I am wondering about my hair...

[EdwardRHill]

I think it was Biology where I got this I'm sure someone who remembers more will come along and straighten it out if I get something wrong.

A white cow and a black cow mate over time one will have the most dominant traits and it will become all one color. Over time there could be a black cow born to two whites cows. You decide which one is the bull and which is the heifer. I think its called a recessed gene. It doesn't sound like thats what going on with you.

You seem to be more in the middle on the path to one or the other color. It sounds like you are between black and white and I wonder if the mixing was more recent than distant. If it recent than it would probably be easier to find out when. More distant may explain why you only have one trait of one color and more traits of another. Hmmmm I just don't know

Change that title to Thinking out Loud

[507]

Who truly knows the whole story on anyone's ancestry? You can have all the records and Family tree evidence you want but it does not mean it is accurate. Multiple people can all have the same info and it all came from the same inaccurate source. As for DNA, its vague. Very, very , very Vague. No DNA test offered can tell you exactly how you and another person are related. No DNA test can tell you exactly where your ancestors came from or how closely two people are related. All they can do is guess. They can give you their best guess. Thats the cold hard truth. I found that out after paying the money for the YDNA test and joining a "surname project".

[MorrigensCrow]

My mother and I fall into the category of puzzlement with our family too. We somehow look Middle Eastern while everyone else looks European. My mother's DNA admixture results revealed that her closest matches were from North and South India and within groups of Indians in other countries like Singapore and among Australian Aborigine mixtures. There were no matches for the British Isles, which is where her families claims they are from. We have the dark curly hair and dark eyes like the OP describes. No African or Native American admixture was revealed. There was a small amount of Transylvania and Romanian matches. One admixture calculator was a bit vague :"98% Eurasian" lol but that fits so I'll take it. We thought we had a tiny bit of Cherokee because an uncle had told us we did.

When I did some research I found pictures of Indian women and we would fit in with Northern Indians very well as far as appearance. Twenty or so years ago my dentist asked my mother if I was Asian because my teeth were distinctively "Mongolian", according to him. This trait is mentioned in some of the Melungeon research articles, but I have read others that say these traits are questionable. I am so glad now that he had asked that odd question because I would not even know it was significant until now. My family is from Tennessee, as well, so the Melungeons are a possibility.

I agree with the poster who mentioned that a lot of families were not concerned about keeping track of genealogy. I have been frustrated just trying to get surnames and maiden names. They act like we never existed before colonizing the Americas. To top it all off, a lot of my extended family are racists and would be angry and freaked to find out that we had more than just European "white" ancestry. Most of them denied the possibility of Native American ties. I find it hilarious that my uncle was technically right about having "Indian blood" but just had the wrong kind of Indian.