided few funds for small businesses. Loans and lines of credit are nearly impossible to find. This is doubly true for Black businesses — this is credit redlining.

Some 14 years ago the government began tracking the number of hungry Americans facing what it euphemistically calls “food insecurity.” Today the Department of Agriculture calculates that there are some 49 million Americans — 26% of Black households, 14.6% of white — without enough food. Millions of adults only eat one meal per day and a record number of families rely on food stamps.

The oldest and most respected civil rights group, the NAACP, is now calling on President Obama to take firmer action on the jobs front and the economic recession’s disproportionate impact on Black Americans.

Other Black leaders are also criticizing Obama’s decision to spend billions more for the war in Afghanistan (up to $40 billion per year) while few dollars are going to help the poorest communities save their homes and get jobs. Obama never mentions the special problems facing Black working people.

Racial Reality of Joblessness

The data make clear that race does matter when it comes to joblessness. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in November 2009 unemployment for whites was 9.3%, but 15.6% for Blacks. Overall the unemployment rate was 10% (much higher when those who have given up and the underemployed are added). Long-term unemployment (those persons jobless for 27 weeks or more) continues to increase. It is twice as high for African Americans.

A second statistic also shows the color divide. Black men working at full-time jobs make $622 per week, which is 74.5% of the $835 median for white men.

The unemployment rate among men with college degrees in 2009 is 4.4% for whites, and 8.4% for Blacks. For those with high school diplomas, unemployment is 10% for white men, and 15.9% for Black men. For those with less than a high school degree, it is 13.9% for white and 24.2% for Black men.

The BLS statistics among women are similar — 4% for white women with a college degree compared to 6.9% for Black women. For those with a high school diploma, 7.4% for white women, compared to 11.4% for Black women; and 13% for white women with less than a high school degree compared to 18.3% for Black women.

The BLS statistics are raw data compiled from across the country. The fact that the racial gap is consistent for all social categories indicates that race and racism is structural in society. Accordingly, special measures (enforced by the federal government) are required to help African Americans overcome structural discrimination. These must include affirmative action programs and push back against employers who will find ways to interview but not hire African Americans.

Many Black elected officials in Washington are beginning to see that uncritical support to Obama is not a smart policy. Anger is growing in the Black community. Unemployed African Americans will not get jobs or be trained by “waiting” for the first president who happens to be Black to help them.

Civil rights leaders have been less forceful in these efforts, however, because of a reality that concerns them — the increase in right-wing and racist smears and threats against Obama.

Rise of Hate Groups

There has been a qualitative increase of hate mail and threats directed at President Obama since he took office. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) based in Alabama has reported on the significant rise of the militia movement that is infused with racist ideology. Its report, “The Second Wave: Return of the Militias,” cites the following evidence:

• Fifty new militia training groups, including one composed of current and former police officer and soldiers.

• The convening of so-called “citizen courts” and “grand juries” that have issued indictments against President Obama for treason and fraud.

• “Sovereign citizens” who subscribe to the ideology that whites have a higher citizenship status than others and do not have to pay taxes or obey other laws. They engage in “paper terrorism” such as filing bogus property liens against enemies.

• The introduction of states’ rights resolutions in the legislatures of about three dozen states. The governor of Texas has gone so far to talk about “secession.”

According to its founder Morris Dees, as of the end of 2008 the SPLC documented 926 hate groups in America — a record number and an increase of more than 50% since 2000.

While many of these rightist efforts and militias have existed in the past, what’s new is the reality of the first Black president. Coupled with their hostility to immigrants  — legal and undocumented — the smear campaigns of Fox News and the energized extreme right with its racist and other neo-fascist language, create a climate that enables blatant discrimination.

These elements were on vivid display at the well-organized intervention by the conservative base of the Republican Party at the town hall meetings on health care last summer. Many opponents of Obama brought weapons and displays of Nazi and racist images to intimidate officials and those with genuine concerns. On her book tour Sarah Palin’s demagogy, with her direct appeals to not-so-subtle white nationalism, “Obama is not like us,” could not be clearer.

Glenn Beck of Fox News summarized the views of the racist fringe and mainstream neoconservative movement when he said President Obama “has exposed himself over and over and over again as a guy who has a deep-seated hatred of white people or the white culture.” (July 28, 2009)

What Needs to Happen?

