We first met Sheridan* in the fall of 2010. As an adoptee, she was curious about her DNA and what 23andMe might be able to tell her. With the help of old friends and some new ones on 23andMe, Sheridan learned about her global origins, which include an African-American father and a mother of European descent, and connected with DNA relatives. She even discovered that she and her good friend Brian are 4th cousins, which means she has some Irish ancestry. Together, they figured out a branch of her family tree.
For a quick Ancestry primer, check out:
Ancestry at 23andMe: What Can You Learn?
Follow Sheridan’s journey from the beginning:*
Introducing Sheridan
Sheridan’s Global Origins
Sheridan’s Got Relatives
Finding Connections
Old Roots and New Horizons
*Sheridan and her story are works of fiction and any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.
For Sheridan, learning about herself on 23andMe did more than just kindle a love for the Irish. By combining the information she learned about her ancestral origins with information from some of the DNA Relatives she found, she and Brian were able to fill in the first pieces of her genealogical history.
Since then, Sheridan’s filled in even more of the family tree on her mother’s side. Her second cousin Mike, identified through 23andMe as a DNA Relative, was able to track down the name of his grandmother’s sister — a woman very likely to be Sheridan’s own grandmother. To Brian’s delight, Mike also found the name of his grandmother’s sister’s husband, a Fitzpatrick descended from the same Irish ancestors as Brian.
Brian always kept her in the loop on 23andMe, though. Some more mutual friends joined and they quickly started sharing on 23andMe. Sheridan remembers when the Neanderthal Ancestry feature came out. There was an unofficial contest over who had the most Neanderthal DNA; Brian was disappointed that he was solidly average for a Northern European person. Sheridan tried to cheer him up by pointing out that he still had the most caveman of their friends with mostly European ancestry.
“Besides,” she said, “I only have 2.2 percent Neanderthal!”
“That’s because Neanderthals were never even in Africa to begin with,” he snorted, but he seemed mollified. Sheridan, far from feeling shortchanged, found it fascinating that even a small percentage of her DNA could be traced back to these prehistoric “cousins.”
But Brian’s Stone Age enthusiasm paled in comparison to his excitement over Ancestry Composition. A new and improved replacement for the popular Ancestry Painting feature, Ancestry Composition gives a much more detailed breakdown of a person’s genetic ancestry. Brian called Sheridan at two in the morning when it came out.
“It’s here!” he exclaimed when she groggily answered the phone.
“Unghh wha–?” she mumbled.
“Ancestry Composition! Like Ancestry Painting, but way better. Remember? Your Ancestry Painting was cool, but your Composition is even cooler. Mine’s still kind of boring, though. But you should look at yours! And I can see it split it up by which side I got from my mom and which side from my dad and you can zoom in and out and change the thresholds… hey, you still there? Sheridan? Hello?”
So maybe two in the morning wasn’t the best time for Brian to tell Sheridan about Ancestry Composition. But the next day they met up at the coffee shop to explore the new feature together.
Brian quickly explained that 23andMe had updated its main ancestry feature with lots of examples of people with full ancestry from different parts of the world — like South Asia, France, or Finland. Some of these people were part of research studies and their genetic data is publicly available. But many of the people 23andMe used to develop its ancestry analysis are 23andMe customers themselves.
“Of course, you can only learn what, say, ‘Welsh DNA’ looks like if you have some examples of it,” he said. “The more examples you can learn from, the better your analysis will be. And 23andMe has a lot of different types of examples.”
Brian clicked on the ‘+’ symbol in the “Resolution” bar to zoom in. “It’s still all European for me — no surprise — but now it can break it down into sub-regions.” The list of ancestries on the right of the screen expanded as he clicked and when he hovered the mouse pointer over the darker blue ring the map zoomed in to the British Isles. “See? 99% British and Irish!” he said, puffing out his chest, which today was sporting, perhaps not accidentally, a green “Kiss me, I’m Irish!” t-shirt.
Sheridan rolled her eyes. “Ok, ok, you were saying mine was cooler, though, right?”
“Oh, right. Yeah.”
