Does anyone know the steps in order to see if you have a high Native American line?

Question

I have traced my famiy back to 10 generations before and realize a couple of them are still within this small area.

Answer 1

Hi Bobby, nice to meet you :)

Please help me clarify as I try to assist...

On the question, I'm not positive what a "high" Native American line would be, but if you are referring to an ancestor from very far back (such as 10 generations eluded to in your statement) then there are a couple of ways you could seek the answer.  One would be a genealogical "paper" trail showing evidence of relations from you to your parents, them to theirs, etc. until connecting to a known Native American profile.  Another way would be to take a DNA test and find results that show Native American ancestry.  Ideally you would use both together to be most confident in the results.

On the statement about people living in the same area for 10 generations, I think you are saying that means someone is more likely to be Native American?  I'm not sure about that being an indicator; maybe for a particular place and time.  Many European settlers lived in the same area of the US for more than 10 generations without intermarrying with Native Americans.

I hope we can find an answer for you, I too have questions about my possible Indian ancestry.

Cheers!

Comments

Maybe I can share my experience with you.  I have a paper trail that leads to a Native American ancestor that was my 6th great grandfather.  There are no family traditions regarding him so I wanted to verify that he actually existed.  I decided to take a DNA test and my results came back negative for any Native American ancestry.  I was told that there was a possibility that there would be no DNA results for any single ancestor further than 5 generations back in time. We get 50% of our DNA from any one parent and through the generations this DNA would continue to decay until by the 6th or 7th generation there could be so little DNA left that it would not be visible.  I was alerted to Gedmatch and downloaded my results and lo and behold I found significant proportions of Native American DNA on 8 of my chromosomes.  These proportions were fairly consistent on 3 of their tests that test for Amerindian DNA.  My recommendation would be to not give up.  Find the paper trail and substantiate your sources and then turn to a DNA test to verify your results.  If it is negative, download to Gedmatch which may pick up better results.  Good luck.