The rise of overt racist talk, militia groups and more “confident” bigots attacking Obama requires a response. The response should be more than to simply protest the racism of the right. It must center its demands on the government to act on issues of urgent need for society. This includes taking up traditional civil rights issues like jobs, affirmative action and health care for all. It means opposing Obama’s push for a deeper war in Afghanistan and toward implementing the Bush agenda abroad.

Ultimately the only way to reinforce civil rights laws, push again for affirmative action in employment and take on de facto discrimination in hiring requires public protests and action. The concern that the “Black” president cannot be openly criticized, since the racist right is after him, is a mistake.

The small steps taken by the Black Caucus in Congress, the NAACP and others to demand a change are openings to do more. What’s needed are marches for jobs, health care, defense of women’s rights and other issues that were won by the civil rights and other social movements. Without public protests and counter mobilizations, the airwaves and streets will continue to be dominated by the ultra right and the neoconservative forces.

There are many white working people sucked in by the energized anti-Obama, government-is-bad-at-everything campaign as symbolized by the Palin book signings and town hall protests. They still can be neutralized or even won over to the antiracist and progressive side if a revitalized left movement emerges. White people’s social consciousness, along with the struggles of all working people in this country, rose in the 1960s when a minority Black community led the civil rights revolution that transformed the country.

Here is the reply to this article:

Please stop confusing "Race" Groups with 'Ethnic' Groups

Submitted by AllPeople (AP) Gifts (not verified) on October 25, 2012 - 12:33am.

.
Please feel free to work to inform Americans that ....
the ETHNIC term of "African-American" (AA) is NOT
a 'Synonym' for the RACIAL term of 'Black American'
(BA) -- the two (2) terms are actually referring to two
(2) entirely DIFFERENT GROUPS of people -- AND that
many of the true AAs find it to be very offensive that
our society works to force them to "carry the statistics"
(particularly the 'negative' ones -- ex. AIDS / HIV Rates,
STD Rates; Crime Rates; Out-Of-Wedlock Birthrates;
Higher-Education Drop-Out Rates, STD Rate; etc.) --
for all of the many, many, many diverse BA groups
and communities that are currently living in the U.S.

*****

If you notice, the reply to this article claims that  Malik Miah confuses Racial Groups with Ethnic Groups. The objective of the United States is to create a nation based on a group of people that they can call American. That means that all races and nationalities becoming one but keep their historical groups within their families.

What is Race?

Race is associated with biology, whereas ethnicity is associated with culture. 

In biology, races are genetically distinct populations within the same species; they typically have relatively minor morphological and genetic differences. Though all humans belong to the same species (Homo sapiens), and even to the same sub-species (Homo sapiens sapiens), there are small genetic variations across the globe that engender diverse physical appearances, such as variations in skin color.

Although humans are sometimes divided into races, the morphological variation between races is not indicative of major differences in DNA. For example, recent genetic studies show skin color may drastically change in as few as 100 generations, spanning 2,500 years, as a result of environmental influences. Furthermore, the DNA of two humans chosen at random generally varies by less than 0.1 percent. This is less genetic variation than other types of hominids (such as chimpanzees and orangutans), leading some scientists to describe all humans as belong to the same race — the human race.

What is Ethnicity?

Ethnicity is the term for the culture of people in a given geographic region, including their language, heritage, religion and customs. To be amember of an ethnic group is to conform to some or all of those practices.

Race and ethnicity can obviously overlap, but they are distinct. For example, a Japanese-American would probably consider herself a member of the Japanese or East Asian race, but, if she doesn't engage in any of the practices or customs of her ancestors, she might not identify with the ethnicity, but might instead consider herself to be American.

Race and Ethnicity Classifications by US Government  Standards

Standards for reporting data about race and ethnicity provide consistent and comparable data for an array of statistical and administrative programs.

Authority

Race and ethnicity standards are determined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The current standards were published in 1997.

Standards

The current standards have:

·         Five minimum categories for data on race

·         Two categories for data on ethnicity.

Respondents to federal data collections are permitted to report more than one race, and are asked to report both race and ethnicity.

