Do I have African roots? I have DNA tested with 23andMe, FTDNA, My Heritage, and Ancestry. 23andMe and FTDNA are autosomal as well as Ancestry. Ancestry does not indicate any African ancestry, however, 23andMe indicates 0.1% western Asian and North African, estimated back 4 to 7 generations; FTDNA/ My Heritage indicates 6.2% North African (3-5 gens.) and 0.9% West African-Nigerian (4-7 gens.) The remainder of my DNA from the other tests indicate I am 94 to 99% northwestern and northern (Scandinavian) European. I am blond haired, blue eyed, have fair skin as do all the relatives whom I know. All I can say is that I do tan instead of sunburn, that may be because I worked outdoors doing field research in wildlife biology for 45 years. I have done my genealogy charts back 8 to 15 generations in North America and found my first immigrants to North America in most cases, difficult, since, besides two Native American lineages in early 1700s, my earliest ancestors came to Virginia in 1611 and to Massachusetts in 1620, and cannot find any indication of African heritage. Most of my family immigrated from England, some ggg grandparents came from the Palatinate states and Switzerland. That fairly significant 7.1% should show up somewhere. I have looked at photographs of all my ancestors born since 1885 and many before that and see little indication of color except in a great uncle who is a little darker than his siblings. Is there African in the Native American lines? Maybe, they were in Virginia. Is there some black Irish? who knows, Oliver Cromwell pretty well made sure those were lost.
I've been doing genealogy for over 40 years and I'm at a loss.
Chet Ogan (yes, that's Irish)