Author Topic: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics  (Read 37972 times)

Offline E.P. Grondine

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    • Man and Impact in the Americas
Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #15 on: July 23, 2008, 03:30:54 am »
Hi AnnOminous -

It seems I did not make myself clear, as you're making an assertion here that has no basis in fact.  I don't know if I'm expressing myself as best I can here, but these are the worlds I want to use in this public space. Living tradition keepers usually speak with me when we meet, and we usually enjoy our talks. This was surprising to me at first, but no longer is. My experience has also been that my book "Man and Impact in the Americas" usually exposes frauds and wannabes almost instantly, and several of them have later shown up mentioned here at NAFPS.  I was also surprised by this at first, but I no longer am.

The plain fact is that is the east, between the plagues and the conquest, for some peoples nearly all or all of the Tradition Keepers of some peoples (and by this I mean those specifically chosen and trained to do so) died. Those who are tradition keepers now (and here I am speaking both to history and religion, and again, in the east only) become so often due to rare family teaching, and then many years of searching and study with elders and others who preserved other parts of either history or religion.

Continuing further into the past, the impacts that killed the mammoth also killed large percentages of the populations, including apparently the Tradition Keepers proper, and this may explain why most of the First Peoples teachings appear to start with the holocene start impacts.

I hope this clears things up a little for you.

Paselo

It is good to know that you come back here to read as that is  indicative of a willingness to learn, a desire for truth, and an openness to admitting fallibility. I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping you further develop those qualities.  To even suggest, never mind attempt to state as fact, that tradition keepers are dead and gone speaks to me of a wealth of ignorance and it is of little surprise that knowledge holders are unwilling to speak to you.  I think they set a good example for me to follow as well.


Offline wolfhawaii

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Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #16 on: July 23, 2008, 06:30:37 am »
E.P. Grondine, could you please tell us again how we may obtain a copy of your book? Thank you.

Offline E.P. Grondine

  • Posts: 401
    • Man and Impact in the Americas
Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #17 on: July 23, 2008, 02:56:15 pm »
Hi WolfHawaii -

While my book is available through amazon, I think that for NAFPS participants, the way I want to do the trade is to write to me at epgrondine@yahoo.com, and I will send you the particulars. This is so I can get a personally dedicated copy to you.

My expose of the Ancient American-Nu Age confusion and how it all came about is available for free by writing me at the same address. You can read Educated Indian's revue of it here at NAFPS. If it is not the best defensive tool against this nonsense available, it is certainly one of the better ones.











Offline BlackWolf

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Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #18 on: January 25, 2010, 04:31:25 am »
Quote
Probably it isn't that anyone lied about this . Family stories often get told about noteworthy relatives and over the generations the exact relationship to this noteworthy
person gets confused . I think often it happens that the story that was originally about the marriage of the cousin of an Uncle's wife , gets changed into a story about "someone in the family, somewhere back there ", and that gets interpreted as being a story about a grgrgr grandparent.
However , based on the results that are posted in the above link , it would seem that the very large majority of these old family stories claiming an Indian grgrgrandma, are just not true. People might want to stop and seriously consider that , before claiming to be ndn and getting all upset about the lost sovreignty of an invisible tribe , based on nothing but a collection of old family stories , circulating in the community .

We Cherokees have always knows that these stories were just that..... "stories". 

Quote
Unfortunantly , many people are trying to use these often innaccurate tests, as a basis for claiming a Native identity and rights .

I know a few people who actually travel around powows as performers.  There is one in particular who actually carries his DNA test with him which he beleives is proof. 


Offline Don Naconna

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Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #19 on: January 25, 2010, 04:36:31 am »
DNA is not going to give you tribal information. No tribe accepts DNA as proof for enrollment. If they did there would be a lot more enrolled Indians in the states. Its about money, its all about money thats whty rolls get closed.

Offline BlackWolf

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Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #20 on: January 25, 2010, 04:44:22 am »
Just wanted to add something Moma_Porcupine,

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=2427.0

Your right when you give the analogy about the confusion of maybe someone having a ggg Uncle who was married to a Cherokee as opposed to their direct line.  But there's a little more to it then that. I've reposted this from the other thread because it explains why some people may beleive they have American Indian heritage. Some of the post is off topic, but its important because it ties into your DNA research.  Your research however does have me rethinking about what I said about the fact that there are many people thinking they are Cherokee, when in actuallity they are descended form other tribes. Thats worthy of some more invistagation. Maybe this number is not even that high either. There's also a lot of people who had ancestors who intruded on Cherokee land now claiming to be Cherokee. This is known because a large number of people who thought they were Cherokee are now finding their ancestors on the Rejectee list of the Dawes Rolls.  

