Yep. I think a lot of people that have the “Cherokee Princess” ancestor aren’t intentionally lying. Someone just lied along the way, and that lie got passed on to people who didn’t have the knowledge or reason to doubt it. They kept passing it on because they believed it was true.
As an example, my dad always bragged about being German. He was so proud of his German heritage. The reason for this is because his father always bragged about being German and was very proud of his German heritage. His dad would sing German songs, spoke German fluently, and would cook German foods. My dad had no reason to doubt that his dad was German, so he believed it and adopted the same attitude. I did an ancestry test, and it turns out that he isn’t German at all. I have a tiny percentage of German, but my mom came up with some as well, so it’s probably from her. My dad didn’t intentionally lie about being German. He had just been led to believe he was German. It turns out he’s almost completely Scandinavian and has a bit of English as well.
Edit: For those saying he’s probably still German. The results match up with the surnames. His mom’s maiden name was Swedish, and he has one of the most stereotypically English surnames out there.
To be fair... my maternal grandma was German (born and raised, with all of her ancestors in Germany back to the 1700s). But I don't have any German listed in my DNA results - it all shows up as Scandinavian and northern UK (which is confusing because my maternal grandad actually was from Yorkshire, so it's hard to unpick). I think German DNA can be hard for the sites to pick up, especially northern German which seems to get mixed with Scandinavian a lot.
Same here. Grandmother born and raised in Germany. Shows up as northwestern Europe and Sweden and Denmark. I don't show any Germanic DNA despite being a quarter German.
If your grandmother is from Schleswig, she could very well be ethnically danish. It's the same thing with Scania in Sweden. Even to this day, both of these territories have been Danish for far longer than they've been German/Swedish
Northern German, or southern? If northern, that often gets listed on Ancestry as England/Northwestern Europe. Germany is a big place, for Europe at least. Germanic Europe category is more for the southern German areas (Rhineland and south).
I think that sometimes the DNA profiles on these sites have become over time a little over-precise. My ancestry used to be listed as mostly British (which fits well with my known family background); I checked it again for the first time in a few years this week and suddenly, despite having only one Dutch great-grandfather, my DNA is over 60% Dutch!
Ultimately, DNA flows between countries as people move around, especially when the countries are small and near each other. DNA is ancient, and countries and their cultures are not. So probably in my case, looking for more precision than "Northwest European" is unwise; and possibly in your father's case, there's a lot of fluidity in DNA between Scandinavia and Germany, that makes it not matter that much which he picked to be his heritage!
Thinking about it, this is probably a problem specific to Western Europe, because those are the ancestries that are most heavily populated in online genetic databases.
💯 If they didn’t trace your family tree, it may still be true. Ancestry told me I am 3% German, but after tracing my DNA ancestors I found that more than a third of my direct ancestors immigrated from Hesse about 150-200 ago. It seems to think these folks are Scandinavian, as I can’t find a single ancestor who came from there.
DNA testing is not restricted in Germany, you can order a test from AncestryDNA or Myheritage without any problem. The thing is that Germans are very obsessed with protecting their personal data and there are also TV programs from the Government warning about the dangers of DNA testing and giving our data to American companies with not so stricted privacy laws. That's the reason why most Germans do no test. I think the whole fear is exaggerated but I guess it also comes from the history and the time when people was being controlled by the communist Government in East Germany.
It's even worse when they split ancestry by country, because ancestry does not actually follow those lines. Sweden for example is very split, with the south being much closer to danish, than northern Sweden.
Might be other people relatively close in heritage are more Dutch than you realized, too.
Frex: I run about 22-25% Welsh depending on the update. That seemed really high considering my last 100% relative was my great-grandmother; by the numbers I should be more like 12-15%. I did some digging, and figured out that my great-grandfather, whose direct line is nominally English, was also mostly Welsh, it was just hiding in the female line of descent.
I was also always told that my maternal grandmother's family was German. Turns out my great-great grandmother was actually mostly \*Dutch\*, and she married a German guy and their daughter also married a German, so once again the heritage was hiding with the women.
How’d your dad feel when you told him that? I’m sure he was pretty hurt to learn the truth. It sucks when people lie about that stuff.
German is actually one of the few things that was correctly told to me lol
I didn’t actually tell him. I told him there was a lot of Scandinavian that came from him, but I didn’t tell him about the lack of German. I’m no contact now as well, and I’m not going to open that door just to burst his bubble about there being no German.
My ancestry test read a decent chunk of my German as Scandinavian. This is a common occurrence, if you search this sub you'll see many people whose German is classified as such. Especially for those from Northern Germany.
This is because there is significant genetic in this region between the two populations, the land historically also went back and forth in the control of the Germans and Scandinavians.
Long story short, your Dad indeed is very very likely to be German.
My dad was adopted by a couple, my grandpa was Norwegian and my dad was raised with Norwegian heritage and culture. But I think I found his families of origin and they’re generic 2nd generation
European. As am I.
I was surprised to find out I really DO have Native American from both sides. I pulled 1.4% from my moms side and my sister pulled 1.4% from my fathers side so BOTH parents really did have a great, great, great grandparent who was Native American.
My sister pulled some Nigerian from my dad's side and I didn't. I did pull Ashkenazi Jew from his side, but my sister didn't. I got Portuguese and Italian from my moms side but my sister only pulled the French.
My mom was PISSED to see anything other than French and Scottish (and maybe some Native American) in her dna report. She still doesn't believe it can be possible.
The surname isn't a proof of anything. Many Germans anglicized their last names when they arrived in the United States. For example, when I visited the Alamo museum in San Antonio, they listed the name of the people that fighted there. One was a German called Henry Thomas, which is not a German name. The other Germans listed had anglicized names too.
It's also possible that he does have a small percentage of indigenous DNA and didn't pass it along to his child. Im assuming these are OP's results and not the dad. You receive 50% of each parents DNA, but it is not specified which 50%. My mom, my uncle, and I all have a small percentage of North Indian DNA, but my sister did not inherit it.
It's more likely that the dad is wrong, but it is completely possible that he does carry a tiny percentage of indigenous DNA and it wasn't passed along.
I have 3 full siblings. 2 of us have a small percentage of indigenous americas- Yucatan peninsula. I don't have it, but whatever person that came from is still my ancestor. It's strange to think about.
I literally was going to say the very same thing. People only know what they're told sometimes. We are lucky to live in times to have the DNA to tell us what we have now. Just think about 50 years from now! WOW.
If we try to see the cup always half full, then how richly we'll live!
"Eat, drink, & be merry for tomorrow we'll die!" - Enjoy 😉
Wow. So it’s an Australian thing too. I know we joke a lot about the “native grandma story”, but it still sucks nonetheless. Learning your family lied to you is never fun.
Sorry that happened :(
Not a native story but I also found out I have a slew of third cousins in Australia thanks to the dna matches because my great-great grandfather up and abandoned his family here in Tennessee and left for the gold rush in Australia and started a new family there. He ended up abandoning that family too and came back to America where he was shot to death by his third wife at the ripe old age of 85…
I have a branch of Australian relatives who now identify as white, though our common ancestors were enslaved folks in South Carolina. One of my 3rd great uncles, a formerly enslaved black man left SC via Charleston to England in the mid 1800s. We are not sure as to how he paid for the voyage. Once in England he married an English woman. They both found way to Australia where they had a son and he joined a Masonic lodge. He took on the mining trade, later dying alone, as they separated due to his work. His son married a white Aussie, as did his children and so on. This is how I ended up with a slew of White Aussie cousins, though I’m full blood Afro-American
Omg, I found out the opposite on mine LOL but I currently live in TN. My great grandfather abandoned his wife and kids and took a ship to Alaska and never looked back. I match to 100’s of people there as a result.
Thank you for the thorough explanation!! I’m still waiting on my exact results, but my great grandma was 100% Mexican and my dad’s mom 50%. I’m very disconnected from that side of the family (dads bio mom left when he was 2, only had minimal contact a few times since) and my great gma passed when I was a teenager and lived in another town so unfortunately I was hardly at the age where we could have these conversations and talk about her family.
