With a Simple DNA Test, Family Histories Are Rewritten<br />Researchers at 23andMe acknowledged the difficulty in a recent paper, writing, “It is important to note<br />that ancestry, ethnicity, identity and race are complex labels that result both from visible traits, such as skin color, and from cultural, economic, geographical and social factors.”<br />In a recent study, the researchers decided to use Census Bureau definitions — black, white, Hispanic — to<br />ask how often people who identify as one race actually have genetic markers indicating a mixed heritage.<br />The chances of having African ancestry were highest in the South,<br />and highest of all in South Carolina, where at least 13 percent of those who said they were white had African ancestors.<br />Among those who said they were black, genetic ancestry over all was 73.2 percent African, 0.8 percent Native American and 24 percent European.<br />A genealogist helped him track down some first cousins in Alabama, who said they had been told never to contact Mr. Hutchinson or his family.<br />If testing “tells me I’m 95 percent Ashkenazi Jewish and 5 percent Korean, is<br />that really different from 100 percent Ashkenazi Jewish and zero percent Korean?” Jonathan Marks, an anthropology professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, wondered in The Wirecutter.
