Sambumbia - Dominican-Caribbean Genetics and Genealogy

There is a common word you will hear in the genetic-genealogy world which is "noise". What is noise?  Noise in the DNA world can be very small ancestry segments that have a possibility of being "fake" or from another ancestry. For example in Ancestry.com most Native Americans get some "Central Asian" admixture <2%. As more and more of the worlds diversity is added to these tests, the more refined they become to get rid of these "noisy" segments. Most noise segments are under 1%. Are all small segments <1% noise?: Absolutely not, in either case you should always try to prove or disprove the validity of small segments. Using multiple DNA companies or tools is the best way to be absolutely sure, and even better if combined with genealogy. The Case of real South-Asian (east-Indian) ancestry in my grandfather Antonio ADMIXTURE Painting 23andme shows him having 0.2% which can be in the noise range. All of this 0.2% is lo...

Despite the very high number of free and highly autonomous peoples living in the colony of Santo Domingo (3 out of 4 people of "color" where free) by 1681  1 , there where still folks who where enslaved and how they attained freedom would have been through various forms. Here are some examples. In the San Francisco de Macoris 1812 Census we see the legal status of folks but only the enslaved are marked as "slaves". In this list the majority of the peoples listed are mulatto/pardo/black(moren@) but this is not marked as only enslaved  is marked. María Dolores Alvarado de 36. Agregados: Juan Rodríguez de 12, Tomás Rodríguez de 7, Felipa Paulino de 20 y Basilio Alvarado de 2. Esclavos: Salvador Ventura de 36, Juan Alvarado de 30, Cecilia Gomes de 26, Felipa Sánchez de 10, Bernardo Sánchez de 6 y María Alvarado de 8. Here we have 6 enslaved persons listed, each with their ages listed.  Turns out Salvador Ventura and Cecilia Gomes where married even though...

Most of us hit brick walls before the early 1800s or late 1700s. This has a lot to do with the abandonment of the colony of Santo Domingo, and quite a few natural disasters. For example All records prior to 1805 in La Vega were swallowed by an Earthquake in 1790. The only parts of the island almost unaffected due to much stronger infrastructure and care taking of records are the East and Capital, so Higuey, Hato Mayor, and Distrito Nacional (Santo Domingo). La Banda Norte , literally meaning the North Band was a group that existed from the beginning of the colony until 1606 specializing in contraband. With how abandoned the island was and the lack of "Rule" it meant that contraband trade with the English/Dutch/French was the best way to make money. The area that it encompassed was much of the north-coast of present day Dominican Republic and Haiti. The grand majority of the inhabitants of the North Band where Blacks, Mulattoes and Mestizos, in other words free people ...

First of all the native's in Quisqueya, present day Dominican Republic and Haiti where not one people, or a single cultural group. There was a complex set of people who had arrived in different waves from South-America, Central-america and likely even St. Augustine Florida. Per Anthropology the island has been inhabited for the last 10,000 years . One of the biggest misconceptions is that the Taino died off in the 1500s, there are old books that quote things like "By 1548, the Taíno population had declined to fewer than 500" - Wikipedia  . This is in fact false, there where pockets of native's throughout the island until relatively recent times. Historical  In Boya, Monteplata around 1656 it was reported that this was an 'Indian' town with about 6 houses, and it states the reason for the few # of total people is that most of these natives had gone to neighboring towns for employment. [villa que es de indios descendientes de los de esa isla; tendrá...

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...