About a year and a half ago my brother Henry did an Ancestry.com DNA analysis. As a matter of curiosity I decided to have my own DNA checked, but with another service, 23andMe.com. The results were very similar, but different enough that I wish I could talk to Henry about it.

 It was no surprise at all that my brother’s results showed his DNA to be 98% European, with results going back thousands of years. It was also not a great surprise that his results showed about 2% African DNA going back thousands of years. After all, if you go back far enough, everyone originated in Africa. Where my DNA test differed from my brothers was in how old that African DNA is.

Henry’s results were about 38% western Europe, which includes areas from France to Germany, and about 33% from Ireland, Wales, England, Scotland and France. There was some DNA that was typical of regions in Scandinavia, and possibly eastern Europe. A small fraction was typical of the Iberian Peninsula and northern Africa.

My results showed my ancestry to be 98% European, just as Henry’s. There was no identification of DNA from Scandinavia or the Iberian Peninsula. I did show about a half a percent of Ashkenazi Jewish, which Henry’s results did not show. My results showed 1.3% Sub-Saharan African, that is, south of areas like Egypt and Algeria.

I wondered exactly what that meant, so I searched for the significance of that small percentage. I found a Web site, theroot.com, in which someone asked almost exactly the same question. The answer was given by Henry Louis Gates Jr, and some others. If you have not seen Gates’ PBS show Finding Your Roots, I strongly recommend it. In that show, Gates helps various people, usually famous people, trace their roots, in some cases quite far back. Most African-Americans have white ancestors. Occasionally white Americans find that they have African ancestors.

In the case of the question submitted to Gates, the DNA results also came from 23andMe.

In Gates’ answer, he says, “Those who identify as primarily white can have African ancestry. 23andMe published a study (pdf) based on its own dataset that concluded that approximately 3 to 4 percent of their customers who identified as being of primarily European descent had at least one ancestor in the last 10 generations who could be traced back to Africa.” So I am in a fairly small subset of “white” people who have taken the 23andMe test.

He also says, “the autosomal test that (the questioner) took from 23andMe generally shows more recent ancestry, quite reliably over the last 100 to 200 years—in (the questioner’s) case, since the time of slavery, when this “admixing” most likely occurred.” 

Note: Gates says 23andMe’s autosomal testing shows results from the last few hundred years. My brother’s results indicated DNA ancestry from thousands of years ago. Gates goes on to tell the questioner that “so, you see, it is indeed possible that you have recent African-American ancestors.”

Since my 23andMe results are similar to the questioner, I have to assume that Gates’ comments to him also apply to me. That means it’s entirely possible that I have African ancestors from the recent past (a few hundred years or so). 23andMe indicates that my African ancestry dates from the 1700’s, or possibly earlier. It also shows ancestry from West Africa as well as Congolese and southern East Africa. That means African slaves in America, and probably more than one African ancestor. And that also means that there are probably some African Americans living in Georgia or Detroit or Chicago or some other place in the US that are my relatives.

To look at, I am about as white as a person can be, unless I have spent too much time in the sun, in which case I am about as red as a white person can be. I don’t tan; I freckle at best. Pasty? Yeah, that’s me. But I, someone who benefits from white privilege as much as any white American, except for rich, white Americans, have African ancestors. How convenient for me. I can claim brotherhood with my fellow African Americans without having had to put up with all the discrimination of today and the lynchings of yesterday.

It’s one thing to know intellectually that probably most African Americans have white ancestors, and that a small percentage of people who identify as white have some African ancestors. When that intellectual possibility becomes real and personal, it’s different. It’s different when you realize that some of your own ancestors were almost certainly slaves and almost certainly suffered the inhuman treatment that Americans visited on their slaves. And, since my mother’s family originated in South Georgia, I can also be pretty sure that some of my ancestors were slave owners and were dealing out that inhuman treatment.

We Americans are so screwed up.

On a somewhat lighter note, part of my results included a long list of DNA relatives. They found 1132 DNA relatives. One was my nephew Thomas. They didn’t find my other nephew, presumably because he has not done the 23andMe DNA test. There were a lot of second cousins. Some shared family names with me, like Carnes, on my father’s side. One had a family name of Bethel, the name of my mother’s half brother. Many of my DNA relatives are located in Georgia, where my mother’s family lived, and Texas, where my paternal mother’s family lived. At least one was in Britain, which might come in handy if I ever manage to visit there (Hey cousin! Can I stay with you for a week or so?)

I wish I could talk to my brother about these results. When my brother sent me a summary of his results back in July 2017, he promised to send more. Unfortunately, he was not able to do that, so I don’t know any more details about his results.

I know none of my 1132 DNA relatives except my nephew. My mother’s sister did a lot of genealogical research years ago, but my father’s family history hits a dead end at his father on one side and his grandmother on the other side.

But even without knowing names, it’s moving to see the path from there to here. When I signed up with 23andMe, their web site warned that DNA testing can yield results that can be upsetting. These results don’t upset me, and I’m sure would not have upset my brother. I wonder, though, how some of the older generations might have reacted.