"Full Blooded"

[freep]

So....
Are we nothing? Or are we all?

All are one?

[kiltedsniper]

We are all "us", and have always been so, I believe.

Very nice quote.
I know my great great grandmother on my dads side of the family was from Scotland and her mother as well, but x3 grandmother was married around 9 different times before coming to the U.S. And on my mothers side of the family we can trace the family tree back to the early 1600s of Germany. So, to quote from Bill Murray in Stripes...we're mutts!!

[freep]

I'm not really speaking to percentages of various ethnicity. Rather that what might seem to be a pure ethnicity or culture probably isn't. No person, no ethnicity, no culture lives in isolation. There is always interaction with 'outlanders' to coin a phrase. There is always intermingling of families, races, cultures and therefore nothing is purely American or Scottish or Dine'. So, in a sense, everything that belongs to one culture, belongs to us all. In most cultures the word used to describe their group translates to "The People." I think at this point, we have met The People and they are us
.

[OC Richard]

I've read that humans have less genetic diversity than other mammals, the result of a "bottleneck"

The genetic evidence indicates that our ancestors went through a bottleneck between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. At that point perhaps 20,000 people constituted the population from whom we are all descended.

And this is the mind-boggling part, for me

People like to trace their ancestry to famous figures... these claims are almost certainly true. The exponential growth in the number of our ancestors as one goes back in time (means that) if a historical figure who lived more than 1,600 years ago had children who themselves had children, that person is almost certainly among our ancestors.

Everyone in the world today is most likely descended from Nefertiti (through the six daughters she had with Akhenaton) Confucius (through his son and daughter) and Julius Caesar (through his illegitimate children).

From Mapping Human History by Steve Olson.

[Wareyin]

This is something I've been giving thought to recently. My DNA testing showed that I'm 69% English/Scottish/Welsh with a bit more from eastern Ireland. The rest is a scattering from northwestern Europe, 5% Scandinavian, etc. Having done some genealogical research (quite a bit actually), I've discovered many interesting facts about who my ancestors were and where we came from.

My wife — her grandfather was a Tyrie who emigrated to America as a stonemason — and I have discussed this topic at length. My ancestors in Scotland were also MacIntyres, although the records I've located list the spelling of my family members as 'MacIntire,' but that was in the early 1800s.

I am still pondering what this all means to me. My family is embedded in the history of the US. But there is no denying where we came from, and that is squarely from what today is the UK. I've always known that we were from there, I just didn't realize how deeply our roots were also embedded, nor just how much of my family's history is the story of Great Britain.

This is a brilliant topic and I am looking forward to hearing what others think about this.

Cheers, Mark

I've been considering getting a DNA test, but I'm not sure how accurate they are. Would you mind elaborating which one you chose, and how accurate it was based on your genealogical research?

[Profane James]

I've read that humans have less genetic diversity than other mammals, the result of a "bottleneck"

The genetic evidence indicates that our ancestors went through a bottleneck between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. At that point perhaps 20,000 people constituted the population from whom we are all descended.

And this is the mind-boggling part, for me

People like to trace their ancestry to famous figures... these claims are almost certainly true. The exponential growth in the number of our ancestors as one goes back in time (means that) if a historical figure who lived more than 1,600 years ago had children who themselves had children, that person is almost certainly among our ancestors.

Everyone in the world today is most likely descended from Nefertiti (through the six daughters she had with Akhenaton) Confucius (through his son and daughter) and Julius Caesar (through his illegitimate children).

From Mapping Human History by Steve Olson.

Like the argument that we are inhaling the same gas molecules that the dinosaurs and Julius Caesar exhaled...

[Father Bill]

I'm somewhat wary of commercial genetic testing to be quite honest.

First, it's for profit making corporations who reap a fiduciary benefit in giving you the kind of exciting answers you might hope for, inasmuch as you then may go about encouraging others to do so. Some of the comments in this very thread may be inadvertently having that effect.

Second, it's been only a matter of time before the police start asking those companies for your incredibly personalized identification, and indeed, this week I saw in the news that it was happening. One fellow I heard discussing this on the radio was cautious enough to have used an assumed name and E-mail address, but then, if that were uncovered, the authorities might think it more than a little suspicious too.

Something I read that I found interesting is that as far back as science has gone with genetic testing, one thing has remained pretty well constant, namely that about 7% of people were sired in any generation by someone other than whom they thought had done the deed. Your mother... well that's harder to fake, I guess.

I'd think more than twice before spitting into a bottle and mailing it away. It leaves your genetic fingerprint in the hands of an unregulated commercial entity and besides, you may find results that are actually disappointing. The dream is often a lot more fun than the wakeup call.

[James Hood]

Like the argument that we are inhaling the same gas molecules that the dinosaurs and Julius Caesar exhaled...

Let us take this delightful e-conversation momentarily to the next branch, well below the level of complexity of deoxyribonucleic acid; 'yearly, 'tell the religious ed students (8th grade pre-Confirmation, 15 years teaching), we are quite literally as in the Joni Mitchell Song, "Woodstock."

Using the "matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed and are interchangeable," there are atoms, nano-bits of each of us, some of which were (figuratively-sequentially) possibly in the thigh bone of a Stegosaurus, asteroid which did in the dinosaurs, beak of a giant squid, trunk of a Wooly mammoth, fingernail of a Neandertal, rock in an Ice Age glacier, callous on the foot of a Roman peasant, hair of a lion in Africa, in the wood of one of Magellan's ships, a page in a Shakespeare manuscript, Catherine the Great's hair, a camel brought to Australia in the 19th century, in the tail of a comet which earth passed through.

And those "wandering" atoms, well, most of them were formed, not too long after the Big Bang....

Oh, yeah, Joni Mitchell..."We are star dust, we are golden."

[Profane James]

Oh, yeah, Joni Mitchell..."We are star dust, we are golden."

"We are made of starstuff." - Carl Sagan

[jthk]

... and at the end of the day, does it matter? Scientifically there is only one race: the human race. There were approx. 500 distinct nations in the Americas at the time of European colonization, with many cultures and languages and outlooks on life. I can only speak to the Mohawk and other Iroquois nations but I know that, for them, membership in their "tribe" really doesn't require blood quantum but is more community focused. For example, a woman without any known native background learnt Mohawk, moved to one of their towns, and teaches it at a local school. She was adopted by the community and is now considered Mohawk. Her children will also be Mohawk.

I find blood quantum interesting only on a scientific level. What's my blood quantum? Out of curiosity, I may find out but I really don't care because it doesn't matter to me.

Best,
Jonathan