Kathie,
Please delete if not allowed to paste from the report we had done. Until i learn how to do this properly ..
Please always refer to the spreadsheet for more information.
Based on the scenario where Thomas Captain Sr.’s father was half white and half Native, your percentage of Native heritage reflects what can reasonably be expected at your generation and later generational intermarriage with white women beginning with Martha Ellen Gullett.
In the spreadsheet, I extrapolated your DNA percentage back up the tree, assuming you inherited half of your ancestor’s DNA in each generation.
I tried to correlate this with the percentages such as 3/16ths, etc, but the actual percentages of DNA line up almost exactly with the expected amount for Thomas Captain Sr.’s grandfather to be white and his other three grandparents to be Native.
The last person in this line to carry mitochondrial DNA is Thomas Andrew Captain Sr. who did not pass it to his children. They received his wife’s mitochondrial DNA.
The only possibility would be is if:
1. We knew the identity of Thomas Andrew Captain’s sisters, and at least one person descends from those sisters through all females to the current generation where either males or females can test. Additionally, number 2.
2. WecanidentifyfemalechildrendescendedfromTecumseh’smotherthroughher first husband who were full siblings of Tecumseh and the Prophet. If those female children have descendants through all females to the current generation, and will test, they could be compared to the person in item 1.
However, this match, even if exact, would not prove a common mother. It could, however, disprove that Meth-as-tah-kee was the common mother of both sets of children. I will discuss this further at the end of the report.
The X Chromosome
The X chromosome is autosomal, but it has a unique inheritance path. Specifically, men inherit their Y chromosome from their father, so they only inherit an X from their mother. Women inherit an X from both parents, like any autosomal DNA.
Men pass no X to their sons, but pass their mother’s X, intact, to their daughters.
On the X chromosome spreadsheet tab, I’ve drawn out the X path in both scenarios in mustard. In other words, how much of Tecumseh’s mother’s DNA the people in mustard inherited.
Conclusion
The Captain Y DNA is of European origin. We don’t know the name of the European ancestor, nor when the European DNA entered the Captain lineage.
Eventually, you may match someone on the Y DNA with a surname that is either a close match or known to be associated with the Shawnee.
Using autosomal DNA, the three testers, John Captain, Joyce Moore and Donald Rickner match at the anticipated level for the known relationship. Furthermore, all three testers share a level of Native ethnicity that is appropriate and expected for Thomas Andrew Captain, Sr. born circa 1850 to be 75% Native – meaning his grandfather is a white man and all three of his other grandparents are 100% Native.
Mitochondrial DNA will not help with this analysis unless you can selectively recruit people, as described, to take the mitochondrial DNA test. This would be a good test because mitochondrial DNA is never admixed with the mitochondrial DNA of the father. However, the drawback will be that while it could prove that Tecumseh’s mother is NOT the mother of Meth-as-tah-kee, it cannot prove that she is. This is because
mitochondrial DNA remains the same for generations, so many women in the Shawnee tribe likely shared the same mitochondrial DNA because there were few original ancestors. In other words, the mitochondrial DNA could match because Metheotasha was the mother of both Tecumseh and Meth-as-tah-kee, or because their different mothers shared common ancestors, either recently, such as sisters or first cousins, or more distantly. Their mitochondrial DNA cold still match exactly.
The X chromosome MIGHT be useful, but only if the genealogy can be better defined and proven. However, the X chromosome is diluted, the same as autosomal DNA, and while it too might be suggestive, it can’t be conclusive.
Autosomal DNA, in general, presents a problem in endogamous populations which are, by definition populations that have intermarried for generations. The Native people only had other Native people to intermarry with until Europeans arrived in the 1400s. Therefore, Native people can expect to share more DNA than people from non- endogamous populations because they share so many ancestors for so very long.
I wrote about endogamy here: https://dna-explained.com/2019/05/09/concepts- endogamy-and-dna-segments/
Given that the Native population was dramatically reduced as a result of both warfare and disease, not to mention genocidal policies, even a mitochondrial match would not be conclusive. It could, however, rule out the possibility that Tecumseh and Meth-as- tah-kee shared a mother.
Multiple pieces of evidence would strengthen the argument that they did share a mother.
Johncaptain@hotmail.com
Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma
Captain link to ?
