I have something I need to bitch about regarding Elizabeth Warren and the DNA test. Not EW.

[GemDigger]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the General Discussion forum).

Last edited Tue Apr 30, 2019, 09:55 PM - Edit history (1)

How many people have taken DNA tests recently? How many people have gone to ancestry dot com to search out their roots? How many people claim to have First People blood in their veins to find out they do not?

She did what many of us have thought about or done. I have chased my ancestry back to the 1400's.

She put her money where her mouth was and shut his ass down. What the hell is the big deal?

End of bitch.

Edit: Please see my #7 post below. She did have First People markers.

[MaryMagdaline]

1. I am an avid fan of Finding Your Roots

The family story of having Native American blood is extremely common and mostly results in findings of -0- Native American blood.

While I did not have THAT story in my family, I was told a story that we were related to a famous person, and after researching extensively through Ancestry.com, I have found that there appears to be no connection, unless he was a very, very distant relative.
Both my parents believed the story, and I think their parents did as well. Someone 3 generations back started the family lore, and it just is not true. That does not make me a liar for having repeated it until I found out it wasn't true. I notified my siblings so that they do not repeat an untrue story. I don't yet have the courage to tell my cousins that it is a lie. I know I'll have to produce extensive documentation and honestly, not up to having a free-for-all with the family. My siblings believe and trust my research.

[GemDigger]

4. My aunt is spreading a story similar to that in the family and I have shown her the paperwork

disproving it and her ego won't allow her to admit she was wrong.

[MaryMagdaline]

6. That's what I'm afraid of from a few (but not all) relatives

[Mrs. Overall]

2. Good point. Here are some other thoughts about the DNA test:

1. Ancestry.com did a huge revision of everyone's test a few months ago. When I first took the test, my results showed 10% Spanish and 5% Irish, among other ethnic groups. After the revision, I am now 0% Spanish, 30% Irish, and suddenly 10% Norwegian. A new huge update to the tests will happen at the end of May. Obviously, DNA testing for ethnicity is not an exact science.

2. My siblings and I do not have all of the same ethnic groups in our DNA tests. Sometimes you do not inherit a certain ethnicity from your parents, though a sibling might. For instance, my mother is part European Jewish and although my brother and sister inherited this ethnicity from my mother, I did not. I am 0% European Jewish. So Elizabeth Warren could still have Native American roots, it's just that she did not directly inherit those genes from her mother or father.

I have been ranting inside my head about Elizabeth Warren and her DNA test. Grrrr....

[GemDigger]

7. Excellent points.

(1) The great majority of the individual’s identifiable ancestry is European: 95% of high confidence segments (defined as those segments with at least 99% posterior probability of assignment) were identified by RFMix as being of European origin. This is likely an underestimate as many of the segments not classified as high-confidence are also likely to be European in origin. The analysis also identified 5 genetic segments as Native American in origin at high confidence, defined at the 99% posterior probability value. We performed several additional analyses to confirm the presence of Native American ancestry and to estimate the position of the ancestor in the individual’s pedigree

https://facts.elizabethwarren.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Bustamante_Report_2018.pdf

[mercuryblues]

8. That is exactly it

We heard the same stories growing up. Our great grandmother was American Indian. One of my kids had her DNA done and she is 0% American Indian. My Sis had hers done and she has about the same as EW does. If I hadn't seen the pictures that prove it, I would doubt the family lore.

[33taw]

16. First, Elizabeth Warren's ancestry is of no importance to me.

But, if she didn’t inherit her genetic make-up from her Mother or Father, who did she inherit it from?

[Mrs. Overall]

29. She did inherit her genetic make up from her mother and father--

it is just that an individual does not inherit all of the genetic material from each parent (roughly 50% from each), meaning that a parent can be a certain ethnicity and one might not inherit it.

So, perhaps one of Elizabeth Warren's parents does have a portion of Native American ancestry, but she may not have inherited those particular genes, therefore her DNA test shows no Native American ancestry. The personal example I gave is that my mother has a certain amount of Jewish ancestry, but I did not inherit any, though my two siblings did.

[33taw]

32. Thanks for the clarification.

[GemDigger]

33. See my #7 post above.

She did inherit markers though. The test proved that she did not lie about it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. My understanding is that all of the testing service can revise their

results as they get a larger known data base.

I did mine several years ago with 23 and me, and one of the things they mentioned somewhere was that they simply didn't have (at that point anyway) enough people with African or Asian ancestry.