Sheridan scooted him aside and pulled her Ancestry Composition up on the screen. The rings quickly morphed into concentric stacks of bright colors with a rainbow-colored map in the middle. “Ooh,” she breathed. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool.”
According to the new analysis, Sheridan’s DNA was about 62% European, 37% Sub-Saharan African, and 1.2% East Asian or Native American. The rest of her DNA was unassigned, meaning it couldn’t be mapped confidently to any specific population.
“Africa isn’t broken down into sub-regions yet the way Europe is,” Brian said, pointing to the pink stripe, “but 23andMe is going to update this soon.”
“Hm, I guess I can wait a little longer,” said Sheridan. “It’s nice to see all the European populations, though. Look, there’s the Irish ancestry for me, too!”
She already knew that she probably had some Irish ancestry based on the fact that she and 99% Irish Brian were 4th cousins and they’d traced their Irish family connection through her second cousin Mike, but it was somehow gratifying to see it spelled out so clearly on her screen. She could also see that she had some Eastern European and even a bit of Native American ancestry.
There was also a small dark blue band in her Composition labeled as “Ashkenazi”. “That might actually be interesting,” Brian mused, “Let’s look into that later.”
For now, Ancestry Composition kept them busy as they explored their friends’ results. Miguel had a colorful Composition like Sheridan, except it had much more Native American and much less African. Mesut, Sheridan’s Turkish friend, was mainly Middle Eastern and European.
“Did Camille know she has Native American ancestry?” she asked, pointing to the 3.3% Native American in her Ancestry Composition.
“Not before she did 23andMe,” said Brian. “When she saw that result she did some digging and it turns out that her paternal grandfather was one-eighth Chippewa!”
He went to the drop down menu and selected another friend of theirs, Jamie. “This is pretty cool, too. Jamie’s half Askhenazi Jewish, and since her parents are also on 23andMe you can use the ‘Split View’ setting to see which side of the family it’s from.”
The map in the middle disappeared and the labels “Father” and “Mother appeared on either side of a vertical line splitting the colored rings in half. Sheridan could see that the Ashkenazi ancestry was clearly from Jamie’s mother’s side.
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“Wow, that’s cool,” said Sheridan. She thought for a second. “So if I do end up learning who my mother is, and if I’m able to find her, and if she wants to do 23andMe… would this be able to tell me more about my father’s side, too?”
Brian nodded. “That’ a lot of ‘ifs’, but yeah, I think so. You just need one parent for it to tell which half of your DNA came from that parent. Then by default, the other half came from the other parent.”
“Whew.” Sheridan sat back. “This whole genetic ancestry thing just got even more interesting.”
To be continued…
I know that a man has Y & X and the X will go back on his mother’s line. But a woman with a X from her mother & a X from her father, how do they trace back on her mother’s X line & not on the father’s X line?
A woman does not get yDNA from her father. But a woman can have a her brother, father, paternal uncle or her paternal uncles son, or her paternal grandfather tested to learn more about her paternal line.
I never knew my father, and he is deceased. As far as I know, I have no siblings. So I have no male relatives that I can ask to be tested. Will my own test tell me anything about my father’s side of the family?
Hello Christina,
We cannot tell you about your paternal line or what your paternal haplogroup is, because the Y chromosome is passed down exclusively from father to son. A woman’s paternal haplogroup can be inferred from her father’s or brother’s haplogroup. In your case that wouldn’t be possible. That said we can tell you about relatives on both your maternal and paternal side because we do autosomal testing. The autosomes are the 22 pairs of non-sex chromosomes that you inherit from both your parents.
Unlike other genetic genealogy services that identify relationships on only the paternal or maternal lines, our DNA Relatives tool can identify relationships on any branch of your family tree. So a close relationship such as your paternal grandmother would be invisible to other genetic genealogy services (since she doesn’t share your maternal or paternal haplogroup), but would be easily identified using DNA Relatives.
My brother completed the paternal DNA ,for our father with Ancestry.com.Which i found very informative.
Will you guys ever be partnering with another companies database such as ancestry.com?