This is my post from the other thread.

Moma_porcupine,

You hit it right on the nail. You pretty much summed it up.   I don't know the exact numbers of people who claim Cherokee heritage, but it’s probably close to a million, (maybe more).  I think one of the censuses alone some years back showed it was over 500,000.  And that’s just those reporting it on the census.  If anyone here has been in the Southeast, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, etc., then they would know that there are literally places you can go, where at least half of the population (excluding immigrants) says that they are part Cherokee.  People can test this themselves if they are ever in the South East.  And it may not be as pronounced as it is in the South East, but you can go virtually anywhere in this country and find people who claim Cherokee ancestry.  So, you have about 320,000 enrolled Cherokees give or take a few.  (And keep in mind that the Cherokee Nation does not have a minimum BQ requirement).  And, of the rest that claim Cherokee heritage and can’t prove it, only a small percentage would actually have Cherokee heritage, and there are many complicated reasons for this.

I’m not going to say that these people are lying.  (Although some are)  For the most part, these people truly believe it.  And if my grandma told me that I was of a certain heritage, then I’m sure I’m not going to question it either.  

Back in the 1800’s, and early 1900’s, the term “Cherokee” was actually just a generic term for Indian.  Not only was it a generic term for Indian, but it was also a generic term for people of”black African American” and “white ancestry”.  (Mulattos).  The term “Blackfoot/Cherokee” is just one example of this.  This may explain some people’s stories of grandparents with dark skin.


Moma_Porcupine said

Quote
What is really striking, is although there is a few people who found a previously unheard of African matrilineal line, I have yet to see one person who was not adopted , report a previously unheard of indigenous matrilineal line!!!!

To complicate matters even worse, whites who had maybe just the slightest contact with Cherokees back in the 1800’s, now have ancestors who today claim Cherokee ancestry.  (Their ancestor for example may have been a “white trader” who lived on or near Cherokee territory” Also keep in mind that for the most part, the Cherokees integrated the whites, and not the other way around.  That’s why on the Dawes Roll, you have Cherokees with BQ’s of 1/32.  It was mostly white men at the time that had relations with Cherokee women as opposed to “Cherokee men” with “white women”.  It was more socially acceptable by whites for their men to take Indian women than for “white women” to take Indian men.  This has a lot to do with the racism of the time.  And, at the same time, Cherokee society was based on the clan system which was passed on through the woman.  So the children in the 1700’s and 1800’s, regardless of physical appearance or having a white father, would be (in most cases) raised as Cherokees and not as whites. This is just a general statement, as no one can say that there were not cases of mixed bloods who did integrate into the surrounding population, nor that there was the occasional case of the white women marrying the Cherokee man as there probably were some, but it was only a small minority at the time.  

There has been talk before on this site about the Dawes Rolls.  There were about 100,000 that were enrolled in Dawes.  What’s less know, is that there were about 300,000 who tried to get on the rolls but where denied. The reason for this was because they wanted allotments.  So, it would be highly unlikely that Cherokees by blood in Oklahoma would elect not to sign up for Dawes.  Yet, I hear all the time, from people in Oklahoma or that have family from Oklahoma and the surrounding states, that their ancestors ”didn’t sign the rolls” or “hid out”, etc.  I’m not saying that there were not cases like this; just that it was a very, very small minority of people.  So you have a situation today, where the descendents of “white intruders” who tried to get on Dawes, but were denied because they WHERE NOT Cherokee and COULD NOT PROVE that they were Cherokee, now claim to be undocumented Cherokees.  If you really dig deep enough into this whole issue, then you can see why it’s such an emotionally charged issue for some Cherokees.  Especially for those that know the history.  So for those that only see this as an issue of “distant descendents” who are not recognized are really missing seeing the “BIG PICTURE”

Offline BlackWolf

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Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #21 on: January 25, 2010, 04:48:54 am »
Don Naconna
Quote
DNA is not going to give you tribal information. No tribe accepts DNA as proof for enrollment. If they did there would be a lot more enrolled Indians in the states. Its about money, its all about money thats whty rolls get closed.


Nope Don, your wrong. You should read this whole thread from top to bottom and you will get the bigger picture.  Most people who claim American Indian heritage probably aren't.