Race Categories

·         American Indian or Alaska Native: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.

·         Asian: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.

·         Black or African American: A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. Terms such as "Haitian" or "Negro" can be used in addition to "Black or African American".

·         Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.

·         White: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. 

Ethnicity Categories

·         Hispanic or Latino: A person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race. The term, "Spanish origin", can be used in addition to "Hispanic or Latino".

·         Not Hispanic of Latino

 Darnell's DNA and Genealogy

My DNA did not start in slavery days or in the last two Millennium. As I said, my genealogy is ancient. It started at least 50,000 years ago in a land far, far away. I am having my genes tested at Family Tree DNA, Genealogy by Genetics, LTD. 1445 North Loop West, Suite 820 Houston, Texas 77008-1673, USA. 713-868-1438.

http://www.familytreedna.com

This test will not tell me where I came from. It will tell me what groups of people I may be associated with such as Benin, Irish, British or some other groups. It will tell me about Ethnic Groups not Races. 

  

 There is no such thing as Race. We are all one people!

The Ancient Ancestors of Darnell L Williams Chapter 1

Have You Ever Had That Shocking Moment?

This was my shocking moment when 

Amanda Ann Williams III was born.

Below is Darnell's father's family movements over the past 300 years in the United States.   

Amanda's opinion on why she looks this way:

Amanda told me 27 years after her birth that she thinks she looks this way because of her Cherokee Heritage.

Darnell's opinion on why she looks this way:

I believe that our ancestors came across the Alaska land bridge from China in the last ice age from Asia and over time traveled to Southern North America. These people became part of the Cherokee Empire in the past 5,000 years. 

Others came by boat along the European passage to America and took spouses in America. They created the people that looks like Stephanie. Some Africans came by boat and landed in South America and took Natives as spouses. Here is why when the European Nations came to America, they found people of all colors here. 

The African looking Olmec heads have dumfounded historians for centuries. There were many speculations as to why they have African features, but no one could agree on a theory, and African American scholars like Dr. Ivan van Sertima were laughed at for decades until now.

There is now undisputed scientific proof that the first Americans were descended from Africans or Australian aborigines, according to evidence in a new BBC documentary. Dozens of their skulls and cave writings have been found dating back to 50,000 years. The skulls, one named 'Lucia' by Scientists, have definite and distinct Negroid facial features like those of Africans, New Guineas or Australian Aborigines.

When I first saw Amanda Ann Williams III


I took my x-wife to Harrisburg Hospital to the birthing room. That afternoon, I held her legs open while she was screaming and hollering like someone was trying to kill her. The doctor was between her legs, down like a baseball catcher. My job was to hold her legs open. My x-wife gave one final push and blow Amanda out of her snatch. The doctor caught Amanda and with one movement turned her over. 

That is when I looked at her face and was shocked to see that she was an Asian Baby. 

Amanda at age 6 Months

As time went on, Amanda started to turn away from her Chinese look.  

Here is Stephanie holding Amanda at age 1 to 2 years old. 

    As a teenage model she looked like this.

In her early twenties, she looked like this.

Now she looks like this at age 27. She no longer looks Chinese.

The genes that my x-wife and I picked did not start with our parents or our grand parents. It started 50,000 or more years ago. We have no clue who they were or where they lived. 

We hear a lot about the people from Europe that came to America in the past 4 centuries. But how about the people from Asia that walked over the land bridge from Asia to Alaska? How about the Asians that sailed here across the Pacific Ocean? How about the explorers that landed in what we call Mexico today and walked Eastward to the Atlantic Ocean? Don't fall for the idea that Columbus had to show the world how to get to America. Don't fall for the Vikings were the first people to land in America. This has been going on for thousands of years.    

Amanda's genes may have been berried in her and showed itself for a short period of time before the dominant looks came out.  It appears that her dominant genes are from the Eliza Lucinda Blue Brown class of people.  

Eliza Lucinda Blue Brown, Steelton Resident,

my grandmother on my mother's side

Amanda will continue to change as time goes on. However, at age 33, she will start to age like most people. Because she exercises and stay in shape, Amanda eats healthy, her body decline will be less than most people of the same age. 

