Help, Native American Question

[plemon]

Hello.
I'm new here. After numerous questions from friends, teachers, coaches, neighbors on my son's heritage, I want to find out what is in his bloodline. He constantly gets questioned from kids at school and their parents. His biological father isn't in the picture, so I don't know anything about his heritage. I'm thinking Native American because I can remember a relative having Indian Statues everywhere. But, some kids call him Mexican and Asian. Long story short, where do I begin? My hunch still leans toward Native American because of his physical characteristics. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, his hair isn't blonde. He had some highlights in his hair from the salon.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

You can test his Y-DNA to find out about his paternal line . . . I found our family stories to be accurate.

I am sure other people online will tell about their stories with autosomal testing. Maryland does not allow these companies to test in our state. So, I have had to test my autosomes without the help of the popular companies.

[plemon]

Thank you. Do you think he has Native American features? He tans instantly. He looks just like his biological father. High cheek bones, almond eyes, full lips, dark skinned.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

You are welcome. I was thinking of some Native Americans (Lakota) I saw in a South Dakota School ( http://www.stjo.org/site/PageServer?...=stjo_homepage ). I am not an expert in placing faces with tribes though. Do you know what tribe he might be from?

Thank you. Do you think he has Native American features? He tans instantly. He looks just like his biological father. High cheek bones, almond eyes, full lips, dark skinned.

[rucksack]

To me, he looks like many people in my family.

1.) 100% Finnish [several that "look" like this]
2.) 50% Finnish 25% Scots 25% Amerind [3 in my family with this combo]
3.) 25% Finnish 25% English 25% German 25% Amerind [5 in my family with this combo]
4.) 25% Finnish 75% unknown [2 in my family with this combo]

He also looks like a friends child that is 50% Inuit and 50% "European".

EDIT: He also looks strikingly like the husband of my cousin. Her husband is 50% Chinese 25% Amerind 25% German.

[plemon]

I don't know much about his biological father's family. His biological father was raised by his grandmother. I do remember that his grandmother and aunts had Native American features. I don't have any contact with them. We were married a very short time due to his violent anger problems and jealousy.

I just know that I have dealt with questions all of the time about his looks. He has done some print modeling.

What sort of tests should I start with to find out his heritage?

[cacio]

Roughly speaking, there are three types of tests.
1- as greg was saying, FTDNA has a Y chromosome test. This will identify the purely paternal line (ie father, paternal grandfather, etc etc). If that line is native, you'll see it. However, most native americans have had mixtures with Europeans, so a person could have most ancestors NA, but if that one purely male lineage is not, the test won't show anything. In fact, that is the case, I think, for most Mexicans.
2 - I didn't understand if the mother is in the NA picture, if so, the mtdna test will look at the purely female line (mother, maternal gmother etc). Same caveat as above, although since it was usually European males who married native women, there's much more native mtdna than Y chromosome.
3- automosomal tests. These aim at detecting the overall percentages of various origins (european, native american etc.). I know little about them though.

If you have enough money to waste, you can also go with things like 23andme. These are primarily tests for genetic medical risks. As a byproduct, they give some of all the 3 above. So with those test you can probably say something about ancestry, and also have some medical information. The downside is that this test is very expensive.

cacio

[rainbow]

Hello.
I'm new here. After numerous questions from friends, teachers, coaches, neighbors on my son's heritage, I want to find out what is in his bloodline. He constantly gets questioned from kids at school and their parents. His biological father isn't in the picture, so I don't know anything about his heritage. I'm thinking Native American because I can remember a relative having Indian Statues everywhere. But, some kids call him Mexican and Asian. Long story short, where do I begin? My hunch still leans toward Native American because of his physical characteristics. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, his hair isn't blonde. He had some highlights in his hair from the salon.

I think his face looks Native American. Or even Filipino.
Is contacting his biological grandmother and aunts out of the question?
Find out where they live and mail them a letter with your email address so they can email you if you don't feel safe giving them your home address (because you sound as if you want to avoid your ex husband). Don't mail it from your zip code.
Try emailing them for their family history/genealogy.
And with such strong features I would think there could be some unknown Native American on your side too. Or at least brown eyes on your side.

The dna company that did my admixture test has closed down. DNAPrint/AncestryByDna used to have four categories in their "2.5" test. They said I was 17% Native American (which is roughly 1/6).