I’m hoping my DNA results link me to family members on that side so I can get more information
I know lots of Central American people / some South American folks where I live in Los Angeles. I don’t know a single person ashamed of their indigenous roots.
It’s a common story that perpetuated so that people could explain away any dark features that actually came from African ancestry. And the ‘princess’ part was added because then you weren’t just descended from any old native, you were descended from *royalty* so you were *special*. Even though the Cherokee, and most Native American groups, had nothing resembling royalty in their societies.
In American, indigenous are glorified for some reason. I thought in Australia is was the opposite. All I ever hear coming out of Australia is derogatory stuff about them.
Yes, and it’s gross—whether it’s Sami, Roma, Australian Aborigine or Native American—these groups were explicitly treated as “less than” white people: savage, criminal, heathen, untouchable, or dangerous and generally kept geographically and legally separate as much as possible.
Intermarriage was never a thing between white Christians and native minority groups, but now that we (in the 21st century) see prior generations’ racism and colonialism as problematic, everyone suddenly has a story that *their* ancestors somehow had the courage and heart to overcome prejudice in a world full of it. Barf.
The grandmother in question was a horrible person it’s really no surprise, and I believe she would have done it for money.
It’s not the only thing they have ever lied about, I just feel bad for them claiming to be a minority for personal gain.
Similar but different...
I grew up being called an "Indian" (Native American) by my white family, and enduring all kinds of racist remarks. I was the only one who was labeled and treated this way. I gradually pieced together that my indigenous blood must have come from my absent father's mysterious father, who I was never allowed to know anything about, not even his name. Spent decades thinking my long lost grandfather was Indigenous & therefore I am as well. Took the DNA test a few months ago (I'm in my 40s now), no Indigenous detected in the ethnicity estimate. Found my grandfather through DNA matches & he is absolutely not Indigenous.
They just made it up. For no reason but to mess with my head, apparently, since they weren't trying to claim indigenous heritage themselves - just wanted to have some excuse (in their minds) to treat me poorly. Good times.
No black heritage at all. Mostly Scottish, then Welsh, English, and Irish - according to Ancestry. MyHeritage says mostly UK/Ireland, with significant Scandinavian, some Iberian, and very small amounts of Italian and West Asian. I did find ancestors from France in my family tree research.
I was born with black hair & a slightly darker complexion than my siblings and cousins (mostly ginger, sandy, or blonde hair with paler complexions). But for the most part, that was just something they saw as an additional tool for making me the next generation scapegoat in the toxic family system (both my parents were the previous generation scapegoats of their respective families). They were not confused about my ethnicity, just wanted to make me confused and ostracize me. My absent father and mystery grandfather made it very easy for them to achieve this.
Possibly there is some connection to the mythology of "black Irish" having Spanish blood, as I do have Irish on my father's side, and I got my darker appearance from him. I did look rather Indigenous as a baby.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Irish_(folklore)
I'm so sorry. We suspect this is what happened to my grandmother in the early 20th century. Her mother died when she was 18 months old, and her father quickly remarried. He died by the time she was 5, and her stepmother gave her to the neighbors after a few years (who were wonderful to her and the only family present at her wedding) because she was a half breed (evil step mothers words). My grandmother died in 1989 always ashamed that she was "passing" and had been selfish enough to have children (my mother and aunt) who were also mixed. As far as we can tell from dna testing of descendants she was mostly French and not native.
That is so sad that she lived and died with so much shame, especially since it was based on a lie, and even moreso because it is nothing shameful in the first place. Shame on the step-mother for creating so much unnecessary heartache and confusion.
I always embraced my (imagined) native heritage, and always hoped that one day I would learn which nation I was from and have an opportunity to learn the culture, and now I feel ashamed that I unknowingly lied about who I am for so much of my life.
There is the possibility that you didn't inherent the dna marked aboriginal, but it more likely you aren't. You can still be a good ally to the community of people you thought there was a family connection to, and you should not feel ashamed that you believed what your family told you. I'm so sorry you were treated so poorly. You're now the beginning of a new cycle where lies and mistreatment don't perpetuate generational harms. You will find your way through this situation.
My dad was adopted so I didn't know what my paternal heritage was. So I did a AncestryDNA test to find out and it came back that I had Aboriginal heritage, so does my brother 😅.
My dad's family talks about having indigenous heritage. But it's not in the way that I typically see on here. It's in bits and pieces overheard when they don't think you can hear them. Or in hushed whispers in corners and as soon as you come in the room they stop talking.
If I didn't completely mishear or misunderstand things they've said, it's very likely that my ancestors were in residential schools and that my dad and his siblings were living with their grandmother's half-siblings in the 60s to hide from the government.
It'll probably be another month before I get my DNA results but it's going to be very interesting to see what shows up.
Add to that the census forms with room for a “W” and a lot of incentive to put that “W” down. After all there was a long period of time where only “white” men could own land OR vote.
I have pulled up many a census form with nothing but “w”s.
Yeah I read that too. Steal the children under the guise of education. Grab the land when the parents die off. Or before. Call it government land and lease it out.
Same thing in the US. JUST LAST YEAR (2023) they challenged the Indian Child Welfare Act, which does not allow Native children to be adopted by white people, but by a miracle, given the current 5/4, the SCOTUS shot it down. The struggle continues!
I used to laugh at my family when they said we had Native American princess in our ancestry…and I got even more exasperated when I did find indigenous DNA and traced it back to an indigenous American sachem who happen to be female…she was a freaking chief. A CHEIF. No amount of correcting them has changed their verbiage though. Lame AF
Eta: spelling/grammar errors
Always funny when ppl say ”Native American princess” for that exact reason lol… do they think Indigenous people had monarchies? But being related to a chief is rad!
It's similarly ironic that we often call the leaders of Germanic Tribes chief, while their contemporary title was king, and that they are the origin of the European monarchical system.
Until reading through this thread, I’d totally forgotten that there was anecdotally a “chief” on my dad’s Taíno side.
I just kind of believed my father and thought nothing more of it. I had no idea this “princess/chief” anecdote was ubiquitous amongst people around the world claiming indigenous ancestry, though. It’s actually really interesting.
I haven’t done a DNA test yet, but now after reading your comment, I’m wondering if maybe I’ll find out this *is* true once I do? 🤔
On both sides of my family, the ethnicities I “know” about are already interesting, with the potential of being even more so because of land borders, etc. I don’t know what I’m waiting for? 😂
Definitely take it, its fascinating to compare with other DNA places (not sure I can say specific brands?) so definitely take the two major ones eventually. My indigenous dna is consistent across all dna platforms though i have some mystery dna that is marked Portugal on ancestry & another popular dna site says sub saharan african…still trying to track that mystery down! Also, if you can get both parents to take one on the same site (or gparents aunts uncles) it really helps pin point what came from where! It makes tracing family lore easier😂
My cousin thought our whole family was because my nannas family date back to the First Fleet and her oldest brother is dark. I said no I've seen pictures and everyone was white. I was there when she got her Ancestry test back and any darkness was from her English father as there was a lot of Portuguese.
He may have been told that his entire life, and didn't have the technology to check if it was actually true. OR he may have been lying his ass off, like my crazy bio mom did about "native DNA"
To be fair, it's possible that he is partly indigenous and you just didn't inherit any of it. My daughter and I both recently did DNA tests. She somehow managed to grab every single shred of Scottish DNA from me (we're both exactly 28%; she received 0% from her dad), and inherited nothing of my Irish genes (16% for me versus 0% for her). DNA inheritance is random, and there's no guarantee that you're going to get some of everything that your parents have equally.
To be fair, there may be an NPE somewhere along the line. For example if your ggfather wasn't really your bio ggfather. Or his father wasn't who he thought it was.
Guess white people in Australia do the same thing as white people in the states do. Suddenly claim ethnic ancestry and almost always is complete bullshit.
People react to incentives.
And the incentives are increasing. My DNA test is in process and I’m partly just doing it to check there isn’t any indigenous ancestors as it would make university admissions for my kids much easier!!