Her children will go through the same cycle, selecting genes at birth, displaying these genes from cradle to grave then passing on her genes that started 50,000 years ago, from a place far far away and ending with Amanda.

It is the movement of these genes that we will explorer. We will see how people moved around the world. Genes played a big part of this in your family as well. Your genes is what cause you to be you! 

A Question For You!

Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire and became one of the most feared conquerors of all time. Mongol leader Genghis Khan (1162-1227) rose from humble beginnings to establish the largest land empire in history. How much of the worlds population is related to Genghis Khan?

Answer:

Image of Genghis Khan 

About 8% of the world is related to Genghis Khan because of his appetite for sex in his time. Could his family genes be part of my families genes? 

The Ancient Ancestors of Darnell L Williams, An Introduction Part 2

DNA And Its 4 Main Parts

Understanding Genetic Ancestry Testing

Back in 1967, I was very interested in the study of DNA.  By the end of my eleventh year in High School, I knew more about Deoxyribonucleic Acid, (DNA) than my teacher.  I wrote a paper on DNA abstraction and inclusion into other one cell animals that even the professors at Pitt University could not understand.  The problem: I only could read on a third grade level and could not finish my work.  If I could have, you may have found me being the father of Genetic Engineering by 1970 instead of Genetic Corporation in 1976.

Genetic ancestry testing is the use of DNA information to make inferences about someone’s "deep" ancestry, hundreds or thousands of years into the past. Genetic genealogy on the other hand combines DNA testing with genealogical and historical records, and typically makes use of large databases to identify matches, or direct comparisons to test for expected matches. There is some overlap between the two, but genetic genealogy is generally more reliable because of its use of additional information: the information about your ancestry available from DNA alone is limited, as we try to explain here.

There are three main types of genetic ancestry test as explained by MOLECULAR AND CULTURAL EVOLUTION LAB;

1. Y-DNA test

A Y-chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) test provides information about your male line ancestry only, which in most cultures corresponds with the inheritance of surnames. Only males carry a Y-chromosome, but a female can learn about her father line, for example, through her father or brother.  Among the tests currently available there is much variety in the amount of information provided.  The markers tested are of two types: STRs (short tandem repeats) and SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). These markers have different mutation rates and so give information at different time depths.  The information you receive depends on which and how many markers of each type are tested.

SNP testing is used for deep ancestry purposes to provide information about your haplogroup which tells you which branch of the Y-DNA tree you belong to. Y-STR tests are used for genetic genealogy purposes within surname projects to test hypotheses about patrilineal relationships and to investigate questions about surname origins. These tests also provide very limited information about your deep ancestry by giving you a predicted haplogroup assignment.

If two people have the same Y-DNA haplogroup, it means that they will usually share a common patrilineal ancestor more recently than two people from different haplogroups, but that common ancestor may still have been a long time ago. That time can be estimated, but such estimates are not precise with current standard tests, although comprehensive sequencing of the Y-chromosome is becoming available and will give improved precision. 

The haplogroup information is often accompanied by a story about the origin of your ancestors, including a map of the world with arrows indicating ancestral migrations. Hundreds of thousands of men from around the world have now had their Y-DNA tested, and we have a very good idea of the distribution of the different haplogroups in the present-day population. It is, however, difficult to be confident about where these haplogroups originated and how they spread; many different histories could explain their current distribution. Sometimes a company will associate a haplogroup with, for example, Viking, Norman or Saxon ancestry, but such associations are at best speculative and should be treated with caution. Just as today most haplogroups are shared among many populations, so would it have been for past populations. Furthermore, those past populations would have been genetically diverse, and different from the modern populations in their regions of origin.

The father line is just one lineage in your family tree, and as you go further back in time it represents a rapidly diminishing proportion of your total ancestry. For example, you have 64 great-great-great-great grandparents, and a man shares his Y-chromosome with just one of these 64 ancestors.

Mitochondrial DNA test

A mitochondrial DNA test provides information about your female line ancestry only. Mitochondrial DNA is passed on by a mother to her male and female children but only females can pass their mtDNA on to the next generation (males are dead ends for mtDNA). This test, like the Y-DNA test, provides information about one specific lineage – your mother, your mother’s mother, your mother’s mother’s mother, and so on back in time. Again the amount of information provided varies among tests, but the mtDNA sequence is short (just 16,569 DNA "letters") and so sequencing the whole mtDNA genome is already not very expensive.

