what does 18% blood mean in native american?

Question

If a person has say 79% Europe Blood and 3% East Asian and 18% Native American blood what or how would one explain the mixture?  

thank you, Lilly Anderson G2G 6

Comments

Hi Lilly!  I'm new to wikitree..but I understand what your question is.  Most Native Americans would not be saying, "I'm 18% Native American"...they break it down like this...full blood, 3/4 blood, 1/2 blood,  1/4 blood, 1/8th, 1/16th,  1/32nd...after that, you can say you have a drop of Native American in you, and if you are of the  Cherokee people, even that drop counts.  According to your 18%  on your dna test, you can consider yourself 1/4 blood!  My great grandmother was full blood Cherokee, my grandfather 1/2, my dad 1/4, and I am 1/8th.   I hope this answered your question.

Sincerely,  Kay Leclair

Answer 1

Confirmed by DNA test. 79% European, 3% East Asian and 18% Native American.

Has your DNA been tested for the mixture of your ethnicity? 

 

Comments

Yes, this is what they sent back to me.

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This is consistent with you having one Native American grandparent (the 3% East Asian may actually be NA, as occasionally the two are difficult to differentiate on a DNA test).

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then if 3% East Asian NA, then what would the 18% native American mean? thanks

Lilly

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Lilly, I don't understand what you don't understand? Your results show you are 18% NA and 3% East Asian. The East Asian results MAY actually be Native American, which would make you a total of 21% Native American. That is consistent with you having one Native American grandparent. Are you trying to determine what tribe you're from? Unfortunately, DNA testing is not that sensitive. It cannot differentiate by tribe.

Answer 2

DNA is different than the usual generational nomenclature (which is a compounding of 2, 4, 8, etc). Sisters from the same two parents will have varying percents of DNA depending on which of the two pairings of their two parents genes they got their DNA from. You have 23 pairs of chromosomes and each pair had a 1 in 4 probability of  being a certain way.