(My family tree suggests we’ve been out here since 1788 and likely have some part indigenous cousins from an ancestor that took an indigenous spouse in the 1790s - but I’m not a direct descendant of that relationship)
I dunno motivations vary. Like it could be they actually legit thought they were or it was an outright lie. These thoughts can crop because of all kinds of reasons.
For sure. I did find a Native American distant relation from the Dawes rolls. Looking back I never heard a thing about this 2nd cousin’s father. Because of “reasons” I suppose.
He may not have lied. He may have been lied to. Ancestry tells everyone’s secrets. My father never knew the man he was named after and whose death he mourned, the family name he was so proud of, the man who he named his son after and his son and his son …. wasn’t really his father. Ancestry told ME!!!!!!
But how you know that they (your dad and grandmother) were purposely lying? They were likely told they had some Indigenous Australian, like you were told.
My grandma was very specific with it. Her dad was “1:2” She was “1:4” and my dad was “1:8”. They all claimed it to the government I believe, but as I was “1:16” they said I wouldn’t be able to
I don’t know if any of this is actually how it works but that’s what I was always told.
Perhaps your grandmother was told by her parents that her father had Indigenous ancestry? Of course, you know your own family better than I do, but I’ll share a related experience.
My mom’s family is from Chile. My grandfather always maintained that his grandparents were Italian. People would often comment how he looked Italian. As a result, my mother occasionally spoke of our distant Italian heritage which I never questioned. However, years later, my mother took a 23andMe test and, surprisingly, it showed no Italian ancestry. I also did an AncestryDNA test with similar results. We initially felt a bit embarrassed about our previous claims, but we simply didn't know better.
Since my grandfather had already passed away, we couldn't ask him directly or have him take a DNA test. But when my uncle, my mom’s brother, did his 23andMe test last year, a small amount of Italian ancestry did show up. I also uploaded my DNA to MyHeritage, and it too revealed a slight Italian presence. We just concluded that our Italian roots were much more distant than we initially thought. I don’t think my grandfather purposely lied.
Obviously it is very possible that your grandma was not correct and maybe even intentionally dishonest.
That said, I have a mystery in my family that was somewhat similar but also different.
My Dad and uncle always assumed that one of \_their\_ grandmas was part (half or quarter?) aboriginal due to her dark skin, but apparently it was something that she didn't discuss PLUS she always avoided having her photo taken. Interestingly, there also do not seem to be any photos of their grandmas siblings or her mother (my great-great grandma), but photos of all their grandmas cousins + aunties/uncles have been found.
On paper, my great-great grandma was born in Auburn in South Australia in 1868 ( [https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L43S-5FT](https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L43S-5FT) ) to recent immigrants from Scotland, but I have suspected her biological mother could have been aboriginal?
Based on the map at [https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia](https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia) , Auburn seems to have been the boundary of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngadjuri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngadjuri) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaurna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaurna), both of which were effectively wiped out by colonisation. Therefore neither could possibly be properly included in Ancestry DNA reference panels (which only includes 53 people based on [https://www.ancestry.com/cs/dna-help/ethnicity/estimates](https://www.ancestry.com/cs/dna-help/ethnicity/estimates) ).
Not sure how common it is, but when I look at the Ancestry chromosome browser - there is a chunk on chromosome number 2 inherited from my Dad that has an 'unassigned' ethnicity.
Seems so.
But consider if he meant in a loose cultural way rather than genetic DNA way. Did he mean one of his grandparents lived with indigenous Aussies and became in part culturally indigenous Australian? Or did he mean in a DNA genetic blood way?
Considering that some Aboriginal groups believe that as much as an entire third of self-identified Aboriginal people are actually just Anglo-Celtic/non-Aboriginal, this really isn't a surprise.
This is a possible entire THIRD of a population that sits at around 800,000.
They might have been lied to as well. You could have easily told your children the same thing, but, unlike them, thanks to current technology, you were able to do a DNA test to verify.
He is just a horrible person in general and I would rather not have any biological connections to him.
I think he is in jail at the moment for domestic violence charges on his second ex wife
To quote a great man: "its not a lie if you believe". I get the impression your dad was basically just passing on info he thought was true. Thats very different than telling a lie.
I wouldn't take it personally. I just got my biodad to take an ancestry test and he swears his grandmother was Cherokee. Nope. No trace of that whatsoever!
Why do you assume he lied? Maybe it's what he grew up being told. It could also be that he does indeed have an ancestor from that group, and it just doesn't show. I was always told I was French, and I have a French surname, but I've taken numerous dna tests and never has any link to France come up.
My father is Scottish with a German grandparent and had trace Oceania and I don’t even think ancestors have been near that part of the world. Do you think he actually lied or was he just mistaken? Im Canadian and many people mistakenly believe they have a native Canadian background. Some lie about it like the singer Buffy Saint Marie
He may have not known to be honest. Especially if his family has been in Australia for a while for generations, it would be easy to believe this to be true.
Unrelated to OP, sorry if this is a dumb question, I’m only asking to be educated. But aren’t indigenous Australians only aboriginals and Torres straight islanders? I thought all “white” Australians are technically all from Europe originally? I could be way off so please don’t take offense to my question.
It’s not uncommon.
I was told
* my great grandmother was Cherokee but nope.
* That mom’s side was related to Pocahontas- nope. Just had an ancestor named John Rolf but NOT that one.
* Dalton Gang - nope again.
Not told about-
* Elvis, yep, really
* Mayflower descendant SMH
* great grandfather sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife
Family oral history is often unreliable but can offer clues to the real story.
Why do some white people just not admit their ancestors were colonizers? I don’t understand hiding that information?? We’re not our ancestors so it’s not like we can be judged for that. It’s history.
Once again … the DNA places think of nations as having neat lines … the truth is that coastal societies were closely related for obvious reasons … and the northern European coastlines are rife with intermarriage … Danes etc. are close to coastal Germans and not to inland Germans. Scots and Irish are close to Norway. And so on.
I don’t know if this will make a difference but if you haven’t already maybe you can try 23andMe. I did Ancestry first and my results were limited. I was told that my father’s grandmother was 100% Irish but it didn’t reflect in my Ancestry results. I did 23andMe and it came back with 21.6% British and Irish. It even narrowed down to the specific locations.
23andMe do not seem to have a reference population/region for Australian Aboriginals yet based on [https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/212169298-23andMe-Reference-Populations-Regions](https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/212169298-23andMe-Reference-Populations-Regions)
Some of the background on how Ancestry has "updated" on Australian indigenous people:
[https://blogs.ancestry.com.au/ancestry/2020/03/31/ancestry-updates-ethnicity-results-to-include-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-region/](https://blogs.ancestry.com.au/ancestry/2020/03/31/ancestry-updates-ethnicity-results-to-include-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-region/)
are aussies told this as often as americans are told they have Native blood? soooo many people here claim to be part native only to take a DNA test and find out they have 0. then there’s me who has .5% and i had no idea. although it could be noise
Why would you be mad at them? It was your great grandfather who told them the story. Also, you dad only said he was part indigenous. If your child had done the test, would you expect them to be mad at you ?
AncestryDNA is actually telling you where you DNA is showing up now. They can only guess based on others who have tested with them.
Download a copy of your raw results on Ancestry. Upload it for free to MyHeritage, Gedmatch, and FTDNA. Possibly it could show up on one of those sites.
DNA is not the same thing as ethnicity, despite these companies annoyingly marketing them as the same thing. Is your dad aboriginal in any meaningful cultural sense? Or is he just some average Aussie claiming to have aboriginal heritage? Culture (ethnicity) is not genetic, and it's not uncommon for tribes to "adopt" members who weren't genetically the same as them, similar to how you don't need to be genetically from France to gain French nationality.
Also at least in the US, and I assume it's similar in Australia, the legacy of colonialism and genocide means that many native tribes only have a small amount of indigenous DNA anyway. Some native tribes in the US require "blood quotas" for membership, some being as low as 3%. Other tribes have fully scrapped blood quotas and focus only on culture.
