Do you have African/American cousins?

Question

Howdy all, I've been a Wikitree member for about a year now but there is still much to learn. Have a question and not sure how to tag it or which of the sub-forums to submit it to, so I'm trying this one, feel free to re-direct, re-label, edit or whatever might be felt useful, I'm not proud.
Backgound to the question:  I received my Ancestry DNA info a year ago in January and it was pretty much what I figured, almost 80% British, most of the rest Irish with a touch of French to the Scandinavian area. Plenty of distant cousin connections to immigrant ancestors of the 16 and 1700s, no real surprises.  One thing I found was that after the first few messages, distant cousins weren't much interested in continuing correspondence, which was okay, don't want to be a pest.  Looked over the closer cousins for a couple of months, again no surprises, and then I decided to go to the distant end of the list (about 2000 of them) and see if I could figure out common ancestors, just for something different to do.  Well, about 5 to 10 percent of the folks on Ancestry include a photo of themselves, so as I'm looking through the last few pages of distant cousins I stop at a photo thinking "That's interesting, she's black."  After about two or three seconds I realized what that could mean since most of my ancestors came in to southern colonies and over the next 2 or 3 centuries worked their way across the south to Texas.
Although many of them were slave owners and I've seen enough books, movies, and tv specials to know what slave owners could be like, this was the first time I had found evidence in some of my own lines, through DNA.  I looked through many of the other cousin links and quickly found at least a dozen others. Unfortunately I have only been able to figure out a couple of relationships. One is from a branch that split off in the late 1600s or early 1700s.  An early 20th century descendant of that line was in a relationship with a black lady in the Washington DC area around 1910 and they had a bunch of kids.  The other is related to a many-greats grandmother's line in the late 1600s.
Thank you for staying with me this far, I know I get rather verbose at times with background explanation.  Comes from being in my 70s and been doing genealogy since the late 1950s.  Love telling and talking family stories and history, no matter whether positive or negative ones!
Anyway, the focus of this dialog is: I am wondering how many others have found this in their own ancestries and have you ever tried contacting any of your newly found Black/African-American cousins?  If so, how did it go?  Looking for a little guidance should I ever work up enough courage to make contacts myself.  Hoping I haven't offended anyone; I've got lots of cousins I see fairly regularly, others I haven't seen in half a century, but I'm always on the lookout for new cousins I can add to my Christmas card list.

Comments

Well said. And Real History, is where the "Easter Eggs" are at in genealogy.In the pursuit of genealogy I found myself studying, primarily to understand, why my ancestors picked up and moved every generation,, the real history of America and in the process learned much that was never taught in history books.

 

And investigating my English and European Roots I did much the same.

Eye opening to say the least.

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I’m African-American and through DNA testing have come across a few caucasian Taylor, Gaines and Triplett matches. It’s interesting because my Great Grandmother was living in Edmund Haynes Taylor’s household in 1870 (Frankfort, Kentucky), and her surname was Triplett. Her daughter was living with her, with the name Arnetta Taylor. I came across a reverse Taylor family tree with my Great Grandmother (Mary Ann) and Edmund Taylor listed as being Arnetta’s parents.

 Mary Ann’s son was living with the family of James Anderson Gaines  (1870 Census) and listed as Mulatto (Dennis Noble).  All lived in Frankfort, Kentucky.

My strongest (caucasian) match is with someone who shares about 23 Centimorgans and 2 DNA segments with me. I’m also a match with two of his close relatives.

I’ve reached out to several of the white matches and the responses have been fabulous. I’m eager to visit Frankfort and Woodbury, Kentucky. That’s where most of my Triplett family originates. I was first hesitant because slavery is still a sticky subject.  The experience has been mostly positive. Although several did not respond.

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Thanks for sharing your positive experiences, Charlynne!