Offline Moma_porcupine

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Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #22 on: January 25, 2010, 04:31:09 pm »
I've edited my first post and the third. In the first post i have put a link to the image that is now unavailable, and in reply # 3 I have put a link to archived page advertising DNA tests as a way of obtaining tribal membership and access to casinos and oil wells which I did a a spoof on ...

edited to add

The link below is also interesting, because besides lots more people reporting their family story grandma was Indian doesn't seem to be supported by their mtDNA result, and practically none who seem t be saying they have a Amerindian haplotype from a long forgotten Native ancestor, it lets you do a search of haploytypes by area, so you can do a search on the mtDNa haplotypes A B C D which are often considered proof of either a European or Amerindian maternal line.

As you can see people do report the haplotypes being found in people who originated in Europe, though I think a closer examination of the little mutations called HVR 1 and HVR 2 differeneces make it possible to guess there is a 50 /50 chance two people shared a common ancestor between 1300- 700 years ago .

So presumably someone with the same mutations as someone known to have a Amerindian native line probably had ONE common ancestor somewhere back there who originated on this continent.

But just finding a haplotype which is commonly found in Amerindian people does not in itself prove the ONE ancestor had an Amerindian origin... 

http://www.mitosearch.org/haplosearch_start.asp?uid=

I think what these mtDNa results show is that though there was a lot of mixing, the people who were mixed in North America , at least in the SE , were generally were not welcome in non native society , and pretty much everyone who had any Native blood really was rounded up and sent to OKlahoma.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2010, 05:22:04 pm by Moma_porcupine »

Offline BlackWolf

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Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #23 on: January 25, 2010, 06:19:10 pm »
Quote
I think what these mtDNa results show is that though there was a lot of mixing, the people who were mixed in North America , at least in the SE , were generally were not welcome in non native society , and pretty much everyone who had any Native blood really was rounded up and sent to OKlahoma.

Very good point.  While the Cherokee weren't concerned with physical apperance, it was more based on the clan system and blood lines.  White society was exactly the opposite.  You wouldn't be welcome in a great number of places in the SE if it was knows you were a mixed blood Indian.  It wasn't cool back then.  So really you had white society rejecting these people, while at the same time, Indian Nations who for the most part didn't have the concept of racial appearence linked with whether one was accepted or not.  If you were Cherokee by blood then you would have been intergrated with the Cherokees. 

The Chief of the Cherokee Nation John Ross during the Trail of Tears makes my point.  He was 1/8 by blood and could probably pass for a white man on the street.  So there would'nt really have been many cases of mixed bloods intergrating with the whites.  The opposite occured actually.  So then who are all these people with gggg grandmas who were Cherokee.  And the answer is that "We know exactly who these people are".  Most of these people are citizens of the Cherokee Nation today.  There is no secret as to who these people are.  Anyone can look at the census before and after the Trail of Tears and it become clear that many citizens of the Cherokee Nation were mixed bloods who not only were raised as Cherokees but walked the Trail of Tears with them.  So I seroiusly doubt that there was a significant number of mixed bloods that left the cherokee nation that decided to make a fresh start in the white world.  Not that it didn't happen back then, just that it wasn't the norm, and that the world view of a mixed blood Cherokee at the time would be Cherokee.  Even the mixed blood Cherokees that spoke English and took on the habits of the local Southerners would still have identified as Cherokees. 

Offline BlackWolf

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Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #24 on: January 28, 2010, 11:08:39 pm »
Quote
Many of the people included in this count, traced their matrilineal branch of the family tree back to the early colonization of America . The majority of these early families seemed to track back to the states of Kentucky , Vermont, Virgina , North Carolina , South Carolina , Arkansas , Louisiana , Mississippi , Ohio, Illinois , Missouri ,Tennessee , Alabama , Texas and Oklahoma .

In other words most these people descend from early colonial families who lived in the same areas where people often claim the Cherokee or other tribes misplaced a bunch of their relatives , and these Indian ancestors were then supposedly forced to hide and intermarry with the local non native population .


http://www.tngennet.org/cherokee_by_blood/chapman.htm

I"ve listed the Chapman Roll of 1851.  It was taken after the Trail of Tears (1838).  There were about a 1,000 Cherokees that stayed behind in the East to later form the Eastern Band.  That history is pretty well documented.  But whats not so well known is that many Cherokees that did not walk the Trail of Tears and weren't rounded up and were not part of the orginal 1,000 in NC later joined up with the Easten Band.  I don't know exact numbers but about 2/3 of the Eastern Band was composed of these Cherokees. (meaning not part of the orginal 1,000)  So we have to keep in mind that many that weren't rounded up and sent to Oklahoma would have eventually later became part of the EB.  This Roll gives you an idea of what was going on in the East after the Trail of Tears. 