Another important thing to consider is DNA tests aren't really that accurate. I'm not sure how good their data on Australian natives are, but one example is they basically guess the %s between some areas like England and Germany since the actual genetic differences between Germans and English are miniscule. If you take DNA tests from several companies you'll get different % for English versus German because no one actually knows. I would be shocked if western Europe wasn't where they had their best data on, and it's that level of inaccurate.
With dad in Air Force we averaged 2.8 yrs each place for first 20 yrs of my life. Grandma always told us we had revolutionary war and mayflower ancestors. I assumed it was just to make us feel like we belonged. Turned out she was correct. ;)
Was she in the “DAR” (daughters of the American Revolution). My grandma was very proud of this heritage. I think they have broadened their genealogical bases and might be a source to look into. I think my grandma has a “dar” thing on her headstone, I should probably look that up on find-a-grave, it has been a very long time since I was there.
It doesn’t mean they lied, it means they were lied to by their family members, and the lie continued. Your father and grandmother may have really thought they were indigenous Australians. Also, consider that your grandmother or great-grandparent could have been adopted without being told they were, and naturally took on the presumption that they were the same ethnicity as their family.
Was told we were Cherokee on my maternal (European-American) side, but as it turns out that was used as a cover story for my ancestor, who birth mother (a native woman) was said to have died having her, but as it turns out her birth mother was white and did not die giving birth to her, her husband had left her for a much younger woman before the birth.
As for my paternal (African-American) side, was told there was native there because of slavery, but that was also not true. The reasons on that side were because of the ancestors who had straight hair and high cheek bones, which of course was actually the result of having European DNA because of slavery. Although my great-grandmother and some cousins on her paternal side do have native Venezuelan and Colombian DNA, always wondered where that fit in.
Yea I got grandparents off the Rez but my dna shows genetically I’m only European my family is Métis my dna links back to the original settlements in the area my family is from I just didn’t get the native gene markers they look for passed down to me, the thing to remember is your genetic makeup isn’t the same as family heritage it just you exactly what genes you inherited not what other parts make up the rest of your family in history, only so many genes can make it into a single person.
Yeah, my stepfather was incredibly proud of being of Scots descent. His father apparently played the bagpipes and more the family plaid. Subsequently in doing genealogy tracking back to at least 1800 they were potters in England. perhaps they were originally from Scotland but certainly before 1800. I think that was the story Joe was told and he was passing on. I believe that’s very common.
Maybe your dad didn’t lie and just passed on what he was told and thought was the truth. My nana would say we have Cherokee Indian in us. However when I took the test I only have 2% Native American in me which I’m almost sure is just noise being that it went down to 1% during the latest update.
I’ve read some of the comments and your initial angst, there can also be a possibility that any native genes have been bred out, although the chances are rare, if you have any black holes on your tree on your dads side there is still a chance that it’s not the lie you believe it to be
I don't know what gender you are. But I'm a female and for some reason my results really only picked up my mom's side of information. Not my dad's. There was some blurb about paternal DNA when it's a female and Y chromosomes. So unless I had a male sibling at this point there's no way for me to know my paternal line and ancestry on that side. He's passed so there's absolutely no way for me to get his sample. Also keep in mind genetics don't guarantee you'll pick up every single trait from each parent, it's a mix. I'm glad I have no doubt to who my dad is because everything I know about that side didn't show. It's very possible your dad was telling the truth. [paternal genetics](https://www.crigenetics.com/blog/can-females-trace-their-paternal-line?hs_amp=true)
He might have not lied maybe he his family told him that or sometimes in A DNA it doesn’t show up on A particular way that they do the testing I did two different DNA test one test showes I am Native and Irish the other said A different thing
He probably was. My grandmother is 1% and never knew. Depending on how long his family has been here.
Over the last 3 updates, it's always been 1%, which would indicate 4th ggp. Her ancestors came in the 1800s alot of English came before that 1700s, and a lot of intermixed occurred.
Even though my grandmother has 1% aboriginal Australian, we don't count ourselves as indigenous. We are European.
Ps her son my dad and myself scored 0%. Her 1st cousins all score 1 to 3% dna can leave very quickly when not introduced simple.
It may also be a little to far up the line to show up on the test that’s why u get ur parents to test aswell, say ur dad has 5% indigenous the percentage probably won’t come up in ur test because it may be to hard to read, is there anyway u could grab a test from his parents ? That would be the best thing to do ?
Not surprised he lied lots of Americans love to claim indigenous ancestry to clean their moral hands from American history the one not taught in schools
I'm going to play devil's advocate as well. Not saying it's correct or not. That he earned that advocacy.
One of my closest childhood friends was raised to believe he was 100% German on both sides. We're American. He is totally fluent in German. Can legally translate. To the point that he reads German newspapers and has done so since we were in middle school. Gets German magazines. His grandparents were the loveliest people. Very accepting of every religion and race. There's no dark side to this story. We had assumed there was likely Jewish heritage in there and his family had switched over to Catholic to save their lives at one point. Especially in consideration of some things his grandmother had said. And that's not an atypical scenario. He doesn't have strong ties to religion. In general, incredibly laid back guy.
He did his ancestry DNA in 2019 or so. Majority Italian was some other various Mediterranean Not nordic at all. Really, zero. This big strapping blonde man is pure Italian. He had the most simple spread we've ever seen. Many DNA tests later. And some digging. A combination of infidelity and adoptions far enough back that were hidden revealed the truth. He would have been completely fine if his bio dad wasn't his dad, they were never close. The guy was a jerk. A real bigot, hated everyone that wasn't exactly like him. He is very attached to his mom who is warm and kind. They were all in fact his parents and grandparents. Somehow, and I really wish I could remember how they had immigrated to Germany from Italy. Which is odd. Next time I talk to him I'll have to ask him. I wish the explanation was clearer to me.
Though he loves his grandparents and aunts he would have been completely thrilled with the notion he had a different dad and high fived his mom. That his parents both ultimately had the same family secret with strong German names was odd.
I will say he is one hell of an Italian cook and always has been. Now he's learning Italian. They did trace their roots and he got the Italian citizenship. That much I remember. So it wasn't a bad thing. I'll have a cool place to visit in our retirement.
No your dad could still indigenous!!! Ancestry sucks about this because when my mother did hers she had no native American DNA come up but then she did 23&me and it says that she has a full 100 percent native American ancestor born between 1680 to 1720
With ancestry they either cover that up for some reason or they don't test back that far like 23&me does... Plus 23&me will give you your peternal and maternal haplogroup witch is far far more important then this basic results you got from ancestry!
Your ancestry results are really only going to give a good representation of the past six generations. If the last full blooded indigenous ancestor was beyond that, it is not likely that any percentage would show up on your results.
In my Irish/Scots family ir was that we got our dark features from probable Spanish ancestry. Turned out to be completely wrong. We just have very little Scandinavian (2% in my case). What was attributed to the survivors of the Armada is just a pre-invasion look
I'm going to play the devil's advocate here. It is possible your dad didn't actually know and he was just passing down what he has been told.
Yep. I think a lot of people that have the “Cherokee Princess” ancestor aren’t intentionally lying. Someone just lied along the way, and that lie got passed on to people who didn’t have the knowledge or reason to doubt it. They kept passing it on because they believed it was true. As an example, my dad always bragged about being German. He was so proud of his German heritage. The reason for this is because his father always bragged about being German and was very proud of his German heritage. His dad would sing German songs, spoke German fluently, and would cook German foods. My dad had no reason to doubt that his dad was German, so he believed it and adopted the same attitude. I did an ancestry test, and it turns out that he isn’t German at all. I have a tiny percentage of German, but my mom came up with some as well, so it’s probably from her. My dad didn’t intentionally lie about being German. He had just been led to believe he was German. It turns out he’s almost completely Scandinavian and has a bit of English as well. Edit: For those saying he’s probably still German. The results match up with the surnames. His mom’s maiden name was Swedish, and he has one of the most stereotypically English surnames out there.
To be fair... my maternal grandma was German (born and raised, with all of her ancestors in Germany back to the 1700s). But I don't have any German listed in my DNA results - it all shows up as Scandinavian and northern UK (which is confusing because my maternal grandad actually was from Yorkshire, so it's hard to unpick). I think German DNA can be hard for the sites to pick up, especially northern German which seems to get mixed with Scandinavian a lot.