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No problem! Just a small correction...my strongest caucasian match is 42 Centimorgans across 2 DNA segments of shared DNA :  )

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Yes! I connected with distant African American cousins on 23andMe a few years ago. We were discussing family lore that all matched up and I wouldn't have known a thing up until I asked about her family tree... Then she told me that I wouldn't find them on it! So it was the brother of my paternal great-grandfather who took a mistress as a widower. My cousin lives in CT and I'm in CA so we haven't met in person but it was/is a huge positive experience for both of us. She was able to confirm her family's ties to our history in NC beyond the tales she heard growing up, and I was able to find a new cousin with whom to compare perspectives. The initial relationship was post-slavery in the South, but he was born on a plantation as the son of a slave holder. His mistress/consort was close to the family as the daughter of one of the house servants. Neither my cousin nor I care to judge - which has been a net positive in all of our communications.

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Glad your experience has been positive as well!

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Yes, I have found  Black African/American cousins, to date 150 with a new  add today, some are almost 100% African, their European DNA very small, It came as a surprise, with no clue at the time I had/have African American cousins? research continues, while I attempt to unravel connections. So far it appears, the link comes from four of my main lines, paternal and maternal, falling into separate triangulated clusters. I have attempted to make contact with a few, the first two, I didn't received a return email, the third girl I contacted on facebook, and since we have become friends, she is in fact very proud of her Irish grandmother, who she appears to have been close to. I keep in touch through messaging, if I find anything of use that may confirm our mutual European ancestor, she matches me on 15.9cM. One cluster with a level cM between 16 - 26cM has been confirmed as a  link to my paternal 2 x great grandfather, who never lived in the USA but his granddaughter my great aunt immigrated from Australia and married a man who was born in Maryland USA  or her daughter who also married a man who was born in the USA, I have no information as yet whether they  or their families were slave owners. Mayland allowed interracial marriages during that period. As for the other groups so many of them, they  appear to be linked to my maternal line, what their stories are, I have no idea.

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I have found distant Black relatives through Ancestry.com. Ancestry used to have a little internal app that connected you with notables, but not living relatives. At least not yet. I found it interesting, but they did away with the program last year.

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I'm African American. 77% African, 18% European, 5% Native. I would be welcoming to any White or Native cousins to reach out to me. I just got my results back yesterday (4/25).. I mostly wanted to know my genetic breakdown... but I am also wanting to build my family tree

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That's great! Did you test with 23andMe or with ancestry.com? I am finding that it is much easier to triangulate DNA matches with 23andMe, since they tell us up front where  the segments of matching DNA are on each chromosome. With ancestry.com matches there is a necessary additional step of uploading the raw DNA results to gedmatch.com in order to compare segments.

Answer 1

this is a good question I did ancestry dna did you see African American dna at first or on an update?

Comments

Hi Amber,

No, I didn't see any of the African American DNA connections at first.  They were there, just not in the 1st to 3rd cousin listing which come first in the Ancestry results and I only concentrated on cousins with known common ancestors links to begin with.  It was a couple of months before really checking the rest of the almost 2000 DNA linked cousins.  And then it was only by accident that I took a close look at one who also had a photo of themselves posted, which lead me into a whole different direction in the DNA connections.

I would guess that most folks will find most of their Afircan American cousins in the distant cousin categories on Ancestry.  Another way is to check the ethnicity regions on the AncestryDNA Match Details page for each of the listed matches.  This is time consuming but interesting!  I probably haven't close inspected more than a quarter of the DNA matches I have on Ancestry, and more are added every day!

Answer 2

Hi Art,

I did my DNA test and found out that I'm... part black! Well, it's not a tremendous amount of African DNA, and I pretty much know where it comes from  -- my Britt and Cox ancestors who were enumerated on censuses as "other free" and "mulatto" in 18th century North Carolina. I have some cousins a couple times removed from that line who had sickle cell anemia, and if you know anything about sickle cell, you know you have to have some African ancestry in order to have it.

