Question of the Week: Do you have Asian roots?

+16 votes
761 views

Do you have any Asian ancestors? Or did any Asian ethnicity turn up on a DNA test?

Please tell us with an answer below. You can also answer on Facebook, or share the question image on social media to get your friends and family talking.

in The Tree House by Eowyn Langholf G2G Astronaut (2.7m points)

9 Answers

+11 votes

Yes! My mother was born in Manila, Philippines. Her mother was from Eastern Bohol Province and her father was from Pampanga. FamilySearch's recent addition of released records included much from The Philippines, and I was able to trace my Filipino roots back to my 3rd-Great Grandparents, Domingo Taculod and Isabel Balbadores in Mabini, Bohol.

by Mathew Ferguson G2G6 Mach 1 (12.9k points)
+6 votes

Not in historically documented time. However, as my YDNA haplotype M269 derives from R1b which appeared approx. 18,500 years ago in Asia, I guess I must have ancestors in Asia! laugh

by Oliver Stegen G2G6 Pilot (236k points)
+9 votes
My great grandchildren have Asian roots, I have only Asian connections!
by Kristina Adams G2G6 Pilot (438k points)
+7 votes
One brother and I both show trace amounts of DNA from Cental & South Asia, 1% or less.  

My oldest nephew's other grandmother was Japanese.  She was born in Hawaii to immigrant parents.
by Judith Fry G2G6 Pilot (155k points)
+5 votes
yes   i found relativeswith dna match  that live in Japan and other  areas, I was told by a lady that I have a gene that is usually not found out of the Phillippines. Which said is rare , I do not know about that part but interesting to find out though
by Mary Gulish G2G6 Mach 5 (57.1k points)
+3 votes
I do not find any Asian Ancestry with me via DNA.  There is however a likelihood that there is some Asian Ancestry via marriage. There are many world travelors in my family history and family lines. Some were missionairies that met Asian women and did marry.

My third significant other was married to an Asian women and had 4 children with Asian DNA ancestry. I work occassional on his tree line.
by Alice Thomsen G2G6 Pilot (390k points)
+4 votes
In many records my Japanese ancestors were considered “Yellow or Mongolian” .. in a very racist world which still exists, history keeps repeating itself with more ignorance and hate and those very ignorant people that cannot decipher  the difference in Asian ethnicity , during the PANDEMIC- people told me to go back to China.. Im a 4th generation (Yonsei). Bi racial Japanese American . My DIRECT family lineage through my GG Parents-  immigrated from Kumamoto & Hiroshima, Japan to work on the plantations in both Maui and Oahu  in the Hawaii Territory.. and in a very dark time in history. My GGM and Grand Uncles also were ordered under Executive Order 9066 during assembly in California where they relocated to the Santa Anita Racetrack- stripped of their home and belongings  and then transported to WRA Relocation Camps Jerome and eventually transferred to Heart Mountain and were released my Great Grandmother was listed as an enemy of the state  by the FBI .  My grandfather was interrogated by immigration and the FBI during WWII for dual citizenship, they are listed in the BOOK of IREIZO -.as were thousands of Japanese that  were incarcerated in that dark time of WWII . From  my adopted lineage, my adopted grandparents from Fukuoka, Japan immigrated to Fort Lupton, CO and were one of the 1st prominent Japanese farmers of that region. It’s noted in several books and periodicals I came across 2 years ago & my adopted father served in the US Army during WWII in the famous “442nd GO for BROKE BATTALION “ I have legal records for both BIO/ADOPTED families .. I have extensive research skills  in both Hawaiian and Japanese genealogy and was able to obtain the “ KOSEKI” a family registry in Japan in both lineages. I honor my ancestors for their stamina, the inter generational trauma , endurance and the journeys they had to take including the harsh racial prejudice . I also have DNA results from 23&me/Ancestry.
by Anna Feick G2G1 (1.2k points)
edited by Anna Feick
+3 votes
I don't. However, my daughter and son have Asian ancestry on their Father's side of the family.

Their paternal Grandmother is of Japanese descent and she was born in Wapato, Yakima County, Washington. She and my son were both born in the year of the snake. My son will be 24 years old this year. And his paternal Grandmother will be 96 years old this year.

My daughter and son's paternal Grandfather was of Chinese descent. He was born in Hong Kong China. However, his mother and other relatives and some ancestors were of Chinese descent born in Hawaii. My daughter and son's first ancestors to come from China to Hawaii came prior to it being a United States territory.

My daughter and son have an extended relative who is also a descendant of the Luke and Chock families who immigrated from China to Hawaii. She is Madison Chock Bates who is part of the US Figure Skating and is considered an ice dancer with her partner/husband Evan Bates.
by Carrie Pau G2G6 Mach 1 (12.0k points)
+1 vote

So while waiting for my DNA test results, I vividly remember being confident it would come back at least 75% Asian, both because I'm Turkish and because I really look Asian—so much so that while I was living in China, locals were genuinely surprised to learn I wasn’t Chinese! Plus, my father, whose father is Crimean Tatar, once told me we’re related to Genghis Khan lol.

Yet according to Ancestry, I’m 95% European. My Asian ancestry was cited as 4% Central Asian (so maybe there’s some truth to the Genghis Khan lore) and 1% Persian. Conversely, 23andMe marked me as 30% Anatolian (aka Turkish), 3% Uzbek, and 0.5% South Chinese. Ancestry didn’t list any Anatolian at all, even though that’s supposedly where my family originally comes from. The Central Asian part does make sense, given that Turks migrated from there before settling in present-day Turkey.

So yeah, either way, I’m apparently majority European, yet somehow I have the strongest Asian features in my entire family—even more than my dad. Go figure! smiley

ago by Esin Murat G2G3 (3.1k points)

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