Curious as to combining the two services…
We have no plans for partnerships. You can upload your Gedcom data from other sites and use it on 23andMe however.
I was wondering the same thing….right now if I want to find DNA relatives that went through Ancestry or another program, I have to pay to have testing done again, right? Or is there a way to look at the genetic data with other sites and their registrants?
If you tested with 23andMe you do not have to test again to find DNA relatives.
23andme says I am 3.1% neanderthal. Spencer Wells Geno 2.0 says I am 1.8 neanderthal and 1.3% Denisovan (funny that adds to 3.1). Any idea why the discrepancy and which is more likely to be correct. What is used to determine neanderthal ancestry?
Darrell,
Thanks for the note. I’m not totally familiar with Geno 2.0′s analysis, but from our understanding quite a few of their users report results that show they have Denisovan. That would imply that these individuals and you have Melanesia ancestry. I can say that we feel very strongly about the accuracy of our estimate and direct you to our White Paper that outlines the science behind how we reached that percentage.
How do we know if the 1.2% Native American /Asian is real?
Now this person is biracial.How does she have “1.2% Native American /East Asian”? I believe that’s a false percent.I believe that if someone is half black and half white and THEY get “1% or 2 Native American East Asian” then that’s saying that the “1% or 2% Native American/East Asian” percents that African Americans get are most likely NOT real Native American or East Asian ancestry.
Actually 1 percent is significant enough to indicate some Native American ancestry.
Why does Henry Lois Gates says “Only five percent of African Americans have any significant Native American ancestry”?
My name got messed up.It’s Reggie. I’ve emailed 23andme a few times about this,
We’ve made the correction.
My cousin agreed to get his DNA tested at 23 and me. So, his paternal information should be the same right? How do we combine our DNA results so I can have the information put into my account?
Rebecca, It would have to be a male cousin who shares your paternal ancestry, so that would be your father’s brother’s son. You can share ancestry information and designate the relationship when you select sharing. In addition, if you create a family tree once you enter them into the tree you can select them from your shares.
Article said:
“Did Camille know she has Native American ancestry?” she asked, pointing to the 3.3% Native American in her Ancestry Composition.
“Not before she did 23andMe,” said Brian. “When she saw that result she did some digging and it turns out that her paternal grandfather was one-eighth
Her paternal grandfather is 1/8, would make her 1/32? 3.3% is incorrect or she has a little bit more NA. Does make much sense.
But sure, whatever.
Just about every African American gets a “1% or 2% Native American/East Asian” result now when they would get “0% Native American” and “0% East Asian” on the old Ancestrybydna 2.5 (now from DNA Diagnostics Center.Not to be confused with Ancestry.com’s Ancestrydna). I believe if this woman is biracial (has a white parent and a black parent),if both her parents were to do a test and the white parent showed no Native American/East Asian but the black parent showed a “1% or 2% Native American/East Asian” result as the daughter did,then it would be clear that these “1% or 2% Native American/East Asian” results that they are giving African Americans are false results and there is still a ways to go with these tests, at least when it comes to African American test takers.
I’m african american and I have relatives who have asian ancestry as well as native american because her dad is creole. I don’t think it’ s impossible to be african american and have native american ancestry.
Many African Americans have Native American ancestry.
I see that the person named “Sheridan” is fictional
Sheridan is 62% European, 37% Sub-Saharan African, and 1.2% East Asian or Native American. The rest of her DNA was unassigned? So how can Sheridan have 100.2% of her DNA assigned and still have some leftover? This seems to be wonky math!
Hi Patricia,
The numbers stated in the text actually were rounded (“about 62%…”). If you look at her Ancestry Composition graphic, Sheridan actually has 61.7% European, 37.1% African, and 1.2% Asian/Native American, with < 0.1% unassigned. This adds up to 100% assigned and a little bit unassigned, which may still seem strange but it can be chalked up to rounding again since these numbers only go to one decimal point. Hope this clears things up!
So, because I’m a female, I wouldn’t be able to get insight into my fathers ancestry? Would I have to get my brother to get his DNA tested?
