DNA Proof of Ancesty, Part 3 of 4

DNA PROOF of Ancestry, Part Three

This is part three of four. Please read the first two, followed by this one, and lastly the forth. They all go together. The first two are found here --
http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2017/08/controversy-of-fake-indians.html and
http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2017/08/cherokee-gestapo.html

and here is the forth -- 
http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2017/09/there-should-be-better-way.html

First I'd like to share some of my DNA results from gedmatch, as prepaired by someone who has performed literally hundreds of such results:

1. You are South African on chromosomes # 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, and 22. [You are significantly South African on chromosomes # 10 at 22M and on # 13 at 18-19M.]
2. You are SouthAmericanIndian on chromosomes # 4, 6, 9, 11, 15, 19, and 21. [ You are significantly SouthAmericanIndian on chromosomes # 4 at 130M and on # 11 at 7M.]
3. You are NorthAmericanIndian on all chromosomes EXCEPT # 18. [You are significantly NorthAmericanIndian on chromosome # 3 at 40M, on # 6 at 114-117M, and on # 16 at 55M.]
4. You are ArcticAmericanIndian on all chromosomes EXCEPT # 14, 16, and 22. [You are significantly ArcticAmericanIndian on chromosome # 1 at 213-214M.]
5. You are MesoAmericanIndian on all chromosomes EXCEPT # 11, 13, 16, 18, 21, and 22. [ You are significantly MesoAmericanIndian on chromosome # 2 at 147M and 150M.]

Those people who interrogated me last week concerning my American Indian ancestry made a point of telling not only that my DNA results weren’t the “Proof” that they are, but that those results were not even “evidence” for it.

They are mistaken. I could have responded off the cuff, but it carries more weight if it comes from an expert in the field.
Each point of EVIDENCE I showed them that wasn’t PROOF, they considered it to also be NOT EVIDENCE, which was wrong – IT WAS EVIDENCE! Had they said it was evidence, just not proof, I would have agreed with them 100%! That is what I have always maintained. But DNA results do NOT lie – These results are proof! These people said not only was it not proof, it wasn’t even evidence! They showed we have American Indian DNA on every chromosome.

I searched the internet and found the following:

www.Gedmatch.com had this page, which had a link here:
https://www.gedmatch.com/DNA_for_Dummies.php
which in turn brought me here:
https://sites.google.com/site/wheatonsurname/beginners-guide-to-genetic-genealogy
whch led me to the page below. I prefer this page to others because it is written so that anyone reading can understand it.

https://sites.google.com/site/wheatonsurname/beginners-guide-to-genetic-genealogy/lesson-7-atdna-ancestral-origins-part-1

atDNA ancestral breakdowns are done via special SNPs called AIMs or Ancestral Indicative Markers. These AIMs are markers that have a great deal of variation and are indicative of a place of origin or group of people. A series of AIM SNPs gives us an indication where someone's genetic material flowed from for a particular segment of DNA. Ancestry and FTDNA also make use of AIMs (each with their own algorithms) so the results may be different from different companies. There are two more players which you should be aware of. The first is GEDMATCH which hosts various different tools for "painting" your chromosomes under the heading "Admixture" and then "Ad-Mix Utilities." The other are offerings from a company called DNA Tribes. Hopefully these will be covered in a future lesson.

The basic premise is the same no matter where you test. These tools attempt to give you a breakdown of your ancestral origins. There are some important limitations and caveats. First, it is necessary to understand that your paper family tree and your DNA are not identical. Huh? Let's see why not. Let's go back to our first lesson and the Visual DNA Chart. Look at our 8 great grandparents across the top. Let us for the sake of discussion have each of these grandparents have a different ancestral origin.