In my case, a redo probably won't matter. All four grandparents came from Ireland, so my results were not at all different from what I'd expect. Other than a very small percentage Sardinian. Here's my exact results:

Northwestern European 99.6%
British & Irish 95.7%
Scandinavian 1.3%
Broadly Northwestern European 2.6%
Southern European 0.4%
Sardinian 0.3%
Broadly Southern European < 0.1%
Broadly European < 0.1%

However, what was really interesting was the Neanderthal result, which I don't believe Ancestry tests for:

Neanderthal variants: 330
This is more than 98% of 23andMe Customers
You have more Neanderthal variants than 98% of 23andMe customers.
However, your Neanderthal ancestry accounts for less than 4% of your overall DNA.

I find it totally cool that I have such a relatively large amount of Neanderthal.

[Mrs. Overall]

30. Wow, the Neanderthal is very cool.

In talking to people who have taken both Ancestry.com and 23andMe tests, it seems that most prefer the specificity of the results from 23andMe.

The revisions and changes to my results on Ancestry.com did take me by surprise, but it completely makes sense that as the database of results grows, the testing becomes more refined. I'll be curious what the large Ancestry revision at the end of May brings to my results. If I ever take the 23andMe test, I will hope for a large amount of Neanderthal!

[maxsolomon]

3. It will be a big deal.

President Asshole and the Repukes will accuse her of exploiting and exaggerating her Native American ancestry to unfair advantage - I forget where exactly. Some application for something, she listed herself as Native American.

They DGAF about whether it's true or not. It will become the biggest scandal since HRC's emails.

As far as I can tell, the MSM dropped the Million-Dollar-Bet story as soon as Asshole welched on it. Warren would be wise to hit back and call Asshole a welcher.

No one likes a welcher.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Part of the big deal is the way she and the media talk about it is not helpful to

Native Americans. DNA is not identity, and being part of the community does not depend on DNA.

[emmaverybo]

12. As I understand it all she said is that she has First Peoples' ancestry

And she does. The family narrative she spoke of was borne out by DNA. Now, yeah, to take that narrative and have called herself a Native American when she was a law professor could be a step too far. But wasn’t there some wiggle room on that? I mean she didn’t do it to mislead, but rather she blurred the lines unwittingly between growing up as part of a cultural group and having that group’s heritage somewhere in her ancestry.

[OregonBlue]

13. What I don't understand is why she lets him get away with

Calling her Pocohontas as though its a slur. She needs to stand up there and point out how proud she was when she thought she had native ancestry and what an amazing hero Pocohontas was. Instead the racist scum of a president uses the name as though its an insult instead of an honor.

Of course to a misogynist, white supremacist creep like Plump it is an insult. To the rest of us its like wow, no one has ever called me Pocohontas!!

[guillaumeb]

9. My sister did so. With the expected results.

75% French.
25% First Peoples.

Tracing one's family ancestry does seem to be very popular.

[Vinca]

10. It was all stupid. She should have told Trump to go fuck himself. She didn't have to prove

anything to anybody. Trump, on the other hand, had to produce his birth certificate in court when he sued Bill Maher. Why? To prove he wasn't the spawn of an orangutan. (Bet the orangutans were relieved.)

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

28. Yes, it was stupid as all get out!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[lame54]

11. That's the crux of their ads...

"I thought I was German. I'm actually Scottish."

And so on

[C Moon]

14. I bought the DNA test from Ancestry. The odd thing was that I had the EXACT same DNA matches

as one of my cousins on my mother's side.
:/
It was like they left out my father's side completely. My knee jerk reaction was that they found a DNA match close to me (my cousin), and just gave me those matches. I hope there's more to it, but it was very odd.

[Sneederbunk]

15. Had same experience, although my father's side can be documented back to 1400s.

[C Moon]

34. Wow! The furthest I've been able to go back is late 1846.

[patphil]

17. A lot of people claim Native American ancestry

because their relatives told them they had this ancestry.
This is common, and not just with Native Americans, but with many different ethnic backgrounds.
I mean, after all, Trump's parents claim he is human.
But I will say one thing.
My father always told me I had a small amount of Menomiee Indian blood. He would hold up his little finger and say that was how much.
It turns out that I am 1/16th Native American. He was 1/8.
He even looked like a Native American.
Elizabeth Warren's claim has never concerned me. I am much more concerned with here character (flawless) and her politics (exemplary).
She would make a great president.

Patrick Phillips

[Honeycombe8]

19. That wasn't the issue that started it all.

You know what it was. We all do. It wasn't that she got a dna test.

[Karadeniz]

20. I never thought she was out of line in getting a DNA test. Who wouldn't wonder about a

family claim. What I NEVER understood was the native American reaction to it. To me, the more the merrier. If someone's proud of that heritage, why cast aspersions. I'd have had a welcoming ceremony.