Since the Y chromosome is passed down exclusively from father to son, it is impossible for us to tell from a female’s genetic information what her paternal haplogroup is.
However, a female’s paternal haplogroup can be inferred from her father’s or brother’s haplogroup. Females also share their paternal haplogroups with distant male relatives connected through the paternal line (e.g. paternal uncles or nephews, paternal male cousins, paternal half-brothers).
For a little bit more on the Y chromosome check out: “Why the Y?”
While you cannot learn about your father’s haplogroup unless you have a male relative on your paternal side of the family tested, you do get DNA Relative matches from both sides of your family. Because 23andMe does autosomal testing, you would get DNA relative matches from both your maternal and paternal side of the family. Some female customers find that information offers them important clues to their paternal side of the family.
I considered myself just black before I had my dna analyzed by ancestrybydna.com and come to find out I am 19% Indigenous(Native) 55% African and 26% European and you see my profile pic. I look like a regular black woman.. I will gladly give u my info to prove it to u if you like.
I just ord the test for ancestry. I am a male and researching my grandmothers line. If there are Jewish markers there will they reflect in the results. Especially in regards to my g-grandfather via my dad via my grandmother? Also does the test for ancestry include the medical test or is that another amount?
Thanks so much…
Hi, With a single test we report back both ancestry and health information. When we report back your Ancestry Composition we do look at Ashkenazi ancestry specifically and we can report back that information.
i have a serious problem with the results i got. i have it on paper that there is cherokee and wyandot in my mother’s background from her mom and cherokee and blackfoot from her father’s side with her father’s mother being full and her father dad being half cherokee and brit. but i have NO native american markers show up in my results. how is this possible.
I have the same comments as Tiffany. It was always well-known in my family that my gg or ggg grandmother was full blood Cherokee, yet my results show no American Indian and 100% European. Can these results be possible if there is an American Indian that recent in my tree? Thanks for any comments. JT
If your great great grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee you should indeed be able to see that in your ancestry composition. That would be four generations back. Where it gets harder to detect is when you go back six or seven generations. And farther back than that the signal might get lost entirely.
than what happened with my results because i have a great grandmother on my mom’s side that was full. and yet you have me as 99.5% European with no Native American. and i know that to be incorrect and apparently so does Jeff. thankfully i didn’t buy this test to try and prove the Native but now i am faced with the dilema that the Ancestry comp. is incorrect so what else of my results are.
If your great grandmother on your mother’s side of the family was Native American we should be able to detect that, but if she was not fully Native American it’s possible that your Native American ancestry would not be detected after three generations. It is important to note that sometimes, even if a person’s great, great grandmother, for instance, was considered to be Native American, the DNA does not reveal the Native American ancestry because evidence is lost each generation. In general, however, Native American ancestry within the last few generations is likely to reveal itself through our features.
What if you dont know any of your male siblings on our fathers side of family to determine his nationality what test do ou do then.I thought that the autosomal testing was new and could take a strong look at a womans paternal liniege as well?
Hi India,
While autosomal testing as done by 23andMe will tell you about relatives on all branches of your family tree — including on your paternal side — it can’t specifically identify your paternal line. Our testing will also be able to tell you your Ancestry Composition — the geographic origins of your DNA. If you already know your mother’s ancestry, you can deduce what came from your father. If your mother has been tested and you share on 23andMe, our Ancestry Composition tool will split your ancestry composition showing what came from your mother and what came from your father.(https://23andme.zendesk.com/entries/22574177-How-does-Ancestry-Composition-improve-with-parents-or-children-added-linked-) That said, if you have no male relatives on your paternal line that can be tested we cannot determine the paternal haplogroup that your father belonged to.
I am very confused about what I’m going to be able to see. My father is deceased and I have no siblings.
Will I get the full composition or just my maternal side?
I am a woman, btw.
The 23andMe Personal Genome Service does not directly provide paternal haplogroup information for women since it is traced through the Y chromosome, which women do not inherit. You still will get your ancestry composition but you won’t be able to see your paternal line. You probably won’t be able to determine what part of your ancestry came from your father side and which came from your mother’s side, although you may be able to deduce this using multiple sources of information. Because we do autosomal testing you will still get relative finder matches from all sides of your family, it will just be a little more difficult to determine which side of the family your matches come from. If you’d like to explore a little bit more on this topic I’d suggest going to our Genetics 101 page.