The currently running dna companies that offer admixture tests do not have a category for Native American. Native American would be counted as East Asian. Those companies are decodeme and 23andme. But some people who have tested with both decodeme and 23and me got conflicting results (one report would say 100% European, the other would say mostly European but with 6% or 10% East Asian).

You could test his ydna with a cheek swab test from FTDNA. The result would show only his fathers fathers fathers fathers direct male line.

Another autosomal company is DNATribes (www.dnatribes.com).
They could give you regions but not percentages. They can also give you a ballpark estimate if you ask them for it. I asked about my results and I was told my str profile is consistent with 1/8 to 1/4 Native American ancestry.
If your son is about half Native American then I would think he would get some interesting matches. You could also test yourself and compare the results with your sons, to know what he gets from you and what he gets from his father.

I hope that your son can regain a father-son relationship with his father someday, if he wants that.

Good Luck

[ragincajun]

Hello.
I'm new here. After numerous questions from friends, teachers, coaches, neighbors on my son's heritage, I want to find out what is in his bloodline. He constantly gets questioned from kids at school and their parents. His biological father isn't in the picture, so I don't know anything about his heritage. I'm thinking Native American because I can remember a relative having Indian Statues everywhere. But, some kids call him Mexican and Asian. Long story short, where do I begin? My hunch still leans toward Native American because of his physical characteristics. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, his hair isn't blonde. He had some highlights in his hair from the salon.

Hi:
Although he has some features that could be Native American, that is not the best way to tell. Remember, there is really no "classic" Native American look. Some are more dark skinned than others. Some have a great deal of facial hair, whereas others do not. There are even full blooded Native Americans with blue eyes and blond hair. The best way to tell is with a Y DNA test, it does not lie. This is how I confirmed my ancestry. Good luck.

[tomcat]

Is contacting his biological grandmother and aunts out of the question?
Find out where they live and mail them a letter with your email address so they can email you if you don't feel safe giving them your home address (because you sound as if you want to avoid your ex husband). Don't mail it from your zip code....

If you have family names for the father's family why not research them? Or hire an investigator. That would disclose their ancestries, and more.

[plemon]

I think his face looks Native American. Or even Filipino.
Is contacting his biological grandmother and aunts out of the question?
Find out where they live and mail them a letter with your email address so they can email you if you don't feel safe giving them your home address (because you sound as if you want to avoid your ex husband). Don't mail it from your zip code.
Try emailing them for their family history/genealogy.
And with such strong features I would think there could be some unknown Native American on your side too. Or at least brown eyes on your side.

Actually, my mom's side has researched their history back to Switzerland, my Dad's side might be German. I've always had an olive complextion, too. I don't know if there is any Native American on my Dad's side, I tend to resemble his side of the family.

Thanks for everyone's advice, you have all been really helpful.

[ragincajun]

Be sure to update with what you find out.

[Asturianu]

Hello.
I'm new here. After numerous questions from friends, teachers, coaches, neighbors on my son's heritage, I want to find out what is in his bloodline. He constantly gets questioned from kids at school and their parents. His biological father isn't in the picture, so I don't know anything about his heritage. I'm thinking Native American because I can remember a relative having Indian Statues everywhere. But, some kids call him Mexican and Asian. Long story short, where do I begin? My hunch still leans toward Native American because of his physical characteristics. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, his hair isn't blonde. He had some highlights in his hair from the salon.

Essentially, there is very little which distinguishes Mexicans and other Native Americans (since Mexicans are essentially Native Americans that have undergone various levels of European and African absoption), in the sense you may be applying here. From my understanding (and I could certainly be wrong), the biggest challenge that chromosome DNA analysis offers in investigating these questions is that a paternal or even maternal ancestor may have belonged to a different ethnicity and therefore would have his/her marker essentially blocking what may nonetheless constitute te greater share of his or her ancestry.

If you choose the route of chromosome analysis, I would reccomend that you begin your investigation through MtDNA -since Amerindian DNA tends to run most prevelant through maternal lineage (throughout all the Americas). The best overall test, however, would probably be an Autosomal DNA test. This would give you a broader, overall idea of his ancestry.

[rainbow]

You're welcome Penny