So I took a DNA test and the results were surprising!

[Doug 周]

Jeremy,

Thank you for inquiring with these intelligent questions. Our discussion had me discover a new solution to one of the many conundrums of family historians. Again, this is why I participate in the Forum. I always learn during discussions.

A recent WeChat conversation (great timing) revealed that the my grandfather’s ancestral village name was changed and merged into another town. On this Forum, there have been many requests for location of ancestral villages. As postal centers and cities merge and evolve, old village names are lost. This is a reason the originators of this Forum have a section called Location, Location, Location.

Classical Chinese family history requires the Chinese characters of your male ancestors full name (surname plus Zi and/or Hao givenname) and the name of the ancestral village. This is the only way to find a jiapu or zupu for the clan.

Therefore, the Y paternal haplogroup is a great biomarker as proof of inclusion into your paternal zupu. It might not yet be very useful in 2017, but as DNA testing becomes more prevalent, there will be more opportunities to match

[Doug 周]

CORRECTION:

I fell into the trap of looking for a biomarker for the clan. I have shared that there is no known biomarker for race. I hoped the science was advanced enough to differentiate the Y chromosome for different clans that were genealogically distinct. The haplogroups differentiate population movement tens of thousands of years ago. My zupu differentiates individuals merely 1000 years ago.

Correlating the haplogroup with a surname zupu does not work for my examples. The 杨 Yang jiapu from ancestral village 申明亭 in Zhongshan has the O-P164 haplogroup. But the 謝 Tse from 芳村 which is from Panyu (Guandzhou) and alleged to have come Fujian is also the O-P164 haplogroup.

Maybe it is a 23&Me thing. Hope gckimm and jeremychin can share their Y paternal haplogroups

[jeremychin]

Doug,

Thank you for taking the time to impart your generous knowledge. Especially on a topic that is quite complicated as this. I'm glad our discussion can lead to new solutions and discoveries on your end! In reference to villages that have merged or changed names, I actually just posted in Location, Location, Location about a few of my own villages. I have the immediate areas, but choosing which cluster of houses is the exact village is the challenge, so I definitely understand it.

My Y Paternal Haplogroup is Q-M120. How ever in order to get the full picture on my father's side, I would think I would need to get my Aunt to do a test, so that my grandmother's hapologroup can aid in the search.

[ronchun]

DNA Testing, especially, for Chinese Americans is very limited.  I have used Autosoma DNA tests with 2 of the 3 (Ancestry.com and FamilyTree DNA) while my sister did 23 and me. Due to relatively few people doing DNA testing, the "ethinic origins" is somewhat vague.  23 and me is able to delineate between Chinese and Japanese while the other two companies merely lump you as "Southeast Asian." 

Doug mentioned the concept of the Haplogroup but that designation is only derived from taking much "deeper" tests which only Family Tree DNA presently offers (these tests were offered by Ancestry a long time ago)  --  the Mitochrondia or M-Test (Maternal Line -through mothers only) or the Y-T (Paternal Line - Dads  only).  The Haplogroup generally reflects the migration patters of certain ethic groups.  No matter what Haplogroup you -- whether you belong to "European," "Asian," "Latino" and "Native American" Haplogroup, you will realize that we all originated from Africa.  DNA testing through the traditional autosomal test that you see on T.V. is good to confirm 2nd - 4th cousins when you get the matches.  Thus, if you and your cousin both take autosomal tests, both of you should get a match.  However, due to random DNA recombination, it might possible that you won't get a match with a known 4th cousin.  The father out you go, the less likely of any confidence that you can rely that you are related due to random DNA recombination.   These tests are also good to find out if you are not the child of a parent.  But most of us don't take the DNA tests to confirm whether we were by-product of an extra-marital affair.  