I'd be happy to assist any African-American cousins I might find. There probably are some out there, considering my family owned slaves for many generations on both sides.

Comments

Hi Jessica,

My DNA test revealed my to be 77% British, 15% Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Western Europe and the rest "low confidence" regions.  Pretty ordinary I guess, but what I expected based on my immigrant ancestors who got here in the 17th and 18th centuries.  Mostly farmers, a few craftsmen in the south and seafarers in New England. But everyone eventually came south and west and wound here in Texas by 1900, more farmers.

Sickle cell can be pretty bad, particularly in the past.  But even European ancestry has its genetic problems.  A tendency to be, "overweight" shall we say, and type-2 diabetes seems to run in one of my lines, not as potentially devastating as sickle cell though.

Since I had my mother's DNA done, and a first cousin on my fathers side had his done, I have been able to figure out which side or the other that several of my African American cousins are on, so thats one place to start.

Answer 3

I'm Multiracial and identify as Afro Caribbean. My father and my mother are both biracial and I have White cousins, Latino cousins, Afro cousins and Kalinago cousins.

Answer 4

I am mixed with African ancestry. I don't identify as African-American because neither of my parents are from Africa and I have no recent ancestors from there as well. Same thing for Black, I don't really resemble the color and I don't think a color should define me regardless. Some of these old sterotypes are just outdated.

My ancestors are mainly from Louisiana so I have relatives of various ethnicities. But I have contacted many "Cajun" and even "Acadian" relatives and some are really cool although it is often difficult to figure out the relationships due to endogamy. I even have some that are pretty close in the 100 centimorgan range and higher. Even those are difficult to figure out cause they usually don't have trees (Ancestry) and they are probably multiple relations.

Quite a few of us even belong to the same genealogy groups and recognize each other as cousins. So you never know. I was reluctant to contact them at first but it's been mainly positive. You will run into some that won't accept you for whatever reason, I just move on and don't worry about them.

If we share DNA, we share DNA.

Comments

I agree Mark. It is my personal opinion that racial designations are foisted upon us by those who support a paradigm of superior/inferior.

 

Caucasians are neither white nor from the Caucus. "Blacks" are not black , the Chinese and Japanese are not yellow, nor are the native Americans red.

I know a few African Americans, and they were born in Africa, naturalized and live in America.. truth is they are Americans now, perhaps African American before naturalization.But the epithet applies to them more than to someone whose ancestry in America can be traced back further than some of the most virulent racists who claim to be "real Americans"

 

But we are a society that  needs to label, after all labels define tribes, and aren't we tribal, after all?

Better that we allow a person to define themselves rather than be arbitrarily defined by someone else.

How does one identify a race, anyhow?  DNA (nope, Napoleon was haplogroup E1b 1..African), R1b1 or R1a1, lots of so called Blacks running around with those haplogroups. Color of skin, at what point does one become "black" or "brown"? Who decides and why?

From all scientific evidence, characteristics considered to be "white" are actually rather modern adaptations to climate conditions that prevailed during the last ice age, thus fairly modern.  In any event the DNA haplogroup (R1b...aka Western Atlantic Modal, is a new comer on the genetic timeline appearing about 22,000 years ago, or 800 years after the appearance of  R1a which is stylized Eurasian, appeared 22,800 years ago.

Haplogroup R mutated out of hg P, and P mutated out of hg K2, and etc back to hg A00, the earliest known haplogroup which happens to have been found in one person, to date, an "African American" male https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_A_(Y-DNA),

 

Tis a shame that we can't trace our family trees down to it's very roots, but we can't even trace it down to the last glacial maximum, much less something so recent as the Roman Empire, and thus so many  disturbances and disturbed people.

Perhaps this discussion is a little too much, but it is my opinion it is worth having.

