Sambumbia - Dominican-Caribbean Genetics and Genealogy

The X chromosome is full of mysteries and information. Defined here  is inherited by both biological male's and female's. Mtdna is that single direct female ancestor which we all inherit, for alot of us there may be results that are obvious and for some surprising. As much as we try to define what our last known direct female ancestor looked like, coming from such a mixed ex-colony the possibilities are endless. Your great-great grandmother can be very white but her maternal line be African because perhaps HER great-great grandmother was an African woman, and vice versa. Refer to Tools for Finding your Roots for which DNA test would give you Mtdna information.  A few years back I averaged out the continental frequency of these maternal lines using the results of 309 of my Dominican relatives. The results where very much in line with DNA studies done in the Dominican Republic. Details here  for the amateur one I did myself. The interesting thing about m...

Slavery ended in the colony of Santo Domingo, modern day Dominican Republic in 1822 with the arrival of Jean Pierre Boyer from Saint Domingue (Modern day Haiti). Before the time period of 1822 many of our ancestors are listed as the following. There are of course obstacle to this which is for one tracing back your genealogy before 1822 may be tricky in some places (like Santiago whose records where destroyed by the Spanish in the 1860s, so nothing pre-1860).  Important Definitions: Enslaved , usually listed as Esclavo or Esclava, or as Negro/Negra, or in combination of both i.e Negra Esclava or just Negra. Sometimes these ancestors can be listed as Moren@ Esclav@ by some priests/scribes who don't use the word negro at all, however when both Negr@ and Moren@ are present the first is used to refer to enslaved peoples. Sometimes for enslaved mixed people they are listed as Mulat@ or Pard@ esclav@. I.E "Venta de una negra esclava llamada Juana, de nación angola...

For those of you who have watched genetic/genealogy TV shows like Finding your Roots by Henry Louis Gates JR, or perhaps NatGEO documentaries on the "Roots" of people you may be thinking that we have one ancestral homeland, this is not the case for pretty much anybody in the Caribbean or the Americas for that matter. In all the studies done, and if you take a personal dna test or have the luck of finding these distant ancestors via genealogy you will quickly note your roots are all over Africa, all over the Americas and all over Europe.  Ancestry.com provides one of the most comprehensive but not perfect African regional analyses which I am using in these examples, the names of the categories are NOT meant to be countries, they encompass large regions, so "Senegal" is not confined to Senegal but goes all the way to parts of Ghana and even Nigeria in the case of Fulani and Hausa folks. This is not specific to one ethnicity as many African ethnicities may s...

Most of the time we hear about DNA test being used for paternal and land disputes. Here is the list of the aspects of DNA that are most helpful for Personal Genomics. MTDNA: Also known as la mama de la mama de la mama... this is not a pepito joke! Think of following the line of who was your mother's mothers' mother's mother... ad infinitum. Both male and female's have Mtdna's as the information of the Mtdna is inside the X, and nearly everyone is either X X or X Y. This prestigious line traces back to a single  female ancestor on your direct maternal line.  How far back? Well the truth is that much of the continents where relatively isolated up until 500 years ago, so there are unique signatures that only exist in certain continents. Each Mtdna starts of with a letter and is followed by a sequence of letters and numbers depending on age of each of these unique maternal mutations.  Example: My Mtdna is L3b1a.  This maternal line is found in m...

GENETICS/DNA: 23andme :  Priced @ $100 the most comprehensive DNA test for its price, gives you information on your Maternal line, Paternal Line and the mixture of all your lines. Has a great system to match you up with relatives who are also on the site. AncestryDNA : Priced $100 I highly commend this one if you want to get a more specific breakdown of your African  ancestry. Lacks a direct maternal/paternal lineage test (Mtdna/ydna) However like 23andme has a great system to match you up with relatives. FTDNA : Price varies I only recommend FTDNA for folks who have done 23andme and or Ancestry but want to find specifics on their Paternal and or Maternal lineage ancestor.  GENEALOGY: FamilySearch : The best and largest database compiled by the mormons of our Catholic and Civil records, this is the MACHETE for anyone looking to find their ancestors via records. Most of the records are online, but not all are searchable via the 'search'. Instit...

It is often not known that Quisqueya modern day Dominican Republic and Haiti was the first colony formally occupied by Columbus and his henchmen. What must not be forgotten is that our Island's history doesn't start in 1492 but goes back thousands of years, perhaps even as much as 9,000 years. It is said we have the first University an the first Church but what must be specified is we have the first European Catholic Church and the first European University as our natives had educational and religious institutions.  The pre-columbian era is still full of mystery but certainly was a time in which multiple waves of native-americans both thrived and suffered conquest. From what is known today there where at least 3 distinct waves that reached our island before the arrival of Colombus and this diversity of peoples is reflected in the descriptions of the different chiefdoms and in our DNA. Past 1492 is when we fully become who we are today because of the many mixes th...