DNA Ancestry testing

OK, so I saw on Good Morning America a while back that there was a service called AfricanAncestry.com that can test your DNA and compare it to their database to determine what African tribe you most likely descended from. Oprah used this same service and determined that she was Zulu, anyway I paid the money and ordered both the Paternal and Maternal tests, the results came back 7 weeks later 100%..........IRISH and GERMAN?!?!?!?! I did not know how to feel about this, I was so looking forward to identifying with an African Tribe and now it seems that my ancestors where european. For some reason I am feeling a sense of loss, not that there is anything wrong with being Irish and German, jDNA does not lie, ust not what I expected. Now clearly there is some degree of African heritage, those that have seen my pics in the pets thread can clearly see I am a black man, but the best they could tell me is that I had some degree of northern african, Berber, lineage. Interesting......

 

Honestly....i think youre talking shit-My young African American friend.,,,

Besides why would anybody want their DNA to be fucked with like that??...i'd be very careful if i were you,,,, giving away DNA like that is serious business

 

Well I am a lawyer by trade so I knew the risks and investigated the matter in terms of legal remedies and protection before doing this. Not sure what to make out of the first part of your response, I shared this to get feedback to see if anyone else has traced their ancestry, if you have anything constructive to contribute I would like to hear it.

 

Well first of all...I'm not sure about Zulu. The slave trade took place primarily in West and Central Africa and the Zulus...as we all know come from Southeast Africa. There were African slaves brought to the Americas from Mozambique, which makes it possible...but slaves taken from there tended to end up in Latin America and more specifically Brazil...possibly in Europe in Portugal.

As for the Irish and German blood.....the test traces along your Y chromosome...your male lineage. A large percentage of black American men (35-50%) would find that their male lineage traces not to Africa but to Europe. This is because of the miscegenation that occured between white male slave masters and their female black slaves during those times.

Another thing to remember is that the tests only measure a drop of your heritage.

If you go back to the time of your great-great-great-great-great grandparents...there would be a total of 128 people. Of those 128 people it's possible that one could be Zulu and perhaps one could be German...you could take a genealogy test and it might say that you're Zulu and German even if the other 126 relatives were Ibo's from Nigeria.

The average black American is between 16-20% European (depending on where in the nation you live). This means that out of 128 great-great-great-great-great grandparents...between 20-26 of those would be white..which means that it's very easy for Irish, Scottish etc. to pop up on your family tree...even if you look fairly "African" with little obvious signs of other races in your tree.

 

I too found it strange that oprah had zulu heritage...As far as I know, no Zulus were ever taken as slaves...

 

You made a very good point swaziking , are you guys aware of the big slave trade in tanganyika by tipo-tipo , etc ...


Oprah just love south-africa , because our country has it all , a westernized , africanized at the same time even indians have their own place here. she has a lot of business here at the moment.

 

I have heard about how Oprah really loves South africa. I think she opened an all girls boarding school for disadvantaged children.The skeptic in me is wondering with her several business ventures in south Africa, how much of her heritage is really zulu; and how much of this is really media hype to ensure she maintains her interest in South africa and her business ventures there.

 

oprah is not zulu. Winfrey had her DNA tested for the 2006 PBS program African American Lives. The genetic test determined that her maternal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group, in the area that today is Liberia. Her genetic make up was determined to be 89% Sub-Saharan African. She is part Native American (about 8% according to the test) and East Asian (about 3% according to the test).

 

chosen1 basically summed it up

 

Thanks for that..its seems like a more realistic outcome...