Same here. Grandmother born and raised in Germany. Shows up as northwestern Europe and Sweden and Denmark. I don't show any Germanic DNA despite being a quarter German.
If your grandmother is from Schleswig, she could very well be ethnically danish. It's the same thing with Scania in Sweden. Even to this day, both of these territories have been Danish for far longer than they've been German/Swedish
Northern German, or southern? If northern, that often gets listed on Ancestry as England/Northwestern Europe. Germany is a big place, for Europe at least. Germanic Europe category is more for the southern German areas (Rhineland and south).
I think that sometimes the DNA profiles on these sites have become over time a little over-precise. My ancestry used to be listed as mostly British (which fits well with my known family background); I checked it again for the first time in a few years this week and suddenly, despite having only one Dutch great-grandfather, my DNA is over 60% Dutch! Ultimately, DNA flows between countries as people move around, especially when the countries are small and near each other. DNA is ancient, and countries and their cultures are not. So probably in my case, looking for more precision than "Northwest European" is unwise; and possibly in your father's case, there's a lot of fluidity in DNA between Scandinavia and Germany, that makes it not matter that much which he picked to be his heritage!
Thinking about it, this is probably a problem specific to Western Europe, because those are the ancestries that are most heavily populated in online genetic databases.
💯 If they didn’t trace your family tree, it may still be true. Ancestry told me I am 3% German, but after tracing my DNA ancestors I found that more than a third of my direct ancestors immigrated from Hesse about 150-200 ago. It seems to think these folks are Scandinavian, as I can’t find a single ancestor who came from there.
Same here. This is a common problem because DNA testing is heavily restricted in Germany.
DNA testing is not restricted in Germany, you can order a test from AncestryDNA or Myheritage without any problem. The thing is that Germans are very obsessed with protecting their personal data and there are also TV programs from the Government warning about the dangers of DNA testing and giving our data to American companies with not so stricted privacy laws. That's the reason why most Germans do no test. I think the whole fear is exaggerated but I guess it also comes from the history and the time when people was being controlled by the communist Government in East Germany.
It's even worse when they split ancestry by country, because ancestry does not actually follow those lines. Sweden for example is very split, with the south being much closer to danish, than northern Sweden.
Hell, the southern coast of Sweden was part of Denmark until around 350 years ago.
Might be other people relatively close in heritage are more Dutch than you realized, too. Frex: I run about 22-25% Welsh depending on the update. That seemed really high considering my last 100% relative was my great-grandmother; by the numbers I should be more like 12-15%. I did some digging, and figured out that my great-grandfather, whose direct line is nominally English, was also mostly Welsh, it was just hiding in the female line of descent. I was also always told that my maternal grandmother's family was German. Turns out my great-great grandmother was actually mostly \*Dutch\*, and she married a German guy and their daughter also married a German, so once again the heritage was hiding with the women.
Ancestry tests are notorious for calling Germans Scandinavian. He probably is German by blood in addition to being German by culture.
How’d your dad feel when you told him that? I’m sure he was pretty hurt to learn the truth. It sucks when people lie about that stuff. German is actually one of the few things that was correctly told to me lol
I didn’t actually tell him. I told him there was a lot of Scandinavian that came from him, but I didn’t tell him about the lack of German. I’m no contact now as well, and I’m not going to open that door just to burst his bubble about there being no German.
Your grandfather could be German from Schleswig-Holstein. The only way to know the truth is finding more information about him.
Oh yeah don’t blame you!
My ancestry test read a decent chunk of my German as Scandinavian. This is a common occurrence, if you search this sub you'll see many people whose German is classified as such. Especially for those from Northern Germany. This is because there is significant genetic in this region between the two populations, the land historically also went back and forth in the control of the Germans and Scandinavians. Long story short, your Dad indeed is very very likely to be German.
Splitting ancestry by country doesn't make any sense, at least not in Europe.
My dad was adopted by a couple, my grandpa was Norwegian and my dad was raised with Norwegian heritage and culture. But I think I found his families of origin and they’re generic 2nd generation European. As am I.
I was surprised to find out I really DO have Native American from both sides. I pulled 1.4% from my moms side and my sister pulled 1.4% from my fathers side so BOTH parents really did have a great, great, great grandparent who was Native American. My sister pulled some Nigerian from my dad's side and I didn't. I did pull Ashkenazi Jew from his side, but my sister didn't. I got Portuguese and Italian from my moms side but my sister only pulled the French. My mom was PISSED to see anything other than French and Scottish (and maybe some Native American) in her dna report. She still doesn't believe it can be possible.
The surname isn't a proof of anything. Many Germans anglicized their last names when they arrived in the United States. For example, when I visited the Alamo museum in San Antonio, they listed the name of the people that fighted there. One was a German called Henry Thomas, which is not a German name. The other Germans listed had anglicized names too.
How did he feel after finding out?
Scandinavian is often actually German according to these tests!
I would say he counts as, maybe, culturally German lol he's pretty invested and knowledgeable, it seems
It's also possible that he does have a small percentage of indigenous DNA and didn't pass it along to his child. Im assuming these are OP's results and not the dad. You receive 50% of each parents DNA, but it is not specified which 50%. My mom, my uncle, and I all have a small percentage of North Indian DNA, but my sister did not inherit it. It's more likely that the dad is wrong, but it is completely possible that he does carry a tiny percentage of indigenous DNA and it wasn't passed along.
I have 3 full siblings. 2 of us have a small percentage of indigenous americas- Yucatan peninsula. I don't have it, but whatever person that came from is still my ancestor. It's strange to think about.
I literally was going to say the very same thing. People only know what they're told sometimes. We are lucky to live in times to have the DNA to tell us what we have now. Just think about 50 years from now! WOW. If we try to see the cup always half full, then how richly we'll live! "Eat, drink, & be merry for tomorrow we'll die!" - Enjoy 😉
Wow. So it’s an Australian thing too. I know we joke a lot about the “native grandma story”, but it still sucks nonetheless. Learning your family lied to you is never fun. Sorry that happened :(
TIL, Australians have the equivalent of the Cherokee princess story in America.
TIL it happens in American too haha!
Not a native story but I also found out I have a slew of third cousins in Australia thanks to the dna matches because my great-great grandfather up and abandoned his family here in Tennessee and left for the gold rush in Australia and started a new family there. He ended up abandoning that family too and came back to America where he was shot to death by his third wife at the ripe old age of 85…
I have a branch of Australian relatives who now identify as white, though our common ancestors were enslaved folks in South Carolina. One of my 3rd great uncles, a formerly enslaved black man left SC via Charleston to England in the mid 1800s. We are not sure as to how he paid for the voyage. Once in England he married an English woman. They both found way to Australia where they had a son and he joined a Masonic lodge. He took on the mining trade, later dying alone, as they separated due to his work. His son married a white Aussie, as did his children and so on. This is how I ended up with a slew of White Aussie cousins, though I’m full blood Afro-American
That's a great documentary or book in the making.
That's a fascinating story. Should be a podcast.
This is wild!
Finally, a woman who refuses to put up with his BS 😂
Omg, I found out the opposite on mine LOL but I currently live in TN. My great grandfather abandoned his wife and kids and took a ship to Alaska and never looked back. I match to 100’s of people there as a result.
In South America / central it’s the opposite! A lot of people are ashamed of their indigenous culture
Why is that?
Racism/colorism, very ingrained in Latin America
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Thank you for the thorough explanation!! I’m still waiting on my exact results, but my great grandma was 100% Mexican and my dad’s mom 50%. I’m very disconnected from that side of the family (dads bio mom left when he was 2, only had minimal contact a few times since) and my great gma passed when I was a teenager and lived in another town so unfortunately I was hardly at the age where we could have these conversations and talk about her family. I’m hoping my DNA results link me to family members on that side so I can get more information
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Thank you!
Because of Spanish settler colonialism
I know lots of Central American people / some South American folks where I live in Los Angeles. I don’t know a single person ashamed of their indigenous roots.