"Great grandpa Blue" (paternal)  = 100% Polish
"Great grandma Yellow" (paternal)  = 100% English Colonial
"Great grandpa Green" (paternal)  = 100% Irish
"Great grandma Pink" (paternal) = 50% Irish 50% English Colonial
"Great grandpa Gray" (maternal)  = 50% African 50% English Colonial
"Great grandma Orange" (maternal)  = 50% Norwegian 50% Swedish
"Great grandpa Light blue" (maternal)  = 50% Native American 50% Portuguese
"Great grandma Salmon" (maternal)  = 100% Chinese

The estimated amount of DNA of the great grandchildren would be about 12.5% from each great grandparent, so our estimate would look like this:

25% English Colonial
18.75% Irish
12.5% Polish
12.5% Chinese
6.25% each of African, Native American, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish

However the DNA we inherit from each great grandparent is not equal and those great grandparents with more than one ancestry may give unequal shares of that ancestry to their children and then their children give more or less to their children and so forth. So in the DNA lottery you may have gotten 13% from your Chinese (salmon) great grandma but your half Native American and half Portuguese (lt blue) great grandpa may have only given you 12% of his DNA and not in equal portions so you may have only retained 3% of the Native American and the other 9% is Portuguese. This does not change who are great grandparents are. Our DNA only reflects what we win from each great grandparent in the DNA lottery. So in reality great grandchildren with the same parents might look like this:

Great grandchild “A”

28% English Colonial
22% Irish
11% Polish
10% Chinese
8% Norwegian
7% Swedish
6% African
4% Portuguese
4% Native American

Great grandchild “B”

24% English Colonial
20% Irish
11% Polish
12% Chinese
6% Norwegian
5% Swedish
8% African
5% Portuguese
1% Native American

Each of these great grandchildren has the same great grandparents but they did not inherit the same DNA. So given this example you can see that by the time great grandchild B passes their DNA to their children some may not reflect any discernible Native American. Another particular problem with Native American AIMs is that they have some of the same ancient origins as Far East DNA so sometimes a program is unable to know which is which and may report Native American as Asian or visa versa. Similar problems creep in with heavily admixed (mixed origin) countries or ethnicity.

In the beginning there were often only a few major categories represented by AIMs: European, Asian and African. As time goes on these categories get more specific: Northern European versus Southern European or North African versus Central Africa versus East Africa versus West Africa. In some cases algorithms have trouble discerning the difference between Scandinavian and British (such is the case with the current breakdowns at ANCESTRY). So all ancestral origins in their current state are estimates of your background based on your AIMs. Since these represent an even smaller subset of your total genome you need to use these as indicators rather than hard and fast percentages.
ANCESTRY
Ancestry now provides the most extensive ancestral breakdown in its new Genetic Ethnic Estimate. I suggest looking at the links under additional resources for a more thorough exploration. Each of the screenshots posted here can be clicked on for a larger view. The first page gives an overall view.
There are two more more Ancestral Origins tools. They are GEDMATCH's Admixture tool, and products from DNA Tribes geographical analysis. An excellent Blog post 2015 by TL Dixon on combining Admixture with Chromosome painting here . 

http://www.rootsandrecombinantdna.com/2015/05/ethnicity-chromosome-mapping.html

http://www.rootsandrecombinantdna.com/p/what-are-your-favorite-links-tools.html

After I shared this information from that website, a member of this group thought he needed to tell me how “blood quantum” worked. However this website was talking about DNA we inherit from out ancestors, which is not “blood quantum. He said (below);  “Vance, this is how BQ works. Great grandpa blue is full polish. Great grandma yellow is full English. They will produce Grandparent A who is 1/2 Polish and 1/2 English. Great grandpa green is full Irish and great grandma pink is 1/2 Irish and 1/2 English. They will produce Grandparent B who is 3/4 Irish and 1/4 English. These grandparents will produce parent A who is 1/4 Polish, 3/8 Irish and 3/8 English.