Offline BlackWolf

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Re: DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
« Reply #25 on: August 09, 2010, 06:13:52 pm »

This is another article that explains why "Genetic Markers are not a Valid Test of Native Identity"

http://www.ipcb.org/publications/briefing_papers/files/identity.html



"Genetic "Markers"- Not a Valid Test of Native Identity
By Jonathan Marks and Brett Lee Shelton

Across the country, there is currently a lot of interest in the prospects of using genetics to determine whether somebody is really Native American. This interest has arisen in many contexts‚from determining whether ancient remains are Native American for purposes of repatriation to groups of people who are seeking recognition as an Indian tribe by the United States government, to individuals who think they might have American Indian ancestry and would like to find a way to “prove” it. There are even several companies that claim to be able to help people determine their Native American heritage with genetic analysis. In the notorious case of “Kennewick Man”, geneticists were charged with the impossible task of identifying him racially and tribally, and were of course unsuccessful, in spite of having destroyed some of the remains to do the tests.

But there are problems with using genetics to determine whether or not one has Native American ancestry, and/or alternatively to determine tribal membership. The most obvious problem is that being Native American is a question of politics and culture, not biology‚one is Native American if one is recognized by a tribe as being a member. And one is not necessarily a member of a tribe simply because one has Native American ancestors. Another problem is that genetic analysis, and some of the processes involved, can be problematic for indigenous people in terms of their own cultural knowledge. Put simply, there are things involved in genetic analysis that some indigenous cultures consider violations of their principles or values.

But the point that is frequently lost in the debate about using genetic analysis to determine whether one is Native American is that the genetic analysis itself is not conclusive, even on strictly scientific terms. This article will explain the scientific shortcomings of trying to use genetic analysis to prove native identity.Å It is limited to the scientific shortcomings, but the real legal, political, social, and moral issues should also not be ignored.

The Theory: Native American Genetic Markers
First, an explanation of the theory behind using genetics to determine Native American identity is in order. Scientists have found certain variations, or “markers” in human genes that they call Native American markers because they believe all “original” Native Americans had these genetic traits. The theory is that, if a person has one of these markers, certain ancestors of the person must have been Native American.

The markers are principally analyzed in two locations in people's genes‚ in their mitochondrial DNA and on the Y-chromosome. On the mitochondrial DNA, there are a total of five different ÒhaplotypesÓ, called A, B, C, D, and X, which areincreasingly called “Native American markers,” and are believed to be a genetic signature of the founding ancestors.ÅÅ As for the Y-chromosome, there are two primary lineages or “haplogroups” that are seen in modern Native American groups, called M3 and M45. Some scientists maintain that up to 95% of all Native American Y-chromosomes are from these two groups (with the rest being from either Asian lineages or non-native haplogroups). It must be pointed out that none of these markers is exclusive to Native American populations‚all can be found in other populations around the world. They simply occur with more frequency in Native American populations.

Y-chromosome and mtDNA markers are the most commonly used genetic markers used for analysis of Native American ancestry. But how does testing for these genes work?

Mitochondrial Analysis for Native American Marker Genes
Both females and males inherit their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) only from their mother. This line of biological inheritance, therefore, stops with each male. That means that, if you think of your 4 great-grandmothers, you and all your brothers and sisters have inherited your mtDNA only from your maternal grandmother's mother. Your other 3 great-grandmothers and your 4 great-grandfathers have contributed none of your mtDNA. If you are female, you and your sisters will, in turn, transmit that great-grandmotherªs mtDNA to all your children, but your brothers won't transmit it to their children.Å In other words, your mtDNA isidenticalto that of your mother's mother's mother, but does not constitute a biological line of descent from your other 7 great-grandparents. If that great-grandmother happened to have the genetic variations that have been labeled as either A, B, C, D, or X, then by having the same mtDNA yourself, you will have inherited a ÒNative AmericanÓ mtDNA marker.

