My African Ancestry

Some of my STR autosomal DNA genetic results from DNATribes.

I have some North African DNA (which is considered to be part of the Caucasoid European - Near Eastern genetic group, see below) and a miniscule amount of DNA from the Horn of Africa (which is considered to be part of Sub-Sarahan Africa, see above). My own North African genetic connection is through the Berber tribe (to which I have distant genetic matches and which are considered to be of Caucasian origin).

The Horn of Africa is known from ancient manuscripts to be the original home of the Berbers (Bilad al-Barbar or Land of the Berbers). My Northern European Saami-North African Berber connection (through my U5b1b1-T16192C! genetic motherline is at least 9000 years old, and given that the amount of genetic input I received from the Horn of Africa is very miniscule as compared to the North African genetic input (which is itself miniscule as compared to the pan-European genetic input), I'm guessing that the Horn of African genetic input likely occurred before anatomically modern humans (AMH) left Africa - in other words, before the differentiation of the races as we know them today.

At the time anatomically moderns humans were all in Africa, the racial type distinctions we are familiar with today (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid) did not yet exist. The different human racial types evolved through time as AMH mixed genetically with other archaic hominids particular to their regions of evolutionary development.

One cool thing I found by re-examining my African genetic ancestry - by oral family tradition, I have some Native American ancestry, but my specific Native American genetic panel came back all negative, yet evidence for it is here in this chart - my Native American genetic ancestry is seen as Mestizo in the graph, which is a mixture of Native American and European ancestry.

Confirmed U5b1b1 mtDNA Haplogroup

My (FS) Full Sequence mtDNA results are back!!! I'm so excited! I'm confirmed to be in haplogroup U5b1b (and more specifically, in U5b1b1) - the Saami haplogroup also found in 2% of the North African Berbers. U5b1b is found in 48% of Saami and forms the foundation of Saami major motherline 1. My differences from the CRS are:

HVR-1:
16093C
16189C
16270T

HVR-2:
73G
150T
263G
315.1C

Coding Region:
750G
1438G
2706G
3197C
4769G
5656G
7028T
7385G
7768G
8860G
9477A
10927C
11467G
11719A
12308G
12366G
12372A
12618A
13617C
13911G - unique to U5b1b1
14182C
14766T
15326G

When I uploaded my raw data to the mtDNA Community tool at Family Tree DNA, it also reveals that I have a back-mutation at T16192C!. The two mutations I have which place me definitely into U5b1b1 are: A7385G, T10927C.

My prediction was right on target!

UPDATE - Key U5b1b1 Results 

Predicting a U5b1b mtDNA Haplogroup For Me

Based on a chart at FTDNA, from my already known mtDNA genetic markers, I predict that my full sequence mtDNA haplogroup may be U5b1b. I expect the actual results around 7/4.

Saami and Berbers—An Unexpected Mitochondrial DNA Link

Saami People

Ancient Britons Came From Spain, North Africa, Middle East & Rome

In follow-up to my earlier posts When Wales was Jewish, Sephardic Jewish U5b and Berber Jews, this article suggests ancient Britons came from Spain and that "small numbers of today's Britons are *also* descended from north African, Middle Eastern and Roman clans."

All of these clans are identified and show up in my mitonchondrial and autosomal DNA test results.