An mtDNA test can be used for genealogical purposes to test a hypothesis about recent female line ancestry (perhaps arising from genealogical research) or to look for matches in a genetic genealogy database.  The mtDNA test also provides a haplogroup assignment which may, like the Y-DNA haplogroup, be accompanied by a story and perhaps a "migration" map. We know a lot about the present-day distribution of the mtDNA haplogroups, but it is again much more difficult to make inferences about the more distant past.  The mtDNA mutation rate is relatively high, although there is considerable uncertainty about the precise rate. The probability of a mutation occurring in the whole mtDNA genome in one generation (ie, transmission from mother to child) is estimated at between 1% and 3%. Therefore the time gap between mutations in an mtDNA sequence can be 100 generations or more, and so common mtDNA ancestors cannot be dated accurately even with full mtDNA genome data: if you share a full mtDNA sequence with someone, your common matrilineal ancestor could be 1 or 50 generations ago. For example, it is common for participants in genetic genealogy databases to have exact full sequence matches with people with ancestry from a number of different countries.

As with the Y-chromosome, as you go further back in time your mtDNA represents a rapidly diminishing proportion of your total ancestry.

Autosomal DNA test

An autosomal DNA test provides information from the great majority of your DNA (the autosomes are the chromosomes other than the X, Y and mtDNA, and contain most of your DNA sequences, and genes).  Although full genome sequencing is not far away, it remains unaffordable for most and autosomal DNA tests usually examine up to around 1 million genetic markers (SNPs) spread across the genome (1 million may sound a lot but there are over 3 billion DNA letters in the human genome, so it's still a small fraction but the most informative sites are chosen). The markers give information about all your ancestors in recent generations, but once you go beyond about 10 generations back into the past (roughly 300 years) only a small fraction of your ancestors have contributed directly to your DNA: so even if William Shakespeare were your ancestor (born ~450 years ago), you almost certainly inherited no DNA from him.  This can be a bit confusing: you did inherit almost all your DNA from ancestors alive at that time, but there are very many of them (perhaps 10 thousand or more), and you only actually inherited your DNA from a few hundred of them - a small fraction. The others are "pedigree ancestors" but not "DNA ancestors": you could have inherited DNA from them, but did not because of the randomness in the 50% transmission of DNA from parent to child.

The uniparental Y and mtDNA are exceptions: you inherited them from all your patrilineal and matrilineal ancestors respectively (the former only if you are male), and so in a sense they can provide a link with very remote ancestors.  But they represent only a small fraction of your ancestry, and allow only limited inferences about time depth.

Autosomal DNA tests can be used to identify individuals with whom you share one or more common ancestors up to a handful of generations in the past.  This is done by looking for large chunks of DNA that you both share, indicating recent shared inheritance.  Sometimes it happens that a large chunk of DNA is conserved in two individuals from a common ancestor more than 10 generations in the past, but this is rare: the great majority of common ancestors at that time depth will not be identified from the DNA of their descendants today.  Although sharing one or more large chunks of DNA makes it almost certain that the two of you had at least one recent common ancestor, dating the ancestor(s) is imprecise, particularly beyond about 4 generations ago. Also the tests have no ability to distinguish certain relationships: for example, using DNA alone the half-sibling relationship cannot be distinguished from the grandparent-grandchild relationship, and in the latter case we can't tell from the DNA which is the grandparent and which is the grandchild.  Algorithms that predict specific relationships are rarely precise beyond 1st degree, but they can identify more distant relationships approximately, with good accuracy out to about 2nd cousin, and the precise relationship may then be confirmed using additional information.

Autosomal tests also provide information about an individual's "ethnicity" by identifying sections of the DNA that best match reference databases of modern populations with geographical or ethnic labels. Ethnicity tests are better called biogeographical ancestry tests or admixture tests (your "ethnicity" is a social category that may not accurately reflect your ancestry). However, the reference populations used for comparison purposes are limited, the ethnic labels applied to them may be questionable, and they were collected in different ways for different purposes: they rarely represent true random samples from a population (e.g. because the "population" itself may not be precisely defined: populations usually overlap and blend with other populations). Distinguishing between populations within continents is often poor with the current resolution of markers and databases. Human genetic variation usually varies smoothly with geographical distance: as you travel from Dakar to Vladivostok you can observe continual change in gene variant frequencies; there is a big genetic difference between start and end cities, but there are no sharp genetic boundaries along the way.