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Well said. I have learned much since I took a DNA test last year. I have done a y-dna & mtdna test on my dad. Then I did research. I have a much better understanding of these things than I did before. I haven't really thought much about some things until I did the various DNA tests. Our y-dna haplogroup is G-M201 which originated in the Middle East & mtdna haplogroup is L2a1f which is African.

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According to www.isogg.org, M201 is the major SNP for hg G. You most assuredly are a sub (sub,sub,sub) clade of hg G. this is an interesting hg, because it is the hg of Richard III, and the haplogroup of the North Ossetians (or major haplogroup).

The North Ossetians are the only living group who can be identified as of Sarmatian ancestry. (The Sarmatians were not all hg G, but were like all peoples and admixture.)

 

I assume you tested YDNA via FTDNA, if so I would highly recommend, if you can afford it, Testing Big Y and discover your hg G roots.

 

Go to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hW2SxSLFSJS3r_MIdw9zxsS8NXo_4PG0_fFFeXGwEyc/edit#gid=0 and explore the many subclades of hg G, then go to www.yfull.com/tree/G and do the same.

 

M201 does not show up at YFULL, but at ISOGG  M201is contemporaneous with many other SNP's, and M201 is just one way of stating the major hg of "G".There are other ways besides M201. As this SNP has evidently been discovered at different times by different labs and organizations.

The many SNP's you see at the the above sites, are essentially the same SNP or "twin" brothers, the varying alpha's in front of the numeric designation, tells you which lab or group first identified said SNP, for instance a BY is Big Y at FTDNA, a YP is Yfull at yfull.com, there is a table which decodes the alpha's, a google search should find it.

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Yes tested at FTDNA. One of our matches did the Big Y so I have a good idea of the subclade although his seems to change often lately. I plan on doing the Big Y later.

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Your subclade isn't changing. Best as I can explain it. M201 is simply the only confirmed clade. You most certainly have others that are "sons" of M201 (sons, grandsons, great grandsons using a familiar term).

But these subclades are considered to be unique (another term is variant), and remain so until a 2nd person with that same variant or subclade tests, then that particular SNP is given a name (an alpha numeric).

What happens  is that, and this is simply an example from another hg, you might be a  YP5578, then another person shows up and what was  simply a SNP, identified as a numeric, that starts and stops, such as 2453789, is identified and then that SNP is given a number such as YP5905, and there you stand until, another person shows up testing Big Y, and it is discovered that you and he share a variant that has considered unique, and now you are terminal YP6573

 

In actuallity your string of SNP's might look like this: Drawing on what is known from Haplogroup R (R1a)  or R-M512/M198>M420>M459>M198>M417>Z645>Z93>YP5585>YP5578>BY30053>Y28816>YP5905/YP5904  >YP6373

Bear in mind that all of these SNP's are sequential, (I call them father-son relationships).  If for instance a person is terminal YP6373, then he has all of those other SNP's as well, it is simply that YP6373 is the latest SNP to be revealed via testing, and testing another person with that same SNP.

 

The DNA that you provided with your first swab, is held on file at FTDNA for 20 years or so I've read.  And there is no need to waste money on another swab, you will learn nothing new.

You will learn something new, when and IF, another person with your same string of SNP's  is tested, and not necessarily by FTDNA, but by any company that tests YDNA for SNP's and not just STR's.

Evidence seems to point towards a master data base, where SNP's are cataloged and compiled, and when a new  SNP appears it is likewise cataloged and when a second instance of that SNP appears it is then classified, and the original classification is updated to include the newly discovered SNP.

I know for a fact that this happens at FTDNA. Because the SNP classifications are being constantly updated, as new Big Y kits test results come in.

As an example a person who last year was YP5578, discovered six months later that he was YP5905 and three months later discovered he was BY27595, only because in that time frame more persons had tested Big Y and as they tested, these SNP's, (which had been catalogued but not classified), "appeared".

 

By appearing I don't mean out of nowhere, the persons who had these SNP's have had them all of the time, but they were not known and catalogued until at least one other person tested positive with that same SNP.

