Family DNA, inside the #'s

[StringPeace]

Hello all...first time poster here.

I got my family (wife, daughter, me) Spit-Kits for Christmas...figure'd it be fun.  It was!  We've picked at each other, and all the usual stuff...and my bride is/was adopted, knowing very little of her background....so it was real cool for her.

My question, and i'm sure this has been covered in some fashion, ad nauseam...

I've got Native American in my family; specifically my dad's side...would've been my 4X GGrandfather.  I didn't know if any NA would show in my DNA...and sadly, it did not (I wanted it to).  BUT, my daughter had 1-2%.  My wife had none show up in her DNA profile.

What am i misunderstanding?  (and, yes she's my kid..  that's a standing joke with my buddies)

Thanks for any feedback.

StringPeace

 

[davidft]

Hi

As I recall there are problems showing Native American inheritance on DNA tests because put simply they do not have enough samples to compare them to, to draw meaningful conclusions. If you look around the internet you may find some more useful and up to date articles on this.
 
It would be good if they could work on this as my nephew has paternal grandparents who are reported to have Cherokee and Choctaw ancestors and it would be interesting to see what results a test gave when the tests were more responsive than they are now.

[hurworth]

If you received exactly the same proportion of DNA from all of your gtgtgtgt-grandparents you'd receive 1/128 th from each of them, which is less than 1%.  Amounts that small can be very difficult to determine.

[davidft]

I have just noticed you say that this NA inheritance is on your paternal line. If you have a direct male only line to your 4GGF and he was the one who was NA and you think his male line further back was NA too then it may be worth doing a yDNA test. The yDNA test tests the male only line and will give you the haplogroup for that line only. This could throw up something interesting. However remember that the theory that all NA's ancestors came via the land bridge with Asia is now disputed with credible work being done to show some came from Europe along the retreating ice mass at the end of the last ice age. Consequently you could find NAs with a haplogroup that links back to Europe. Again if you search the web there are articles on this.

[StringPeace]

Thanks for the replies...i really appreciate the feedback!

I looked over things again, and it was my 4th GGF, who may have been full NA (Cherokee is what were told as kids, born in 1796).  He did marry a woman who didn't appear to be NA...but honestly who knows at this point.  And, it wasn't' a direct male line...his daughter, my 3rd GGGM married my 3rd GGGF.  He certainly wasn't NA. 

I understand how "watered down" the line gets through generations of procreating.  But how my daughter has it 1-2% in her results, yet i do not....it's crazy (to me anyway).

I've read (not a great deal) about the difficulties in tracing NA DNA.  I've also read about the varying migration paths, and potential origins, and who may have came from what part of the world...the "Asian NA" vs the "Euro NA"...after a while it gets to be too much. 

I'm mostly Euro West and Ire/Scot/Wales, which isn't a huge surprise....my daughter and i are super-white (especially in Winter), and have the golden hair  .  Smaller percentages = Finland/NW Russia, Scandinavia, Iberian Peninsula, Euro South, Middle East, in this order.

 

[familydar]

Perhaps you and your wife both have a teeny tiny bit of NA, too small to be identified by the test, but your dau has inherited both and added together two teeny tiny bits are slightly less teeny tiny.  Just a thought....

Jane :-)

[StringPeace]

I thought about that...didn’t realize it was actually possible.

[familydar]

Not sure it is possible but all it takes these days is for three people to think it then it must be true