Hey everyone,
I haven’t been researching my family for while because i kept hitting roadblocks.
Recently there was a discussion about my great grandmother’s biological father. Her mother was Aboriginal and her father was possibly one of 3 men. My uncle told me he was sure her father was a Chinese man because she was always teased about having an Asian look.
I thought, knowing it was a long shot, if Asian appeared on my DNA results it would hopefully give us an answer.
It didn’t appear on my results. So never mind, mystery not solved there.
A couple of other things did come up though that i would like some opinions on.
Previously it had been suggested that my 3xGgrandfather was Romani based on a couple of things on his convict record when he was transported to Australia. There was nothing definitive though. But now South Asian has appeared on my DNA test. I wasn’t looking for this answer when i did the test but now we’re thinking he probably was Romani (and i’d be thrilled if this was the case).
The main thing i would like some opinions on, though, is due to the fact there’s no DNA test for Aboriginal people, the best they can do for the ethnicity estimate is list a neighbouring group. In my case, this is Melanesian. I was expecting Melanesian to come up as a result knowing they would actually mean Aboriginal. However, my result said Papuan and Melanesian. Papuans are Melanesian so i’m wondering why it would list them both separately. Papuan showed as a higher percentage than Melanesian. To me this doesn’t make sense as i’d have thought Melanesian would be higher and Papuan as a more specific Melanesian group.
Does anyone have any idea why these two would list separately and why Papuan would have a higher percentage than Melanesian?
Or perhaps it doesn’t really matter because my Papuan/Melanesian result is really Aboriginal. I doubt that i have any Papuan ancestry due to the fact my Aboriginal family are from the South West of the Australian continent and Papua is to the North West of the continent, unless it’s from thousands of years ago when New Guinea island was still part of the Australian mainland, but it’s still a long way to travel. Of course, it’s possible but not likely.