Caveat, testing is not an exact science, sometimes there are no calls on a SNP, in other words that SNP doesn't show up, and there are false positives, but these wash out, the more persons who test.

As an example, SNP BY30053 does not show up in all persons who test positive for YP5905, but does show up in enough of them to state that BY30053 is part of that "chain".

Clear as mud I am sure.

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I understand all of that. But the terminal subclade does change as new subclades are discovered if you have done the Big Y.

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I think that I said that. Just clarifying that the terminal subclade changes in the way that something evolves. If your terminal was say YP6373 in my previous example, YP5905 is still part of your "chain" of SNP's. YP5905 doesn't change to YP6373, rather YP6373 is a "son" (so to speak) of YP5905.

 

Then again not all YP5905's will be a YP6373, some will be BY27595, and others to be classified at some future date when a previously untested person tests positive for the same SNP.

 

Just trying to be as correct and clear as I can in such a technically complicated discussion.

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Well, first you stated that your subclade isn't changing. Technically it does. You may chose to explain it in a different way. I already have a decent basic understanding of the various things you were trying to explain. I chose to only share our base ydna haplogroup, I did test for an older SNP already based on what the project admins recommended. I did an older one cause I didn't want to spend the money for a SNP pack when the admins already had predicted that we would be positive for the SNP. They didn't have the newer SNP available then but do now.

I am in a project for our haplogroup  &in a facebook group for ydna haplogroup G-M201 which was set up by the admins from FTDNA.

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When you say change. I interpret that as  subclade M201 is changing to something else.

 

Change is not the correct word or concept for what happens to YDNA.

Clade M201 does not change, however the lineage under that clade does mutate or evolve and new SNP's appear. I give as an example SNP YP5578. This SNP never changes, it can't, however it has mutated (in some lines, but not all). I find that YP5578 has, to date, stayed essentially the same for 650 years in some lineages, but in one particular lineage it produced a mutation named YP5905,, and that mutation in turn had (to date) two "sons" one of which is YP6373, and the other is  BY27595, 

 

Visualize it as a tree:

The tree looks like this:

 

R-YP5578  21 (people)

        R-BY30053  17 (people)

              R-Y28816  16 (people)

                  R-YP5905  15(people)

                  -BY27595 YOU 1 other

YP5578 hasn't changed, it is still YP5578 and will show up as positive in a test, but so will those other SNP's (in that particular case) down to BY27595

In any event, the important thing for you, is that you do not need to and should not waste your money on another Big Y test, as the results will be the same as the old test. A lesson others have learned, anyway you can't order the same test under the same kit number. You would have to register a new kit to order the same test, and as at least one other person sadly learned, it did not change the results.

 

 

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I never said I did a Big Y. I said one of our ydna matches did. Thanks for your help anyways. Also, I said the terminal subclade changes as new subclades are discovered.

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A Big Y from a YDNA match does not necessarily follow onto you.

You would have to test your own Big Y, but you can't piggy back onto some one elses Big Y.

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I already know that. The project admins have made the necessary predictions. I already said I wanted to do the Big Y. Are you actually reading anything I say? Lol. Thanks for all the advice but I don't really need it.

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I don't mean to insult, and yes I do read what you write, you just weren't clear

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Actually I was. Please reread. Frankly, I didn't ask for your advice on anything y-dna related. You chose to instruct me on the process when I already knew much of that. I only wanted to share the basic halogroup for a reason.

Answer 5

Keep in mind that there are possibilities for why some of your DNA matches appear black other than owner/slave interactions. The simplest is that a person of African ancestry may have married into the DNA trail fairly recently. Also, there were a surprising (to me) number of bi- and tri-racial families in colonial and frontier America. There are African-American families today who can trace their ancestry to Africans who were never enslaved. An eye-opening site is Paul Heinegg's "Free African Americans".

