Question - from a newbie

[Michael-buffalo]

In an effort to understand my background I have had my YDNA & MTDNA tested by Family Tree. I was adopted from Bogota Colombia in 1974 and do not know anything about my biological parents. My MTDNA yielded no matches but indicated hapolgroup "A" which makes sense (initial colonization of pre-columbian americas). My YDNA did not have any exact matches but had one,two step mutations (in haplogroups & recent ancestral origins) matching quite a bit of folks with the following countries of origins: Ireland, Scotland, England, Spain.

I want to better understand what these results mean in terms of my background. Are there resources available online or eslewhere to understand different ethnic groups DNA and their origins? In other words is this normal for a Colombian to have these results or could my YDNA indicate I may have a father that is not Colombian? Can anyone point me in the right direction in terms of understanding what all this means?

[Jim Honeychuck]

Michael,

www.yhrd.org has a European population from Bogota and another from Antioquia, so put your numbers in that search page and see what you get.

But that would not be a 100% survey of males of European descent in Colombia, so "no match" would not necessarily mean "not Colombian."

As for your question about the DNA of different ethnic groups, that is the subject of research by experts and amateurs alike, especially for R1a and R1b.

Jim

[cacio]

Michael:

Your results seem quite typical. Maternal native lineage and paternal European. Jim suggested some resources. In general, Spain and the British Isles are relatively close in terms of R1b Y-chromosome lineages, so it may be difficult to pinpoint a specific area. Also, because so many more people of English origin have tested than those of Spanish origin, you almost always have more matches in England, even if the lineage comes from somewhere else. It seems to me that R1b in South America can almost always be assume as Spanish (or Portuguese in Brazil).

As for mtdna A, you may be interested to know that, among others, Juanita (the "ice maiden" mummy found frozen in the Andes) was also A.

cacio

[cliffsheets]

Columbian DNA

I'm pretty new to this too, but isn't it common knowledge that the Latino population comes from Native American (Aztecs, Myans, etc) mixed with the Spanish Settlers at the time of Cortez?

I understood that the Spanish settlers "hooked up" with the native women and produced Mexicans adopting the Spanish language. Wouldn't this explain that a man from Columbia might have European Y DNA and Native American Mito DNA?

Michael, have you tried finding your birth parents or a paternal surname that you can compare to other DNA results? If you haven't, you might be able to find information from the orphanage or something.

Good Luck to you.

[haplogroupc]

In addition to Spaniards, there were Italians, Jews and Arab passengers on the first ships that came to the Americas. Since then there have been waves of European migrations to the entire American continent so your Y-DNA could be from any place in Europe. It might be Spanish and it might not.

Even though Latin American surnames are Spanish doesn't mean there is Spanish ancestry. Many people changed their last names to Spanish names when they migrated. And many Native Americans were given Spanish names when they were baptized into the Catholic Church.

There were also people who originally migrated to the U.S. but who moved to Latin America because they were treated so poorly here, like the Irish for example, in the 1800's. Many of them changed their names to Spanish names. All of this makes it harder to trace your European ancestry, unfortunately.

[haplogroupc]

By the way, another thing that makes it difficult for Latin Americans to trace their European ancestry is that children take on their mother's surname. So, if someone's mother had been a Native American who was given a Spanish last name by the Catholic Church, and she had married a European man of non-Spanish ancestry, their kids would get her Spanish last name. So the father's European name would vanish by the next generation.

[haplogroupc]

So, if someone's mother had been a Native American who was given a Spanish last name by the Catholic Church, and she had married a European man of non-Spanish ancestry, their kids would get her Spanish last name. So the father's European name would vanish by the next generation.

I meant to say that if a Native American woman who had been given a Spanish surname by the Catholic Church married a European man, their kids would take on her Spanish name. So, there's no actual Spanish ancestry despite the name. This probably happened alot more than people realize.