Finding your ancestry isn’t always easy. But you can start by examining family stories, census records, and other research materials.
These can reveal clues about your ancestor’s international origins. But if you want definitive answers, you must take a DNA test. Here’s how. mtDNA and Y-DNA tests are great options.
Know Your Ancestry
Knowing your ancestral lineage gives you a stronger base to build on and can help you solve family mysteries. It can also have life-changing health benefits, such as allowing you to identify which diseases your ancestors may be more prone to and allow you to take proactive steps to prevent them.
Each DNA ancestry testing company has its proprietary process to develop a person’s ancestral report. Generally, they compare the person’s DNA to reference databases of samples from current people living in different regions of the world. This includes public databases, such as the 1000 Genomes Project (funded in part by the National Institutes of Health) and the company’s customer data.
Access to the information from these references allows companies to trace an individual’s ancestry back in time. However, the reference data does not tell the entire story. As a result, it is important to understand what these tests can and cannot do before taking one.
Ancestry tests should not be used to determine a person’s race or ethnicity. Research with test consumers suggests that reading media articles depicting these tests as able to do so increases belief in essential racial differences. This is problematic because the science behind these tests does not support this view. Rather, they are designed to provide clues that can be used to identify the most likely country of origin for a person’s ancestors and to help guide their search for more information on their ancestors’ lives in that region.
Know Your Relatives
For someone who knows their family tree, the best DNA test for Hispanic ancestry that has become hugely popular this holiday season can break down genealogical brick walls and uncover new leads (and relatives). However, these tests can be confusing for people with little or no knowledge of their extended family history.
One reason is that they only reveal a fraction of the genetic variations within a person. The tests typically look at relatively few SNPs or single nucleotide polymorphisms. They also may only cover some of the major countries of origin or provide a clear picture of what region an ancestor came from. For example, census records asked for the country of origin but didn’t specify a specific region or province.
In addition, most ancestry testing companies base their estimates of a person’s ethnicity on populations already documented in their databases. This makes it difficult to find specific ancestors unless the ancestor was among the first in their community to take the test.
The good news is that these companies constantly update their reference panels and algorithms to get better results for people of color. They have been adding more and more regions to their databases, and some have begun to offer a more precise estimate of a person’s Native American ancestry than they previously did.
Know Your Options
As more and more people buy DNA tests, companies are scrambling to make their tests more accurate for those whose ancestry is not European. That’s especially true for people of color, who can’t expect the same level of specificity that white people get from their tests.
For Latinos, this means that testing services can provide a great deal of information about their genetic heritage but that they can only sometimes pinpoint specific regions of origin with certainty. This is because the Latino population has been shaped by centuries of intermingling among different ethnic groups and cultures, with each nation retaining its unique genetic legacy.
Luckily, this diversity in genetics has also helped to create a rich genealogy database for many of the regions and countries from which Latinos come. Using the most recent data, most major testing companies can offer a good sense of which areas in Latin America are likely to be most prominent in a person’s ancestry. Some more advanced tests can even give you information about sub-regional ancestry, which is based on the locations in which other DNA testing customers have reported their ancestors came from. Find that a large portion of your ancestry comes from a particular region. You can do additional research to identify the possible countries of origin and learn more about the history of those regions.
Choose Your Test
The DNA testing industry is booming, and there are many options to choose from. However, it is important to understand what these tests can and cannot do. Genetic ancestry tests often provide estimates of your ancestral origins, but they cannot determine your exact country of origin with absolute certainty. It is also important to remember that these estimates may vary significantly between different testing companies.