I expect a good many American brick walls could be broken by keeping an open mind about possible ethnicity. My wife descends from one of the families Heinegg studied. Family researchers had long misidentified the patriarch because of their discomfort with descending from a slave. Careful research and DNA have shown us the truth. Ironically, the founding couple were an indentured white woman and an unidentified African man who might have been a slave, a bound apprentice or even free.

Comments

I have had many discussions with Paul Heinegg. Most of these Free African Americans were themselves children or grandchildren or even great grandchildren of enslaved persons.

I do not claim full knowledge of the subject, but from what I know. The very first Africans brought to the Virginia Colony, were actually captured by the English aboard Spanish Ships, and the Spanish and Portugese were involved in the slave trade.

These Africans were treated in the same manner as indentured servants, and after service freed from their indenture given some land and a musket, just like the freedEuropeans.

It is also a fact that the majority of persons who claim southern ancestry, have European indentured servants as their ancestors The Tidewater aristocrats, aka Planters, had not the werewithall nor desire to do the work to maintain the lifestfyle to which they were accustomed, so they imported tradesmen and indentured servants (male and female).

In the early days of the colony, marriage or cohabitation between personages of different colors was accepted, however what was not accepted was marriage between different classes, and there were only two classes. It was unthinkable that a "white" planter would marry an indentured servant. However a "black" planter, and there were such, not many, but a few, could marry without too much social opprobrium a white.

Indentured servitude for "blacks" went the way of the DoDo with the case of Anthony Johnson v John Casor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist)

Those interested in the subject, should read The Fiddler on Pantico Run, it is the story of a freed indentured servant of African origin, who established himself on land he was given when he fulfilled his term of indenture.

He has many descendants today (see the Mozingo DNA project at FTDNA), some are proud members of the KKK and others are "black".

One of them is an established Alabama judge.

As regards the Free African Americans mentioned in Paul Heineggs book, for most that freedom did not last long, for after 1830, and the Nat Turner rebellion, many of them were re enslaved, or otherwise deprived of their property (land and slaves).

For a period of time, until 1830, two states (S.C. and Louisiana) had a large number of "black" plantation and slave owners.

 

In another vein, while researching  records at familysearch.org, I found a distant relative (2nd cousin 4 x removed) whose 1860  tax records mentioned amongst his holdings, a white male 2- to 50 years of age.

The history of enslavement in America is not so simple and one sided, but it is also a fact that this country was built on the backs of indentured and enslaved (even if it was wage slavery)..

Things we learn when history is used in conjunction with genealogy.

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Some free people of color were descended from white women and their black (free, indentured, or enslaved) lovers.

> He has many descendants today (see the Mozingo DNA project at FTDNA), some are proud members of the KKK and others are "black".

I find it hilarious and pathetic how racists will get a DNA test and come up 8%+ African, and go on and on about how it's "noise", but get zero percent Native American and go on and on about how the test isn't sensitive enough since it can't find the Indian maiden they know they're descended from. Hmmm.

Answer 6

I found my African connection using Ancstry.com etc. I found a private tree that included my 2ggm.  After gaining permission to view their tree I saw a picture of her.  Since them I have visited with many cousins. When I did DNA testing that confirms 9-12% African I have located a few more.  23 & Me and Ancestry.

Comments

Shirley, interracial marriage was actually legal in Louisiana between 1870 and 1894. I think a lot of people assume it was illegal across the USA until Loving v. Virginia, but that wasn't the case. I saw the photo of your 2X ggmother, and she was a handsome-looking woman. I'm sure your 2x ggrandpa agreed with me!

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• I did know that and found the record of my 2ggp in New Orleans.  They also may of been married in the Catholic Church earlier but that is harder to check.  I was able to verify my grandmothe’s marriage and Baptism.

Answer 7

Being the child of one black parent and one white parent, who have both been DNA tested, I have both scenarios on both sides. I have distant black relatives in my white DNA results and I have distant white relatives in my black DNA results. I even have distant cousins that are linked to both of my parents (that was the bigger surprise for me).