Of course, if all your other great grandparents were Native American, and your motherªs motherªs mother was non-Indian, then you will not likely have one of the “Native American” mtDNA haplotypes. So, 7 of your 8 great-grandparents may be Indian, and yet you would not be identified as Indian from this test. Moreover, it really goes farther than that, since the mtDNA only comes from the purely maternal line. If you go back two more generations, 31 of your 32 great-great-great grandparents could be Indian. Yet you could not be identified as Native American using this test if that one of your 16 (great-great-great) grandmothers who is part of your female lineage was not Native American (or more specifically if her mother did not have one of the five haplotypes called “Native American.”) Keep going back further, and still only a single one of your female ancestors is detectable, while the number of ancestors invisible to this test increases enormously.

Y-Chromosome Analysis for Native American Markers
Males inherit a close copy of their Y-chromosome from their fathers. Females do not have a Y-chromosome. So males could also be tested for ÒNative American markersÓ on their Y-chromosome, but the analysis has similar limitations as testing mtDNA. Here again, the test only traces one line of ancestry, and misses most of the subjects' ancestry because the vast majority of the ancestors are invisible to the test. If a man has 15 Native American great-great-grandparents, but his father's father's father's father was non-Indian, that person will not appear to be Native American under this test. So, almost 94% of that person's genetic inheritance may be from Native Americans, but under this test he may be identified as “non-Indian”.Å And, like mtDNA analysis using the purely maternal line, using Y-chromosome analysis to determine Native American ancestry ignores a greatly increasing percentage of a person's ancestry as you go more generations into the past with the analysis.

The Tests Yield False Negatives
The discussions of mitochondrial and Y-chromosome testing for Native ancestry have already indicated that it is very easy to get a false negative using these tests-- there is a very high chance of someone having a significant amount of their ancestry being Native American, and yet appearing to be non-Native according to the test. All it takes is one non-Native person located in the proper position in a personªs ancestry.Å A womanªs motherªs grandmother could be non-Indian, and all her 7 other great grandparents Indian, and the test will still show the woman as non-Indian.

There is another possibility of false negatives from these types of tests as well. This other type of false negative would arise if some Native American people simply do not have one or more of the ”Native American” markers. Scientists have not tested all native people, so they do not know for sure that Native Americans only have the markers they have identified, if their maternal or paternal bloodline does not include a non-Indian.Å Real peoples are not bound by the geneticistªs ideal of purity.ÅThe scientists already admit to some of this uncertainty when they estimate that, for example, 95% of Native American men without a known non-Native in their purely paternal line (fatherªs fatherªs father, and so on) have one of the two ÒNative AmericanÓ variations they have identified. This implies that at least 5% of the men can have other genetic markers.

The Tests Also Yield False Positives
Some of the haplotypes attributed to Native Americans are also found in people from other parts of the world.Å A, B, C, and D are found in North Asia, and X is found in southern Europe and Turkey. In fact, the principal marker of haplotype B is called the "9 base pair deletion," and is found in some Japanese and almost all Samoans. Could they then be classified as genetically Native American?Å These tests cannot even establish with certainty that, for example, someoneªs motherªs motherªs mother was Native American‚they can at best establish a certain probability that this was the case.

Tribes Do Not Differ From One Another In Ways That Geneticists Can Detect
Another issue is the widespread belief that genetics can help determine specific tribal affinities of either living or ancient people.Å This is quite simply false.Å Neighboring tribes have long-standing complex relationships involving intermarriage, raiding, adoption, splitting, and joining.Å These social historical forces insure that there cannot be any clear-cut genetic variants differentiating all the members of one tribe from those of nearby tribes.ÅÅ At most, one can identify slight differences in the proportions of certain genetic variations in each group, but those do not permit specific individuals to be assigned to particular groups.

CONCLUSION
The concept of genetic testing to prove Native American ancestry is one that is discussed more frequently in recent times, but there are many problems with the idea.Å Perhaps foremost of these problems is that to make a genetic test the arbiter of whether someone is Native American or not is to give up tribal sovereign ability to determine membership and relations.Å But even taken on their own scientific terms, the tests cannot do much to identify who is and who is not Native American. This is because they yield many false negatives and false positives (they readily misidentify non-Native people as Native, and misidentify Native people as non-Native), and the positive results they do yield at best are only probabilities, not certainties.Å If these were medical diagnostic tests, they would never be approved or adopted.

But the most important argument against this type of testing to establish tribal affiliations is that biology (and genetics) track just part of our tribal inheritance. These DNA tests treat ÒNative American biology as though all Indians were essentially the same. But in reality, our traditions make us who we are, not just our biology."