[NotHardly]

21. In the long walk of history, I'm pretty sure that a lot of hanky-panky went on ... we are all mutts,

good mutts but mutts nonetheless.

[TalenaGor]

22. *waves* me- kinda....

My Mom was convinced that we were part Souix..... So much that she almost named me Souix Dawn

Then about 10 years ago she got on ancestry.com did a bunch of research and came back and said oh my gosh we're not Souix, were Cherokee!

I took it with a grain of salt because she also told me that she traced us all the way back to Adam and Eve....on ancestry.com lol

anyway I suggested to her that she do a DNA test and kind of see where she's at..... And she did..... And we're not.... LOL

Not one drop and she was devastated..... Which I don't entirely understand but okay.....

I went ahead and took one back in December and also came back with not a drop....

So that is done and done lol

[customerserviceguy]

36. I've been doing genetic genealogy

for over four years now, and I find that a lot of people were told made-up stories about their heritage. One woman even listed on her profile that her great-great-grandmother was a South American princess. Yes, she did have such a relative whose surname was Rodrigue, but that ancestor was a descendant of a Portuguese settler to New France in about 1600.

I've seen a number of people who have had their family's fanciful tales fall apart when science stepped up to show the truth.

[Curtis]

23. My story is very similar to Warren's

A good chunk of both parents come out of Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas (don't worry as I've washed off all the nasty conservative yuckiness). I was supposed to have a lot of Cherokee, but we weren't registered because the great greatgrandfather who had the most was a wanted horse thief and never registered for the roll.

Well, my sister did the DNA test and nothing. No native peoples DNA. I started researching our family and got back to Germany, the lowlands and British Islands. We did have someone on the Mayflower. But no Native I could find on any branch.

In my opinion, kudos to Warren. At least she had up to 1/64 native people's DNA.

[leftofcool]

24. Her DNA test was never the issue

All it did was confirm what the tribal councils already knew.

[stuffmatters]

25. Trump's ancestry: his father was a proven racist whose father owned brothels

He sure didn't fall far from the Trump ancestral toilet in either case.

[ecstatic]

26. I'm curious about my ancestry, but decided to hold off until Congress passes laws

that protect consumers with regard to our DNA information. And that will never happen so I guess I'll never know.

[sop]

27. Where I grew up lots of folks claimed First Peoples' ancestry

Of course, back then they didn't use "First People," or even "Native American." Many of the old timers routinely reminisced, "Yeah, I'm part Scotch and Norwegian on my daddy's side, and part French, Spanish and Choctaw on my mama's side of the family." They saw themselves as true Americans from "pioneer stock." Who knows if any of it was true, or just another family myth.

Then Trump turned Warren's background into another one of his cheap, political slurs. And the corporate media predictably lapped it up, even trotting out a couple of First People to feign outrage and lend credibility to their attacks on Warren.

[Doodley]

31. She let Trump define her to many voters. She failed. She would struggle in the intensity of

a presidential campaign, against the machine that defined Hillary Clinton who previously had approval ratings in the 60s.

[customerserviceguy]

35. It isn't about taking the DNA tests, specifically

I was adopted, and I did all the companies that offered these tests four years ago. It is estimated that the 23andMe database size is about five million, and the AncestryDNA database is near ten million.

There are a couple of other issues in Sen. Warren's case, however. First, she let Trump know that he could get under his skin. I recall when Barack Obama released the long form of his birth certificate, hoping to finally lay to rest the nonsense about being born in Kenya. Instead, it made Trump look more powerful in the eyes of the anti-Obama cretins, and may well have gotten Trump nominated and then elected by the Electoral College. It should have been a lesson about giving Trump's bullshit the dignity of being taken seriously.

Also, there are questions surrounding Sen. Warren's use of purported Native ancestry throughout her professional life. While it is true that she has a very, very slight amount of DNA that appears to indicate some Native heritage, she does not actually have a clue as to who that ancestor might be. That's a thin reed to base putting "American Indian" on the Texas Bar form that was made public a few months ago.

My DNA tests show a tiny amount of Native DNA, too, probably from Acadian ancestors who intermarried with local women upon colonization of what are now the Canadian Maritimes. But, it would be utterly stupid of me to claim any First Nations heritage for the purposes of being recognized in any way for it.

Also, her timing was incredibly poor, she did this when the focus should have been exclusively on the midterm elections. Yes, we did well during that election, but it was in spite of Sen. Warren's DNA "news" and certainly not because of it.

[Omaha Steve]

37. After a review by forum hosts...locking.

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