I thought about getting a DNA test done for years, but always held off because I didn’t want to spend so much money when there are so many places to get one, but something just wouldn’t let me rest until I got one done! After doing more research, and asking all of my friends where they got theirs done, I still wasn’t sure. So i settled with FTDNA.
And I’m glad i did! If you are not sure where to go, I did the family finder on FTDNA aka Family Tree DNA, I got an ethnicity report, my ancient origins, with migration routes my family took along with their DNA dig sites, and a list of over 3 thousand cousins that range from 2nd to 6th!!!
I knew I was 7th generation and further of a handful of Native Americans, as I have their roll numbers and heard stories via the family, I grew up going to pow wows and more. I even speak some western Band Cherokee, and was registered as Metis’ Tribe and Cherokee Wolf Clan too. And I have a few native american and african slaves I’m direct descendant of via rape and captivity.
Due to it being 7 generations since the last Native American in my family, and now finding its 5 generations, it sadly don’t show on my DNA test and I want to compare my results to a different site for a test so I can compare them. This actually made me very confused and have an identity crisis at one point. Because aside from the few Native Americans and the couple of favorites my Grandmother told me about, I was totally unaware of the rabbit hole I jumped into, as was the rest of my immediate family. It wasn’t until late 2016, early 2017, I had my first breakthrough on my family tree 🌳 via Find a Grave and that is what gave me the drive to get a DNA test! I hadn’t realized the complexity of DNA and how it works. Take a look below to see how DNA distributes .
Keep in mind there is also Y- DNA that only biological males can take test with though trough the mtDNA both males and females can take the test, and there are groups you can be apart of.
“UPDATE” That part I have just gotten into and recently purched my mtDNA full sequence for myself from ftdna, I am on this journey to completing my tree! I am excited to see what results come back and will post that one in another blog post.
At some point I will separate ancestors into categories on here which I’ve already started doing behind the scenes.
If you look above in the migration routes, it shows that my ancient origins come from 46% Egypt area, 44% Iraq Persia area, and 10% Armenia area. That migration route I have followed via my family tree while working on it and those parts are correct.
Have you gotten a DNA test? Where you surprised by the results? Share your story, I would love to know!!
Best Regards,
Dawn Piercy, PhD
DP Family Tree 
Did you know at the time your family had told you about your Native American ancestry that you were also descended from Powhattan?
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Nope, I had no idea until this year actually!!! I’m Powhatan, Potomac, Rappahonnock, Seneca, Shawnee and Cherokee so far!! Oh, and Blackfoot lol
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I had wondered about that when we started comparing our family histories. There is another way I started finding a little more information on FamilySearch I hadn’t shared with you yet, but on the Relative Finder, if you check the box for the option for more groups, if you start going into some of those individual groups, that’s also a very good way to find cousins, aunt’s, and great grandparents that may not have shown up on the regular path. I found some that way a few days ago.
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Yes, I’m on relative finder as well, what I did notice though, it don’t pick everyone up in the tree, but it’s still a great resource! And fun to go through too!!
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