I have reached out to a couple dozen of these cousins so far hoping to find how we connect. I haven't been able to resolve those connections, but I hope that we do one day. In the mean time, I try to fill in the data of as many of my cousin branches as I can. I believe the devil is in the details. I think we'll eventually figure out these connections with the more data added to the tree. Right? That's the point of Wikitree, at least to me.

I am happy to share data and help research anyone linked to my family's tree, no matter which side. I appreciate the willingness of anyone to share similar data. The history has already been made. People do what they need or want to do to survive. If they hadn't seen it that way, we wouldn't be here. No use in being skittish about what has already been done.

Bravo to you for being curious and following the genealogy path wherever it may lead. Best of luck to you.

Answer 8

Just yesterday!!!! A cousin had a child very very young and they gave the baby up for adoption. My cousin is white, and the father black. So this of course is very recent! She matched me on ancestry of course, and matched a great uncle as well. She has since talked to her maternal grandfather, great uncle in the phone. Very neat. I would love if someone of a different ethnicity contacted me- I do have a few matches that are African American - some might be an Acadian connection, others I have no idea

Answer 9

I'm a total white guy but have deep American South roots on both sides of the family, and my experience has been like others'. Here's the most interesting connection I have found:

On GEDMatch.com, there were suddenly a handful of kits that had significant X-chromosome matching segments with my paternal uncle, and in the 3rd-4th cousin range (3.6-4.1 gens difference). What's more, my 2nd great-grandfather (same ancestral line) was a large slaveholder in southern Louisiana up until the end of the Civil War.

The manager of the kits was very communicative and we both had extensively researched trees that we were working on. My instinct was to think that my slaveholder ancestor had had a child with one of his slaves. But because of X-chr inheritance patterns, this did not sense.

What we now think happened: one of the sons of the slaveholder, my great-grand uncle, married and had children with a black woman. This is the only explanation that is consistent with the DNA record and the incomplete but fairly robust paper trail. We're still looking around for more paper trail corroboration.

Comments

Some folks did marry interracially, and anyway, where I was raised in Mississippi, if you lived with a man long enough you'd become his "ol' lady" regardless if y'all ever did get some preacher to say a few words to you. I've come across what are clearly mixed race families in the census. Some of my ancestors lived next door to a white man, aged 40, with a black "housekeeper", aged 40, and a whole pack of children, the oldest being 18 and the littlest being a brand new baby.

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Let me make sure I understand.  Because of the x-chromosome matching segments, none of them could be related to your 2ggf, in that the x is only passed through the maternal line.

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Yes, that's correct. They would be related through my 2ggm, because their putative ancestor is a son of my 2ggf and 2ggm, and he could have got the X from his Mom--not from his Dad. But this individual, my gg-uncle, could pass X dna down to his daughters, which is consistent with the paper trail.

Answer 10

As more African American individuals take the DNA tests, I am seeing more DNA matches in my Ancestry DNA list. The challenge for me is that I am bi-racial, my mother is white and my father is presumably black ( there is inter-racial mixing in my paternal ancestry).  I find that unless someone from my family, that is known to me tests, even the close matches finding our common ancestor is a mystery.  

The Majority of my African American matches are distant, albeit my 4th cousin or closer match list is beginning to grow. Out of all of the matches I have contacted, 3 individuals and I were able to pin point the family connection to my mothers side of the family which is rooted in the antebellum south. Many of my maternal ancestors were slave owners. Even though the generational distance was several generations, it was awesome to bring these distance cousins into the circle of my family and introduce everyone.