The DNA test will not directly led you to your ancestral village.  For me, DNA testing was used through a combination of M-Tests and Y-Tests to determine where my Polynesian ethnic origin (maybe Hawaiian ancestry) came from, it was not from the Autosomal test: the Autosomal Test from Ancestry did indicate I was part Polynesian.  Ancestry.com's designation of "Polynesian" is more precise than 23 and me and FamilyTree DNA because I suspect that there are not enough Polynesians who have done DNA testing with 23 and me or Family Tree DNA where they could "pinpoint" Polynesian versus South East Asian.  Family Tree DNA's Autosomal Test didn't rule out Polynesian but its grouping that covered Hawaii was so large it was almost not very helpful to determine whether I was part Hawaiian --  I could've been Filipino, Malaysian or Native New Zealander because they all fit into a huge large categorical region just as the South East Asian designation that you get from Ancestry (the area covers Japan, China or Korea).   Based upon my relatives who've tested, 23 and me is the only company that can confirm if you're Chinese as opposed to being South East Asian.

The real benefit from DNA testing (whether Autosomal, M-Test or Y-Test)  is finding a match of a possible relative that you didn't know who did a family tree.  The vast majority of matches of unknown relatives involve people who are not interested in genealogy which means the matches are not helpful.  In my case, the matches I got were people with possible Asian American surnames because DNA testing is not huge among Chinese.  The day that the Chinese government forces people to take a DNA test with a known commercial company is the day you might find your overseas Chinese cousin in that remote ancestral village who could lead you to your village and the ancestral books.  Other than that event, DNA testing especially for Chinese-Americans will not replace hard detective work and genealogy and getting the Jiapu and Ziapu.  Thus, the DNA testing is great for you want tell people your general ethnic origins but it really does not tell you much unless you get a match with someone that has done their own family history and wants to meet you.  Many of the matches are not interested in meeting you and/or collaborating on genealogy.  Occasionally it could be helpful.  In my case, I found a cousin who did a family tree and we could trace our relationship through our trees.  Through his side of the family, I could trace that I am a descendant of King Kamehameha I through marriage. He was also a wonderful and funny cousin.  It's one tool to help you but there are far more effective tools unless you want to brag at a dinner party that you belong to some sexy Native American origin. Most of the time, for many Chinese Americans, you're bragging that you are South East Asian -- something that you knew already before the test was started. Which means you have nothing to brag about and then you can launch into genealogy and watch your relatives walk away because they've seen your genealogy show before!

[FayChee]

My Szeto Y Paternal Haplogroup is O-L127.1
My dad's family is from Chaoyang Li in Chung Wo Heung, Kaiping, Guangdong China
On 23andMe it says that 1 in 2,500 of their customers have that haplogroup.

[1geewong]

I have tested several Chinese relatives through Ancestry. I am very confident that the "Polynesian" findings through Ancestry are an error. Each of the people I have tested have families that originated in Taishan and have never lived anywhere with polynesian populations. One was born is Taishan; another is a child of Taishan-born immigrants and has no genetic relationship to first; another is niece to the first and is a child of Taishan-born immigrants ... Ancestry says each of these are 12-13% "Polynesian". Because of these tested relatives, I have looked at dozens of "matches" and Ancestry universally indicates that those people are significantly "Polynesian". The only way this could be true would be if there had been a significant populations of Polynesians that moved into Taishan, which there is no history of. My guess is that Ancestry's problem is they set up their comparison population from "Chinese" in the Hawaiian Islands.

[jeremychin]

Hello all,

Quick update. Wegene is now accepting DNA tests from 23 & me users who tested using V5 testing kits(August 2017 and later). Wegene specifically focuses on the East Asian ancestry and has a lot more specificity in terms of Chinese ethnic groups and breaking down "south east asian". As for me, this new report brought some new info into my research adding two new ethnicites where 23 & me had me at 0%. It seems that to really find out, you would have to do a tree not only for your male ancestors, but through the maternal lines as well?