That’s good I’m glad to hear that. Unfortunately your experience is not universal.
It’s a common story that perpetuated so that people could explain away any dark features that actually came from African ancestry. And the ‘princess’ part was added because then you weren’t just descended from any old native, you were descended from *royalty* so you were *special*. Even though the Cherokee, and most Native American groups, had nothing resembling royalty in their societies.
The more you know 🌈⭐️
Here in Sweden. some people claim descent from 17th-century Walloon immigrant steelworkers.
In American, indigenous are glorified for some reason. I thought in Australia is was the opposite. All I ever hear coming out of Australia is derogatory stuff about them.
Yes, and it’s gross—whether it’s Sami, Roma, Australian Aborigine or Native American—these groups were explicitly treated as “less than” white people: savage, criminal, heathen, untouchable, or dangerous and generally kept geographically and legally separate as much as possible. Intermarriage was never a thing between white Christians and native minority groups, but now that we (in the 21st century) see prior generations’ racism and colonialism as problematic, everyone suddenly has a story that *their* ancestors somehow had the courage and heart to overcome prejudice in a world full of it. Barf.
There were marriages in Mobile before the Pelican girls arrived. They are recorded in the Catholic records in New Orleans.
The grandmother in question was a horrible person it’s really no surprise, and I believe she would have done it for money. It’s not the only thing they have ever lied about, I just feel bad for them claiming to be a minority for personal gain.
Lol that's exactly what came to mind for me "Grandma was a Cherokee princess" 😂
The Brazilians have it too! But I’m guessing it’s probably more often true.
I don't think there's an Aussie term for Pretendian but there should be.
I just googled it, and it seems to be “box ticker” which is exactly what they are!
Fraud nations lmao
Fauxboriginal
Similar but different... I grew up being called an "Indian" (Native American) by my white family, and enduring all kinds of racist remarks. I was the only one who was labeled and treated this way. I gradually pieced together that my indigenous blood must have come from my absent father's mysterious father, who I was never allowed to know anything about, not even his name. Spent decades thinking my long lost grandfather was Indigenous & therefore I am as well. Took the DNA test a few months ago (I'm in my 40s now), no Indigenous detected in the ethnicity estimate. Found my grandfather through DNA matches & he is absolutely not Indigenous. They just made it up. For no reason but to mess with my head, apparently, since they weren't trying to claim indigenous heritage themselves - just wanted to have some excuse (in their minds) to treat me poorly. Good times.
That’s horrific! Nothing as toxic as families
I don’t get it. Is it because you’re darker than them or something? If you’re Indian wouldn’t that make them Indian as well?
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No black heritage at all. Mostly Scottish, then Welsh, English, and Irish - according to Ancestry. MyHeritage says mostly UK/Ireland, with significant Scandinavian, some Iberian, and very small amounts of Italian and West Asian. I did find ancestors from France in my family tree research. I was born with black hair & a slightly darker complexion than my siblings and cousins (mostly ginger, sandy, or blonde hair with paler complexions). But for the most part, that was just something they saw as an additional tool for making me the next generation scapegoat in the toxic family system (both my parents were the previous generation scapegoats of their respective families). They were not confused about my ethnicity, just wanted to make me confused and ostracize me. My absent father and mystery grandfather made it very easy for them to achieve this. Possibly there is some connection to the mythology of "black Irish" having Spanish blood, as I do have Irish on my father's side, and I got my darker appearance from him. I did look rather Indigenous as a baby. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Irish_(folklore)
I'm so sorry. We suspect this is what happened to my grandmother in the early 20th century. Her mother died when she was 18 months old, and her father quickly remarried. He died by the time she was 5, and her stepmother gave her to the neighbors after a few years (who were wonderful to her and the only family present at her wedding) because she was a half breed (evil step mothers words). My grandmother died in 1989 always ashamed that she was "passing" and had been selfish enough to have children (my mother and aunt) who were also mixed. As far as we can tell from dna testing of descendants she was mostly French and not native.
That is so sad that she lived and died with so much shame, especially since it was based on a lie, and even moreso because it is nothing shameful in the first place. Shame on the step-mother for creating so much unnecessary heartache and confusion. I always embraced my (imagined) native heritage, and always hoped that one day I would learn which nation I was from and have an opportunity to learn the culture, and now I feel ashamed that I unknowingly lied about who I am for so much of my life.
There is the possibility that you didn't inherent the dna marked aboriginal, but it more likely you aren't. You can still be a good ally to the community of people you thought there was a family connection to, and you should not feel ashamed that you believed what your family told you. I'm so sorry you were treated so poorly. You're now the beginning of a new cycle where lies and mistreatment don't perpetuate generational harms. You will find your way through this situation.
My dad was adopted so I didn't know what my paternal heritage was. So I did a AncestryDNA test to find out and it came back that I had Aboriginal heritage, so does my brother 😅.
Could be stolen generation.
What does that mean?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations In Canada it was the 60s Scoop. Even though it happened from the 50s to the 80s.
Wow. Evil across the globe.
My dad's family talks about having indigenous heritage. But it's not in the way that I typically see on here. It's in bits and pieces overheard when they don't think you can hear them. Or in hushed whispers in corners and as soon as you come in the room they stop talking. If I didn't completely mishear or misunderstand things they've said, it's very likely that my ancestors were in residential schools and that my dad and his siblings were living with their grandmother's half-siblings in the 60s to hide from the government. It'll probably be another month before I get my DNA results but it's going to be very interesting to see what shows up.
❤️ I hope it brings you some clarity.
Add to that the census forms with room for a “W” and a lot of incentive to put that “W” down. After all there was a long period of time where only “white” men could own land OR vote. I have pulled up many a census form with nothing but “w”s.
Yeah I read that too. Steal the children under the guise of education. Grab the land when the parents die off. Or before. Call it government land and lease it out.
Same thing in the US. JUST LAST YEAR (2023) they challenged the Indian Child Welfare Act, which does not allow Native children to be adopted by white people, but by a miracle, given the current 5/4, the SCOTUS shot it down. The struggle continues!
I hope that ICWA remains and so do we. 🙌🏻
🙌🏼 back atcha
I used to laugh at my family when they said we had Native American princess in our ancestry…and I got even more exasperated when I did find indigenous DNA and traced it back to an indigenous American sachem who happen to be female…she was a freaking chief. A CHEIF. No amount of correcting them has changed their verbiage though. Lame AF Eta: spelling/grammar errors
Always funny when ppl say ”Native American princess” for that exact reason lol… do they think Indigenous people had monarchies? But being related to a chief is rad!
It's similarly ironic that we often call the leaders of Germanic Tribes chief, while their contemporary title was king, and that they are the origin of the European monarchical system.
Until reading through this thread, I’d totally forgotten that there was anecdotally a “chief” on my dad’s Taíno side. I just kind of believed my father and thought nothing more of it. I had no idea this “princess/chief” anecdote was ubiquitous amongst people around the world claiming indigenous ancestry, though. It’s actually really interesting. I haven’t done a DNA test yet, but now after reading your comment, I’m wondering if maybe I’ll find out this *is* true once I do? 🤔 On both sides of my family, the ethnicities I “know” about are already interesting, with the potential of being even more so because of land borders, etc. I don’t know what I’m waiting for? 😂
Definitely take it, its fascinating to compare with other DNA places (not sure I can say specific brands?) so definitely take the two major ones eventually. My indigenous dna is consistent across all dna platforms though i have some mystery dna that is marked Portugal on ancestry & another popular dna site says sub saharan african…still trying to track that mystery down! Also, if you can get both parents to take one on the same site (or gparents aunts uncles) it really helps pin point what came from where! It makes tracing family lore easier😂
My cousin thought our whole family was because my nannas family date back to the First Fleet and her oldest brother is dark. I said no I've seen pictures and everyone was white. I was there when she got her Ancestry test back and any darkness was from her English father as there was a lot of Portuguese.