“Great grandpa gray is 1/2 African and 1/2 English. Great grandma Orange is 1/2 Norwegian and 1/2 Swedish. They will produce grand parent C who is 1/4 African, 1/4 English, 1/4 Norwegian, and 1/4 Swedish. Great Grandpa light Blue is 1/2 Native American and 1/2 Portuguese. Great grandma Salmon is full Chinese. They will produce grandparent D who is 1/4 Native American, 1/4 Portuguese, and 1/2 Chinese. These grandparents will produce parent B who would be 1/4 Chinese, 1/8 Native American, 1/8 Portuguese, 1/8 African, 1/8 English, 1/8 Norwegian, 1/8 Swedish.
“The children of parent A and Parent B will be 1/4 English, 1/8 Chinese, 3/16 Irish, 1/8 Polish, 1/16 Native American, 1/16 Portuguese, 1/16 African, 1/16 Norwegian, and 1/16 Swedish.

“With every person's DNA by a random amount of each parent's DNA and considering that a few of the countries you listed are also countries that also have the markers that are among those considered to be Native American, it is possible for a child of the parent to DNA test with greater than the Native American great grandparent. It is also for a possible for a child to test with no Native American DNA. It depends on the luck of the draw what DNA the people get.”

Here is my response. It is expected that percentage of DNA will vary from values based on “blood quantum" as you describe it. The two will vary at a predictable rate. Thus anyone expecting an exact DNA match, I. e. -- 25%, 12.5%, 3.125% et cetera – will be greatly disappointed. We obtain "about half" of our "X" chromosomal DNA from each parent. However in reality we might get 60% from one parent and 40% from the other. This will occur within the boundary of known parameters based on probability theory and the variance found in found in the data. This is a measure of the difference between experimental results, and the results one might expect. In theory, we expect 1/2, 1/4th, 1/8th, et cetera. But in practice, those values are only approximately reliable.

We don't always inherit the same percentage of DNA that we should from each ancestor. Females get 2 pairs of "x" chromosomes whereas males get 1 "x" and 1 "y". Males get the "y" chromosome and accompanying DNA exclusively from the father. For me, that leaves only the single "x" chromosome. And the same was true for my father. So I have 1/4th of the "x" chromosomes" of a female daughter of a female of the same generation. Through the "x" chromosome, we inherit approximately half of our genes from our mother and half from the father. So it would be rare that we would inherit EXACTLY 25% of our "x" chromosomes from a grandparent -- it will vary more than we might think from the expected value. 

Yes there are some DNA strands that are similar throughout all races and nations. But geneticists know which ones those are. They are not the ones used in these tests. American Indians share more with Siberians than with others, and this is made proven by these results. Every year these tests get better and better. With each passing year the genetic testing gets more accurate than the previous year, as more data pours in. By getting only 1 set of "x" chromosomes males variance should be > females on the average, but knowing the variance will compensate for that. differential.

About State Recognition

Here is how the state of Tennessee sees recognition:

