I was literally just looking at that article before I came over here!
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Sooo, my brother got an Ancestry.com DNA test and the Ethnicity Estimate is in, as follows:
Scotland - 35 percent
England and Northwestern Europe - 27 percent
Ireland - 25 percent
Norway - 6 percent
Germanic Europe - 3 percent
France - 3 percent
Cameroon, Congo & Western Bantu Peoples - 1 percent.
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Thatās very common for white people whose family is originally from the various British countries and have been in the U.S. for centuries.
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Thereās a lot to discover about your family heritage, if heās interested. At Ancestry, heāll be able to research records and family trees as well as see who he matches along that line.
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Actually, my people on my dadās side didnāt get here until the 19th century; but on Momās, her dadās line - Carpenter surname, so super-common - was in New England in the 1700s.
But this kills the legend that my Grandma Carpenter was half-Native American. And I thought weād have wayyyyyy more French. But the Scots and the French were friendly, so maybe the latter just got blended in? Iām also weirded out by the low Germanic content because my dadās momās dad was 1st-generation American from German stock, born in Passaic, NJ (I think, not sure about the city).
LOL, I still have my momās braid - she had beautiful hair. Someday I could have it tested, eh?
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You can imagine how common this was as a way to explain darker skin, and how many DNA testers now realize that their family maintained the lie for generations.
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A plucked hair can be tested but cut hair doesnāt have genetic material. Dandruff may be an exception.
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Not yet, really. Testing hair is either too expensive or too inconclusive or both.
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Possibly, but itās also true that in general, these tests canāt really pinpoint ancestral location too specifically because certain areas of the world have been more mobile and interconnected than others. France and Britain? Constant back and forth, and thus lots of genetic combination.
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Oh darn!
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Oh darnit!
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This site claims that mitochondrial dna can be recovered, but you likely already have that.
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It was more of a hair thing, than a skin thing. The hair at the base of her neck stayed dark throughout her life. And she was adopted, from Canada, but she did know her dad; she just didnāt know that he WAS her dad until much later on. Her maiden name was Boughner.
And Ancestry wonāt tell us why was she and her sister put up for adoption. I donāt think my mom ever told me. Did my great-grandpa have an affair and got some woman in Ottawa pregnant to whom he wasnāt married? Twice, at that? There is so much Iāll never know because all my mom and her brothers and sisters are DEAD and canāt tell me! Of course, Iād get nine different versions, but that would be part of the fun!
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Figuring things like this out requires time and a lot of dogged research. As youāve already learned, you canāt trust family lore until it has been confirmed by cold hard facts like DNA. If you want to PM me I can give you some pointers on what he should look for in his results.
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Thanks for the offer. Heās been on their site for a while, so Iām guessing he already has a clue.
He likes to delve into this sort of thing on his own. BUT, if he asks me for help, I will ask you, howzat? 
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Germany, ahem, central Yurp, got invaded a lot. More successfully than they like to hagriographize.
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All them Teuts runninā around, Teutinā it up!
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We have that legend in my family too, itās super-common. On the one hand, my grandparents did grow up in the Appalachians right next to Cherokee territory, so maybe one of the great-grandmas was - however, between the debunking of the whole āCherokee Princessā legend, and the fact that itās never a guy (like never āyour Great-Grandpa was a Cherokeeā, itās always the woman), I just write it off as plausible but unlikely.
Iām not going to get my DNA logged to find out though. I donāt think thatās too paranoid having seen what happens when people give their personal information to companies.
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Our family has one of those also, sort of. A great-great-great maternal grandmother is said to have been native, but all we have (all my aunt, the genealogist, has) is her name, which is unpronounceable as written. There is no record of which tribe or anything like that.
Given the location, Mississippi, I feel that itās entirely possible, even likely, that this was a way of covering up black heritage. Part of the reason I think that is my grandmotherās maiden surname is one which Iāve seen more often as a name for black people than for white people (outside of that one Mississippi town where her extended family still lives).
I also am far too paranoid to submit my DNA to one of those companies. My brother in law wanted to have himself, my sister and my nieces tested, so that ship might have already sailed, I donno.
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My dad did a lot of genealogy when he was retired. Weāre descended from all the peoples in the UK plus Northern Europe, so I see no point in getting DNA testing. Of course, it may turn up something surprising like Polynesian or something, but I image it will also say āpositive for HUMANā which is all thatās really important. /high horse
Though I do secretly feel a bond with Scotland, having once waded in Loch Ness as a small kid.
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