Answer 11

Some of my ancestors lived in the south and owned slaves.  I've been in contact (and still am) with some people that share DNA with me and are black.  We've been able to determine the MRCA due to a triangulated group with someone farther up the line.  We have a Facebook group, with new people being added all of the time, that match some of us and that have relatives that lived in the area.  We work together to try and break down brick walls.  A couple of the people are 'stuck' with a notion of who fathered their ancestor, even though, at present, the DNA isn't there.  We gently avoid that topic.  Down the road, it will be proven or disproven . . .  None of us are responsible for what our forefathers did, so there should be no hard feelings amongst cousins -- regardless of our skin color.  If we are serious about genetic genealogy, we should welcome, and feel free to reach out to, any and all of our cousins.  I know I do. . . 

Answer 12

So just wanted to throw my two cents in about the “slave records”. I myself thought the Census only listed ownership and how many, mostly because that is generally all you see. However, I recently stumbled across some records that were taken along with the usual Census called “slave schedules”. I was amazed at the amount of detail that were on these. There were names, ages, job titles and lots of useful information! Hope this helps with everyone’s research!

Answer 13

Hi

I have around 8 to 10 people that are 5th to 8th black cousins in my dna through Ancestry.  I really didn't go any further by contacting them I honestly figured our ancestries had been connected from decades ago.  I can tell you I was pretty surprised and interested but wasn't sure how they would respond having white people in their dna results either.  Interesting though.

Answer 14

I have four half black first cousins on my moms side of the family.

Answer 15

I was a bit surprised when I did my Ancestry DNA as it came back 6% African, the rest English and Germanic.  Given a few moments to think about it and it really wasn't so much of a surprise as my maternal grandmother's line came from the Bahamas where there was a  lot of interracial mixing/marriages.  I have been corresponding with a cousin I met through one of my Bahama genealogy groups.  He is an African American living out in Oregon, and I am white living in Florida, so I don't know if we will ever actually meet.  We are having fun though sharing info and trying to track down some elusive ancestors in the Bahamas.   There is actually another black couple in the same Bahamas group whom I helped by putting their family's and ancestor's profiles on Wikitree.  We suspect that we are related also, but just haven't found the connection yet.

I wouldn't be surprised if I had some in the states also, as a number of my ancestors, I hate to admit, were slave owners.  Seems almost all of my ancestors were from Southern states, other than those from the Bahamas, which I suspect originally came from England.

Answer 16

I have done 5 DNA tests and one of the five shows 1-2 % North African, so I am treating that as a rounding error per what the DNA experts tend to conclude.  

You might be interested in the story of Gail Lukasik https://www.gaillukasik.com/ who wrote a book title "White Like Her" whose African-American roots were much more recent. There are numerous videos interviews on the internet from her book tour a while back where you can hear her story. She also be talking at the virtual Geneaquest 2020 genealogy conference on September 12th.(Full disclosure: I am on the planning committee for this volunteer-run event).

Answer 17

Interesting I didn't really notice the first time I looked but I have  a connection at the 2nd cousin 1x removed in my tree. Pretty close, so this one probably not slavery related. Well, sharing g grandparents would just barely make it possible. hmm.

Answer 18

I have about 6% African DNA, according to Ancestry DNA testing .  I always suspected I might have some as my mother's ancestors came from the Bahamas which had a lot of interracial mixing going on. I recently (last year or two), found my connection to my black relatives with Bahamian ancestors, and have been corresponding with several trying to figure out our exact common ancestors. Found a couple more just this past week.  

I also have ancestors who were slave owners, but haven't yet found any black relatives based on that.

Answer 19

Yes, I have very many black family members. I haven’t been able to figure out how we are genetically connected! They all come from Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Included is Dr. Martin Luther King, Micheal Jackson, Marvin Gaye and many more. I also found many that are Wikitree members. I believe my ggf’s who owned slaves fathered children through them. It makes me sad to think of that happening! I also know recently I have first cousins who have married black woman in Maryland. Our most resent blood line flows through them. It’s so complex when you think of the many black cousins I have in my tree and how I would love to met them! I hate the events that are pushing our races apart at this time. We are all family!