Ok, just as long as I’m seeing the whole or as much as can be determined.
Thank you for your quick response.
This is an odd article I found on google. I remember seeing something like this on the history channel. I think it was refuted.
tests create a bombshell
There are currently no DNA tests that can accurate label someone a descendant of a particular Indian tribe in eastern North America. The people, calling themselves full-blooded Native Americans, from the eastern United States, are not the same people, genetically, who greeted early European explorers. A few reputable laboratories are now attempting to create reliable DNA markers for individual tribes, but the obstacles are monumental.
Perceiving a vast potential market from the millions of Americans, who proudly claim that their great-grandmother was a Cherokee Princess, DNA Consultants, Inc. initiated comprehensive DNA testing of the Cherokees living on the Qualla Reservation in western North Carolina. The North Carolina Cherokees were chosen because after 180 years in the west, Oklahoma Cherokees are so thoroughly mixed with other ethnic groups, that any DNA test marker obtained would be meaningless.
The laboratory immediately stumbled into a scientific hornet’s nest. That Cherokee princess in someone’s genealogy was most likely a Jewish or North African princess. Its scientists have labeled the Cherokees not as Native Americans, but as a Middle Eastern-North African population. Cherokees have high levels of test markers associated with the Berbers, native Egyptians, Turks, Lebanese, Hebrews and Mesopotamians. Genetically, they are more Jewish than the typical American Jew of European ancestry. So-called “full-blooded” Cherokees have high levels of European DNA and a trace of Asiatic (Native American) DNA. Their skin color and facial features are primarily Semitic in origin, not Native American. Outraged Cherokees can read the reports at: http://dnaconsultants.com/_blog/DNA_Consultants_Blog/post/Anomalous_Mitochondrial_DNA_Lineages_in_the_Cherokee/
There is a major inaccuracy in most articles about this controversy. Both DNA Consultants and journalists are stating that the research results from the Qualla Reservation apply to all Cherokees. Genetic research associated with the filming of the History Channel’s “America Unearthed” found separate populations of Cherokees outside the reservation with very different genetic profiles. In several counties, the “Cherokees” had profiles identical to Georgia Creeks, and often carried Maya DNA like the Georgia Creeks. In one county, the “Cherokees” were predominantly Quechua from South America, or else mixed Quechua, Maya and Creek. Many of the residents of the Snowbird Cherokee Reservation in Graham County, NC look like the Zoque of Mexico, who created the Olmec Civilization. They are called “Moon Faces” by the Cherokees on the main reservation.
At present, the researchers at DNA Consultants seem unaware that throughout the 1600s Iberian Sephardic Jews and Moorish Conversos colonized the North Carolina and Georgia Mountains, where they mined and worked gold and silver. All European maps show western North Carolina occupied by Apalache, Creek, Shawnee and Yuchi Indians until 1718. Most of these indigenous tribal groups were forced out in the early 1700s. Anglo-American settlers moving into northeastern Tennessee and extreme southwestern Virginia mentioned seeing Jewish speaking villages in that region until around 1800.
How the occupants of the North Carolina Mountains became a mixed Semitic, North African, European and Native American population, known as the Cherokees, remains a mystery. Slave raids may have been a factor. The 18th century Cherokees were the “biggest players” in the Native Americans slave trade. Perhaps young Sephardic females were captured by slave raiders to be concubines and wives.
It is also known that around 1693, the British put together an alliance between eight small Native towns with Creek names in northwestern South Carolina and the powerful Rickohockens of southwestern Virginia to thwart the expansion of French colonies. The modern Cherokee language seems to be a mixture of Rickohocken, Shawnee and Creek. There is obviously much that anthropologists and historians do not know about the early history of the Southern Highlands.
Those readers who wish to ask Richard Thornton questions about architecture, urban planning or Native American history may email him at Native Question@aol.com .