STATE   OF   TENNESSEE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL PO BOX 20207 NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE 37202
February 27, 2007
Opinion No. 07-21
State of Tennessee’s Authority to Recognize Indian Tribes
QUESTION
Does the State of Tennessee have authority to recognize Indian tribes, or is that authority solely held by the federal government?
OPINION
The State of Tennessee has authority to recognize Indian tribes.
ANALYSIS
In 2003, the Legislature reestablished the Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs (Commission).  As part of its powers and duties, the Commission must “[e]stablish appropriate procedures to provide for legal recognition by the state of presently unrecognized tribes, nations, groups, communities or individuals, and to provide for official state recognition by the commission of such.”  Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-34-103(6) (2003).  In 2006, the Commission initiated rulemaking to establish Tennessee’s recognition criteria and procedure.  
The United States Constitution grants Congress the authority “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”  U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3.  This provision encompasses what is commonly known as the “Indian Commerce Clause.” While the United States Supreme Court has described Congress’ power under the Indian Commerce Clause as “plenary and exclusive,” United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193, 200, 202, 124 S.Ct. 1628, 158 L.Ed.2d 420 (2004); Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes of Yakima Nation, 439 U.S. 463, 470-1, 99 S.Ct. 740, 58 L.Ed.2d 740 (1978), the Court has also said that the States retain some limited authority over Indian commerce and Indian tribes.   See Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 62, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed. 252 (1996).  As the Court explained in Seminole Tribe of Florida: 
[O]ur inquiry is limited to determining whether the Indian Commerce Clause, like the Interstate Commerce Clause, is a grant of authority to the Federal Government at the expense of the States. The answer to that question is obvious. If anything, the Indian Commerce Clause accomplishes a greater transfer of power from the States to the Federal Government than does the Interstate Commerce Clause. This is clear
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enough from the fact that the States still exercise some authority over interstate trade but have been divested of virtually all authority over Indian commerce and Indian tribes.   
Id. at 62 (emphasis added).  The federal government’s authority over Indian tribes is undeniably broad but it is not absolute or all-encompassing.  The federal government has not divested states of their power to recognize Indian tribes.
Congress has acknowledged that state governments have the authority to recognize Indian tribes.  Congress created a cause of action for the misrepresentation of goods as Indian produced and defined “Indian tribes” to include “any Indian group that has been formally recognized as an Indian tribe by a State legislature or by a State commission or similar organization legislatively vested with State tribal recognition authority”  25 U.S.C.A. § 305e(d) (2000).  Tennessee’s General Assembly provided the Commission with the authority to recognize tribes under Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-34103(6).  A tribe recognized by the State of Tennessee would be able to bring a lawsuit against a person for offering a good in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced pursuant to 25 U.S.C.A. §305e (2000).
Federal regulations make benefits available to state-recognized tribes.  For example, the Department of Health and Human Services provides direct funding for Community Services Block Grants for “organized groups of Indians that the State in which they reside has determined are Indian tribes. An organized group of Indians is eligible for direct funding based on State recognition if the State has expressly determined that the group is an Indian tribe.”  45 C.F.R. § 96.44(b) (2006); see also 45 C.F.R. § 96.48(c) (2006) (Community Services Block Grants for low-income home energy assistance includes state-recognized tribes as eligible participants).  The Department of Health and Human Services also administers the Native American Programs that promote economic and social self-sufficiency for Native Americans and defines an “American Indian or Indian” as “ any individual who is a member or a descendant of a member of a North American tribe, band, Pueblo or other organized group of native people who are indigenous to the Continental United States, or who otherwise have a special relationship with the United States or a State through treaty, agreement, or some other form of recognition.”  45 C.F.R. § 1336.10 (2006).  
States have the authority to recognize Indian tribes as long as there is no conflict with federal laws.  There is no conflict between Tennessee’s recognition law and federal laws.  Currently, Tennessee laws do not provide any direct benefits to Indian tribes that are recognized by the State pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-34-103(6).  They do provide benefits to Indian individuals by making them eligible to receive scholarships, grants, or any other benefits afforded to minorities from the University of Tennessee system, the board of regents system, or any Tennessee school system.  Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-34-201 (1994).  The statute defines “Native American” as “an individual recognized as Native American by a federally recognized tribe or a state.”  Id.  As discussed, supra, federal programs do provide benefits to Indian tribes recognized by states. 
The federal government does not have the sole right to recognize Indian tribes.  Congress has acknowledged that states have the power to recognize Indian tribes by extending benefits and
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rights to state-recognized tribes.  The State of Tennessee has the authority to recognize Indian tribes, so as long as there is no conflict with federal laws.  

ROBERT E. COOPER, JR. Attorney General and Reporter
MICHAEL E. MOORE Solicitor General
SOHNIA W. HONG Senior Counsel
Requested by:
Michael L. Kernell House of Representatives Suite 38, Legislative Plaza Nashville, TN 37243-0193

Something about Alabama's laws --
http://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/2015/title-41/chapter-9/article-26/

CONCLUSION

I so hated the need to write this! I KNOW many probably most – enrolled Cherokee realize so many people never signed up for Dawes. I post this only to make them know that there is a hate group out there. Had they limited themselves to hating on and lying about others -- who knows, I might have been foolish enough to have joined with them. Who knows, hmmm? There are a lot of fakes though. That is what makes it so hard for me to decide to support the State Recognized Tribes! But they DO fulfill a need for people whose tribe won't even acknowledge that they exist.