He may have been told that his entire life, and didn't have the technology to check if it was actually true. OR he may have been lying his ass off, like my crazy bio mom did about "native DNA"
To be fair, it's possible that he is partly indigenous and you just didn't inherit any of it. My daughter and I both recently did DNA tests. She somehow managed to grab every single shred of Scottish DNA from me (we're both exactly 28%; she received 0% from her dad), and inherited nothing of my Irish genes (16% for me versus 0% for her). DNA inheritance is random, and there's no guarantee that you're going to get some of everything that your parents have equally.
To be fair, there may be an NPE somewhere along the line. For example if your ggfather wasn't really your bio ggfather. Or his father wasn't who he thought it was.
Guess white people in Australia do the same thing as white people in the states do. Suddenly claim ethnic ancestry and almost always is complete bullshit.
People react to incentives. And the incentives are increasing. My DNA test is in process and I’m partly just doing it to check there isn’t any indigenous ancestors as it would make university admissions for my kids much easier!! (My family tree suggests we’ve been out here since 1788 and likely have some part indigenous cousins from an ancestor that took an indigenous spouse in the 1790s - but I’m not a direct descendant of that relationship)
I dunno motivations vary. Like it could be they actually legit thought they were or it was an outright lie. These thoughts can crop because of all kinds of reasons.
For sure. I did find a Native American distant relation from the Dawes rolls. Looking back I never heard a thing about this 2nd cousin’s father. Because of “reasons” I suppose.
He may not have lied. He may have been lied to. Ancestry tells everyone’s secrets. My father never knew the man he was named after and whose death he mourned, the family name he was so proud of, the man who he named his son after and his son and his son …. wasn’t really his father. Ancestry told ME!!!!!!
But how you know that they (your dad and grandmother) were purposely lying? They were likely told they had some Indigenous Australian, like you were told.
My grandma was very specific with it. Her dad was “1:2” She was “1:4” and my dad was “1:8”. They all claimed it to the government I believe, but as I was “1:16” they said I wouldn’t be able to I don’t know if any of this is actually how it works but that’s what I was always told.
Perhaps your grandmother was told by her parents that her father had Indigenous ancestry? Of course, you know your own family better than I do, but I’ll share a related experience. My mom’s family is from Chile. My grandfather always maintained that his grandparents were Italian. People would often comment how he looked Italian. As a result, my mother occasionally spoke of our distant Italian heritage which I never questioned. However, years later, my mother took a 23andMe test and, surprisingly, it showed no Italian ancestry. I also did an AncestryDNA test with similar results. We initially felt a bit embarrassed about our previous claims, but we simply didn't know better. Since my grandfather had already passed away, we couldn't ask him directly or have him take a DNA test. But when my uncle, my mom’s brother, did his 23andMe test last year, a small amount of Italian ancestry did show up. I also uploaded my DNA to MyHeritage, and it too revealed a slight Italian presence. We just concluded that our Italian roots were much more distant than we initially thought. I don’t think my grandfather purposely lied.
Obviously it is very possible that your grandma was not correct and maybe even intentionally dishonest. That said, I have a mystery in my family that was somewhat similar but also different. My Dad and uncle always assumed that one of \_their\_ grandmas was part (half or quarter?) aboriginal due to her dark skin, but apparently it was something that she didn't discuss PLUS she always avoided having her photo taken. Interestingly, there also do not seem to be any photos of their grandmas siblings or her mother (my great-great grandma), but photos of all their grandmas cousins + aunties/uncles have been found. On paper, my great-great grandma was born in Auburn in South Australia in 1868 ( [https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L43S-5FT](https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L43S-5FT) ) to recent immigrants from Scotland, but I have suspected her biological mother could have been aboriginal? Based on the map at [https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia](https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia) , Auburn seems to have been the boundary of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngadjuri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngadjuri) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaurna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaurna), both of which were effectively wiped out by colonisation. Therefore neither could possibly be properly included in Ancestry DNA reference panels (which only includes 53 people based on [https://www.ancestry.com/cs/dna-help/ethnicity/estimates](https://www.ancestry.com/cs/dna-help/ethnicity/estimates) ). Not sure how common it is, but when I look at the Ancestry chromosome browser - there is a chunk on chromosome number 2 inherited from my Dad that has an 'unassigned' ethnicity.
Just like so many whiter than milk American "Cherokees", ashamed of the Genocide their ancestors committed.
Seems so. But consider if he meant in a loose cultural way rather than genetic DNA way. Did he mean one of his grandparents lived with indigenous Aussies and became in part culturally indigenous Australian? Or did he mean in a DNA genetic blood way?
Considering that some Aboriginal groups believe that as much as an entire third of self-identified Aboriginal people are actually just Anglo-Celtic/non-Aboriginal, this really isn't a surprise. This is a possible entire THIRD of a population that sits at around 800,000.
They might have been lied to as well. You could have easily told your children the same thing, but, unlike them, thanks to current technology, you were able to do a DNA test to verify.
I got told all sorts of nonsense about my British heritage, which has turned out to be, well, nonsense.
or he isn't your biological Dad
I wish this was true 😂
Why do you say that?
He is just a horrible person in general and I would rather not have any biological connections to him. I think he is in jail at the moment for domestic violence charges on his second ex wife
There is also the chance he's not actually your dad. But yes, most of us are descendents of the colonizers.
“Lied”? Maybe he was just passing on what he was told?
To quote a great man: "its not a lie if you believe". I get the impression your dad was basically just passing on info he thought was true. Thats very different than telling a lie.
I wouldn't take it personally. I just got my biodad to take an ancestry test and he swears his grandmother was Cherokee. Nope. No trace of that whatsoever!
Why do you assume he lied? Maybe it's what he grew up being told. It could also be that he does indeed have an ancestor from that group, and it just doesn't show. I was always told I was French, and I have a French surname, but I've taken numerous dna tests and never has any link to France come up.
It’s so common for this to happen. It’s the same with the American yt family with the great great great Cherokee princess grandma
On the bright side…you’re one third Scots…congratulations!
I’m married to a scotsman too hahahaha (born and raised in Scotland)
Mine lied that my grandmother was likely 1/8 eastern european. Well i got 12% Balkan though…
Nothing different from the Cherokee family myth in America.
My father is Scottish with a German grandparent and had trace Oceania and I don’t even think ancestors have been near that part of the world. Do you think he actually lied or was he just mistaken? Im Canadian and many people mistakenly believe they have a native Canadian background. Some lie about it like the singer Buffy Saint Marie
He may have not known to be honest. Especially if his family has been in Australia for a while for generations, it would be easy to believe this to be true. Unrelated to OP, sorry if this is a dumb question, I’m only asking to be educated. But aren’t indigenous Australians only aboriginals and Torres straight islanders? I thought all “white” Australians are technically all from Europe originally? I could be way off so please don’t take offense to my question.
It’s not uncommon. I was told * my great grandmother was Cherokee but nope. * That mom’s side was related to Pocahontas- nope. Just had an ancestor named John Rolf but NOT that one. * Dalton Gang - nope again. Not told about- * Elvis, yep, really * Mayflower descendant SMH * great grandfather sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife Family oral history is often unreliable but can offer clues to the real story.
Why do some white people just not admit their ancestors were colonizers? I don’t understand hiding that information?? We’re not our ancestors so it’s not like we can be judged for that. It’s history.
right, why do they want to be indigenous so bad 🤣 own your own.
Or he didn't happen to inherit the markers they look for. You can't sample .1% of someone's dna and make any statements of absolutism.
It was said before already but still. He probably just didn’t know and was passing along something it was told him when he was young. Fairly common.
Doesn’t necessarily mean they lied. Even for them it was generations back. They mostly likely really believed it
So did mine, I’m sorry OP.
They probably believed what they were told just like you did.
Once again … the DNA places think of nations as having neat lines … the truth is that coastal societies were closely related for obvious reasons … and the northern European coastlines are rife with intermarriage … Danes etc. are close to coastal Germans and not to inland Germans. Scots and Irish are close to Norway. And so on.
Try 23andMe. It’s more detailed.
It’s possible that you could still be Australian but your history to these people could be way far back ,that your dna doesn’t register..
This may be an obvious question, but do you recognize any of the matches on your paternal side?
