Can dna determine who is american indian

Information Article Body. Having family members tested If you have Indigenous American ancestors, but Indigenous American ethnicity doesn't appear in your DNA results, it may be worthwhile to test your grandparent, parent, or sibling.

Indigenous Americas Region. URL Name. Choose a general reason. Some commonly used tools are the One-to-Many match tool, which will connect you with thousands of genetic matches and tell you how closely you are related and which genetic markers you share.

You can also use specialized tools to parse your DNA into a maternal line and paternal line and see exactly which side of your family your Native American genes come from! If you are interested and have time to do this research yourself, check out our posts on how to use GEDmatch to parse out Native American ancestry!

Best DNA Tests. Upload Sites. Product Reviews. Traits Library. Sign up. Got your DNA test results back? June 21, If you are considering buying a Native American DNA test kit, there are some very important things you should know before you get started! What DNA Testing Companies Say about Native American Ancestry While Native American ancestry testing is still being offered by most genetic testing companies, there has been a large shift in the language they use to describe these tests.

Genomelink Ancient Ancestry Reports Not only do these reports show you how you are related to ancient Native American populations, but they can also match your genes to ancient populations of nomads, farmers, and migratory African populations. Tomohiro Takano. A history of traditions, passing down crafts and skills, and a sense of cultural continuity set the baseline for tribal membership.

These things cannot be gained by sending your saliva to a lab. Hull and Walajahi found DTC test kit websites that claim a genetic test can help consumers connect with their true identity.

For example, they found an Ancestry. According to her, this oversimplifies tribal identity and discounts the sovereign authority of Tribes to determine enrollment.

Her concern is that these DTC test kits could overshadow important cultural factors, reducing Native American identity to nothing more than a spit test. Some claimed they could even identify a specific tribe. Still, in all of Hull and Walajahi's work, they found that none of the companies disclosed how they evaluate genetic information in DNA to determine ancestry. Walajahi said the test results are likely based on an algorithm determined by a reference population.

Imagine using the traits of a small group of people as the baseline for an entire nationality. What's more, that reference population may vary between different companies. That explains why earlier this year two identical twins could receive disparate results from 5 different DTC test kits. These results are uncharacteristic of twins. Both Hull and Walajahi express concern regarding how the DTC ancestry companies are including Native American heritage in their algorithm, despite limited data.

They said that many Native Americans are reluctant to participate because of a history of genetic research undermining their trust. Only way it to do genealogical research. The most basic form being to communicate with your matches on ancestry. I would like to find out, if possible, what that might be. Since I have already done an autosomal test, do you recommend others or can I find out.

Just go to their website and search for the page about transfers. All the details are there. I am not sure what test to take, I am trying to do a cpl different things, One is find my half siblings or any family in my fathers side he has passed away since 92 I am also trying to find out approximately how much Native American I am.

Thank you Jennifer. I want to know what I am, which test would be good to do? Hi Mark. Hope you can help. Autosomal or mtDNA? What would you suggest? Thanks for the information. Hi Gayle. To be certain though, you would need to ask someone on the direct maternal line to do an mtDNA test for you. Ok, I will read this again, but still a little confused.

So which test is best? Hi Tammy. An autosomal test might not pick up the Native DNA if it was that far back. Only other option would be an mtDNA test of a known living descendant on the direct maternal line of the Native ancestor. Make sense? Was wondering what kit to look at. Any of the basic autosomal tests should pick up on it as long as the ancestry was recent to the last few hundred years. If this Great Grandmother was on your direct maternal line, then you can confirm for sure with an mtDNA test.

It will not list specifics about which family line father or mother contains any Native American DNA, will it? Hi John. Good question. It takes some research, but can be done. I know about the AA vs TT identifiers…but only managed to get though pages before Eyestrain set in.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Our Guides. Marc McDermott May 25, Pro tip: a great way to get your feet wet in this hobby is with a free trial at one of the big genealogy sites.

MyHeritage has a free day trial which gets you instant access to Click here to learn more about this offer.