Please note as I write this I have deliberately not quoted anybody. I am not meaning to take a potshot at anyone or hold anyone's beliefs to ridicule. I am trying a different way of expressing my views about an ethnicity hunting focus to population genetics.
I have not taken a tribes exam.
I have been thinking about this ethnic identity thing for awhile. Those of you who have followed my posts know the ambivalence I have expressed concerning it and the fears I have concerning its place in the work of population genetics.
I would much rather we be comparing our markers with known environmental changes across time than pottery shards, amulets, burial practices, weaponry, and who killed who when. Although I am all for testing the deceased to ground any conclusions about the human journey. I pretty much think climate, diet, elevation, availability of resources, ways in which we made our living, etc. were and are far more significant and decisive in determining which changes in dna survive and prosper and which do not.
That said, ethnicity seems to be the big deal. Just look at all the posts.
So I have decided to decide and declare mine. I may have a tattoo made.
I have decided I am Ethiopian.
I arrived at this conclusion by these criteria: length of time in one general geographic location with appropriate continuity in customs for the longest period of time.
So, first I eliminated competing identities that just weren't competitive. I eliminated my mother's family altogether. T1b. Just too darn ubiquitous, infrequent, and mysterious to get a bead on anyone past 1825. I eliminated my father's Cornish. Only been there 370 years that I can document. I then eliminated the English because whether we came with the wool growers in the 14th century or the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in as early as 414 ce, well, that is only at most 1600 years. Even if that little theory about the Belgae or the tribe, the name of which escapes me, that inhabited and controlled Somerset before the Romans proves correct, we are still at a mere 2600-2700 years.
Ok, then there is the group known as the Saxonase. Not sure the Saxonase were in fact the same as the Saxon, but the Romans and Greeks kinda thought so; and hey, I have one of my higher STR concentrations (at over 1%) in Iran (the Saxonase were Western Iranian Steppe horsemen although no one is exactly sure which of the tribes they were). So, let's give that a whirl. But that at most is 1900-2000 years. Even if you stretch cultural definitions and continuity, oh, just a stretch and add it on to the Saxon period we are talking lest than 6,000 measly years.
Nothing of which I am aware comes close to the 11-15,000 estimated years spent in Ethiopia.
Moreover, the quest for ethnic identity is often described in terms as search for origins and a "homeland." Well if 11-15,000 years in one spot when our ancestors are believed to have first made their appearance as exactly like us doesn't qualify as origins and homeland, what does? Well, ok, maybe I should have opted for the San People and South Africa. Actually, that would be kinda symmetrical. The Afrikaners were Dutch and South Africa is about on the same level with Iran in STR match frequency. Maybe I should rethink this.
No. Wrong direction. Gotta count from an Ethopian beginning some 60,000 years ago. So I have decided. I am an Ethiopian.
My signature will reflect than from now on.
Sorry, my wild imagination running away with me again. 
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