Here's a quick cautionary genetic tale. I have an NBC Latino article coming out soon on genealogy(!), and it's interesting that a couple of the Latine genealogists I spoke with commented that they have "British" DNA, and they didn't know where it came from.
That reminded me of my own AncestryDNA results, saying that I have about 5% "England and Northwestern Europe" DNA and 2% "Wales" DNA. Welsh?!?? No one on my Dad's family tree is from Wales. He does have an ancestor, Juan Cohen, who was born in Great Britain, but it seems he was completely Jewish, not with English ancestry.
My English/Welsh DNA was the one part of my DNA results that seemed strange, and did make me wonder if there was an unknown Anglo ancestor out there. Ancestry is the infamous company that promoted trading your lederhosen for a kilt, after all.
The mystery seemed unsolvable, until AncestryDNA presented its own version of a Chromosome Painter, which is now behind a paywall. When it was initially free, I was able to see exactly which chromosomes were partially "English" and "Welsh" — 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, and 17.
My "English" and "Welsh" DNA, according to Ancestry.
I compared it with the 23andMe Chromosome Painter, and to my surprise nearly all of the DNA segments that were supposedly from the British Isles are determined to be "Spanish and Portuguese" by 23andMe:
My Iberian DNA, according to 23andMe.
I also got the SNP position numbers from Ancestry and 23andMe and again, the English/Welsh bits of my AncestryDNA results basically overlapped with Spanish/Portuguese segments in my 23andMe results. The miracle that is DNA Painter helped me identify which sides of my Colombian family contributed a majority of these supposed British DNA segments:
Chromosome 2 - From my Martelo ancestors. Ancestry says it's "English," 23andMe says it's "Spanish and Portuguese."
Chromosome 3 - From my Vásquez ancestors. Ancestry says it's "English," 23andMe says it's mostly "Spanish and Portuguese" and a section in the middle is "Levantine."
Chromosome 5 - From my Vásquez ancestors. Ancestry says it's "English," 23andMe says it's "Spanish and Portuguese."
Chromosome 6 - Unknown ancestors. Ancestry says it's "English," 23andMe says it's "Spanish and Portuguese."
Chromosome 9 - Unknown ancestors. Ancestry says it's "English," 23andMe says it's "Spanish and Portuguese."
Chromosome 12 - From my Vásquez ancestors. Ancestry says it's "Welsh," 23andMe says it's "Spanish and Portuguese."
Chromosome 17 - From my Rueda ancestors. Ancestry says it's "Welsh," 23andMe says it's "Spanish and Portuguese."
I have no definitive proof, but I am inclined to believe 23andMe's interpretation that it's all Spanish and Portuguese and a little Levantine. I also appreciate how 23andMe shows DNA results ranging from 50% certainty to 90% certainly. There's hedging of bets which is missing from AncestryDNA.
How could DNA testing be this disparate? Western European DNA is not that genetically diverse, especially when compared with African DNA. While my European vs. South American vs. African DNA is roughly the same amount across all DNA tests, the regions within Western Europe widely vary, depending on which test I am using. Even my AncestryDNA percentages have changed quite a bit, as the company rejiggers its admixture calculations year after year.
Human phylogenic tree showing immense African genetic diversity on the right side and the not-diverse rest of the world on the left side. All of Western Europe is in the middle of the left side. (source)
All that to say, I am not planning to trade my matador cape for a Welsh hat anytime soon! I'm really curious if other Latinos show a similar disparity in their Western European DNA results.
Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut (at) gmail.com.
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