Ethnic/geographical assignments have some validity at a large scale.  For example in Latin Americans it is usually possible to distinguish with confidence sections of an individual's genome that are of sub-Saharan African, European and Native American origin. However, testing companies will often assign national labels to genetic clusters, whereas gene variant frequencies tend to change smoothly across borders.  Thus, French people may be assigned a large percentage of "British" ancestry. Normandy and Kent are genetically similar, as you would expect from history and geography, so it is not easy to distinguish English from French based on DNA alone. Given high quality genomic databases it would be possible to assign an individual to a region of origin with a reasonable degree of accuracy (human provenancing), but this is beyond what genetic testing companies currently have available both in terms of having enough genetic markers in large and well-annotated databases.

As a result of the random inheritance of DNA, close relatives can often be assigned markedly different ethnicity percentages.  This may be correct.  For example if you have three grandparents from Africa and one from Asia, you and your brother/sister may receive very different proportions of Asian DNA even though you share the same parents.  However such differences may also reflect inadequacies in the databases used, or the methods of inference applied.

It is also common to find that people get very different percentages from different testing companies.  This is partly because each company uses different databases and the individuals within them are categorised in different ways: there is no "correct" way to categorise human beings. Each company also uses its own algorithms to make the estimates, and the target time depth varies from company to company but is often not explicitly stated. The estimates will also change over time as additional reference populations are added and as the algorithms are adjusted or improved.

If you want to do further reading!

The Sense About Science guide Sense about genetic ancestry testing highlights the limitations of genetic ancestry testing.

Debbie Kennett's blog post for Sense About Science Sense about genealogical DNA testing provides an overview of the legitimate uses of DNA testing for genetic genealogy purposes.

A list of related articles can be found in the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) website. 

 We particularly recommend the following:

·         The Guardian Notes and Theories blog by Mark Thomas.

·         Jobling, Rasteiro and Wetton (2015) In the blood: the myth and reality of genetic markers of identity in Ethnic and Racial Studies(£)

·         "Selling Roots" by Elliot Aguilar in The New Enquiry.

·         Royal et al. (2010) "white paper" published by the American Society of Human Genetics Ancestry and Ancestry Testing Task Force.  These authors say for example that 

o    "... moving from [an] inference of common ancestry to the conclusion that the match implies something about the biogeographical ancestry of both individuals can be problematic."

o    "... any quantitative claims about ancestry should have an easily interpreted assessment of confidence or accuracy associated with them" 

o    "... whenever formal inferences about population history have been attempted with uniparental systems, the statistical power is generally low. Claims of connections, therefore, between specific uniparental lineages and historical figures or historical migrations of peoples are merely speculative".

·         American Society of Human Genetics Ancestry Testing Statement, 2008

·         Bandelt et al. BioEssays (2008).

·         Bolnick et al. Science (2007).  These authors say:

o    "... when an allele or haplotype is most common in one population, companies often assume it to be diagnostic of that population. This can be problematic ..."

o    "Many genetic ancestry tests also claim to tell consumers where their ancestral lineage originated and the social group to which their ancestors belonged. However, ..."

o    "the tests ... promote the popular [mis]understanding that race is rooted in one’s DNA"

o    "market pressures can lead to conflicts of interest".

·         "Beware the gene genies" by Martin Richards in The Guardian 21/2/03.

o    "Lavish but questionable promises have been made to those who want to trace their genetic ancestry".

Video lectures

The following lectures provide a useful resource as an introduction to DNA ancestry testing.

	Ancestry testing using DNA: The pros and cons. Public lecture by Prof Mark G. Thomas at WDYTYA Live at Birmingham's NEC in April 2015. Also available on youtube
	DNA for Beginners. Public lecture by Debbie Kennett at Genetic Genealogy Ireland 2014at Dublin's RDS in October 2014. Also available on youtube

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/foi