[ginagaladriel]

Jeremy, with WeGene, if it says 0% doesn't mean it's 0% but less than 0% (e.g. 0.1, 0.09, etc) because when you add everything that does not have a 0% it does not reach the 100% 

[jeremychin]

Gina,

When I talked about 0%, I was referring to 23andme's report. I had 0% for Japanese and Indian but some percentage on the wegene report. Anything on wegene that may be.1 or so is pretty insignificant to really mean much.

[1geewong]

Nov 9, 2017 17:04:56 GMT -5 jeremychin said:

It seems that to really find out, you would have to do a tree not only for your male ancestors, but through the maternal lines as well?

Hi Jeremy,

Regarding your question above, I understand this to refer to whether you would need to trace all family lines to explore all the various ethnicities indicated in the Wegene report .... that would be correct. The test result analysis is based on your autosomal DNA; the autosomal DNA is inherited, in roughly equal proportions, from all your recent ancestors, both maternal and paternal. This is also true of your parents ... i.e. they each reflect both of their ancestral lines, as well. Same for all of your grandparents; etc. 

Thus, roughly 12% of your DNA has been passed down to you from each of your 8 great grandparents. If you had a 100% Japanese great grandparent, this would show up on your ethnicity report at about 12% Japanese (say in a range of 9-15%); in order to identify this person, you would have to trace all ancestors back to all 8 great grandparents.

You can work the system to your favor; if you tested an aunt, as you had indicated, that test can be helpful. If there were no "Japanese" ethnicity, then you could assume that your Japanese ancestry came from your other parent's lineage. If the "Japanese" ancestry were in the lineage the same as your aunt, the % should be roughly twice has high. Other results are possible but that gets into more complicated answers than this one.

[jeremychin]

Hi 1geewong,

These were my thoughts exactly! Thanks for articulating it in greater detail. It seems as though if these results are accurate, my South East Asian and Japanese percentages are high enough that I could feasibly trace back four-five or so generations to find the link to Japan and the South East. Luckily, I have narrowed it down to my father's side as my maternal cousin tested as 99% Chinese, so that's half the battle. My paternal grandfather swears that we are "pureblood" chinese, so battle two, here we come! Tracing through those maternal lines I feel are going to be extremely challenging. Since there were very little records kept for the daughters, it seems the only feasible way would be to go back and do some grave hunting??! Do you know if birth villages were listed on female gravestones at all?

[ginagaladriel]

Jeremy, ahhh I understand now

[1geewong]

Sorry for the slow response; I hadn't noticed the update.

Anyway, I'm not an expert on gravestones but it's my impression that women's gravestones will indicate village...hopefully.

I'll also say that you write of your grandparent in the present tense ..... if you are going to consider and use DNA as a supplement to your genealogical research, you should test as many of the oldest generational relatives as your budget will allow. At each generation, the DNA "trace" of that lineage's ancestors gets cut in half (e.g. the DNA in your test that represents your living grandfather is only 1/4 of the DNA he carries of his ancestors). That "lost" information means that you will fail to find "cousins" that can provide guidance to ancestors. Not to belabor the point but you mention the difficulty tracing female ancestors; those women likely had brothers and their descendants (as your cousins) have the easier pathway to follow ... and if they will, can help you.

[jian123]

Hi I am ma two from Hunan and Tianjin. Yestrday I semt their rawdata from 23 and me, can it show up here, there do I see it

[jeremychin]

Hi All!

Just an interesting update to my DNA journey. I recently learned about a process called "phasing" which compares your own DNA to your parents in order to determine which DNA (ancestry, health or traits) came from which parent. It can also increase the resolution of your ancestry results for greater accuracy in your percentages. So, I had both of my parents as well as my last living paternal and maternal grandparents tested. My Vietnamese percentage went from 4% to 0. And my Chinese Dai went from about 6% to 1%. My father's Chinese Dai percentage went from 10% to 1% and his Vietnamese from 4% to 1%. Overall, the phasing process made my results a lot less interesting, but more realistic, as to confirm that there wasn't this unknown ancestor/lineage that I should be trying to track down.