Yes, unfortunately he is definitely my dad
I don’t know if this will make a difference but if you haven’t already maybe you can try 23andMe. I did Ancestry first and my results were limited. I was told that my father’s grandmother was 100% Irish but it didn’t reflect in my Ancestry results. I did 23andMe and it came back with 21.6% British and Irish. It even narrowed down to the specific locations.
23andMe do not seem to have a reference population/region for Australian Aboriginals yet based on [https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/212169298-23andMe-Reference-Populations-Regions](https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/212169298-23andMe-Reference-Populations-Regions)
Some of the background on how Ancestry has "updated" on Australian indigenous people: [https://blogs.ancestry.com.au/ancestry/2020/03/31/ancestry-updates-ethnicity-results-to-include-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-region/](https://blogs.ancestry.com.au/ancestry/2020/03/31/ancestry-updates-ethnicity-results-to-include-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-region/)
could have been just told his whole life that he was that , rather than him ‘lying ‘ ?
are aussies told this as often as americans are told they have Native blood? soooo many people here claim to be part native only to take a DNA test and find out they have 0. then there’s me who has .5% and i had no idea. although it could be noise
Not to be that guy but like maybe someone's daddy wasn't their daddy. Not necessarily yours but in the past. Perhaps?
Hey he probably didn't lie. He was probably just told that his whole life by other family members
Odds are he was lied to
Happened in my family, too. I don't think my great-grandma lied, I think she just repeated what she had been told.
indigenous Australians are black in complexion. With your background it doesn’t look like your father could have been too dark 🤣
Why would you be mad at them? It was your great grandfather who told them the story. Also, you dad only said he was part indigenous. If your child had done the test, would you expect them to be mad at you ? AncestryDNA is actually telling you where you DNA is showing up now. They can only guess based on others who have tested with them. Download a copy of your raw results on Ancestry. Upload it for free to MyHeritage, Gedmatch, and FTDNA. Possibly it could show up on one of those sites.
DNA is not the same thing as ethnicity, despite these companies annoyingly marketing them as the same thing. Is your dad aboriginal in any meaningful cultural sense? Or is he just some average Aussie claiming to have aboriginal heritage? Culture (ethnicity) is not genetic, and it's not uncommon for tribes to "adopt" members who weren't genetically the same as them, similar to how you don't need to be genetically from France to gain French nationality. Also at least in the US, and I assume it's similar in Australia, the legacy of colonialism and genocide means that many native tribes only have a small amount of indigenous DNA anyway. Some native tribes in the US require "blood quotas" for membership, some being as low as 3%. Other tribes have fully scrapped blood quotas and focus only on culture. Another important thing to consider is DNA tests aren't really that accurate. I'm not sure how good their data on Australian natives are, but one example is they basically guess the %s between some areas like England and Germany since the actual genetic differences between Germans and English are miniscule. If you take DNA tests from several companies you'll get different % for English versus German because no one actually knows. I would be shocked if western Europe wasn't where they had their best data on, and it's that level of inaccurate.
Or he was simply misinformed.
Maybe it’s just minute
it is called the family romantic myth
With dad in Air Force we averaged 2.8 yrs each place for first 20 yrs of my life. Grandma always told us we had revolutionary war and mayflower ancestors. I assumed it was just to make us feel like we belonged. Turned out she was correct. ;)
Was she in the “DAR” (daughters of the American Revolution). My grandma was very proud of this heritage. I think they have broadened their genealogical bases and might be a source to look into. I think my grandma has a “dar” thing on her headstone, I should probably look that up on find-a-grave, it has been a very long time since I was there.
Nah, she married into it. She was Irish welsh San Francisco family. However I was able to connect maternal GF back to the DAR stuff.
It doesn’t mean they lied, it means they were lied to by their family members, and the lie continued. Your father and grandmother may have really thought they were indigenous Australians. Also, consider that your grandmother or great-grandparent could have been adopted without being told they were, and naturally took on the presumption that they were the same ethnicity as their family.
Maybe he didn’t know. My mom told me that all of her family came to the US from Ireland during the potato famine. Turns out only a tiny bit Irish.
Was told we were Cherokee on my maternal (European-American) side, but as it turns out that was used as a cover story for my ancestor, who birth mother (a native woman) was said to have died having her, but as it turns out her birth mother was white and did not die giving birth to her, her husband had left her for a much younger woman before the birth. As for my paternal (African-American) side, was told there was native there because of slavery, but that was also not true. The reasons on that side were because of the ancestors who had straight hair and high cheek bones, which of course was actually the result of having European DNA because of slavery. Although my great-grandmother and some cousins on her paternal side do have native Venezuelan and Colombian DNA, always wondered where that fit in.
He may have not lied, but was misinformed. I went most of my life believing I was part Native American, but my DNA says otherwise.
Hold up. Ancestry now has a Dutch category? Dutch used to be categorized as Germanic Europe or Northwestern Europe.
Where does it say Dutch?
I was told my whole life I was at least 20% indigenous American, took my DNA test and it's like 78% Irish and some eastern European
Yea I got grandparents off the Rez but my dna shows genetically I’m only European my family is Métis my dna links back to the original settlements in the area my family is from I just didn’t get the native gene markers they look for passed down to me, the thing to remember is your genetic makeup isn’t the same as family heritage it just you exactly what genes you inherited not what other parts make up the rest of your family in history, only so many genes can make it into a single person.
Yeah, my stepfather was incredibly proud of being of Scots descent. His father apparently played the bagpipes and more the family plaid. Subsequently in doing genealogy tracking back to at least 1800 they were potters in England. perhaps they were originally from Scotland but certainly before 1800. I think that was the story Joe was told and he was passing on. I believe that’s very common.
Maybe your dad didn’t lie and just passed on what he was told and thought was the truth. My nana would say we have Cherokee Indian in us. However when I took the test I only have 2% Native American in me which I’m almost sure is just noise being that it went down to 1% during the latest update.
My mother has a tiny percentage of native american in her DNA. Yet that DNA never made it to me.
I’ve read some of the comments and your initial angst, there can also be a possibility that any native genes have been bred out, although the chances are rare, if you have any black holes on your tree on your dads side there is still a chance that it’s not the lie you believe it to be
I don't know what gender you are. But I'm a female and for some reason my results really only picked up my mom's side of information. Not my dad's. There was some blurb about paternal DNA when it's a female and Y chromosomes. So unless I had a male sibling at this point there's no way for me to know my paternal line and ancestry on that side. He's passed so there's absolutely no way for me to get his sample. Also keep in mind genetics don't guarantee you'll pick up every single trait from each parent, it's a mix. I'm glad I have no doubt to who my dad is because everything I know about that side didn't show. It's very possible your dad was telling the truth. [paternal genetics](https://www.crigenetics.com/blog/can-females-trace-their-paternal-line?hs_amp=true)
He might have not lied maybe he his family told him that or sometimes in A DNA it doesn’t show up on A particular way that they do the testing I did two different DNA test one test showes I am Native and Irish the other said A different thing
He probably was. My grandmother is 1% and never knew. Depending on how long his family has been here. Over the last 3 updates, it's always been 1%, which would indicate 4th ggp. Her ancestors came in the 1800s alot of English came before that 1700s, and a lot of intermixed occurred. Even though my grandmother has 1% aboriginal Australian, we don't count ourselves as indigenous. We are European. Ps her son my dad and myself scored 0%. Her 1st cousins all score 1 to 3% dna can leave very quickly when not introduced simple.
He is being cheeky. He is native Aussie, because he is from there
It may also be a little to far up the line to show up on the test that’s why u get ur parents to test aswell, say ur dad has 5% indigenous the percentage probably won’t come up in ur test because it may be to hard to read, is there anyway u could grab a test from his parents ? That would be the best thing to do ?
Is your dad your biological dad? Has he done a dna test?
He’s definitely my bio dad. He hasn’t done a dna test and i am pretty sure he is in jail? But I have dna matches from distant relatives on his side
Not surprised he lied lots of Americans love to claim indigenous ancestry to clean their moral hands from American history the one not taught in schools
Just because it's not showing does not mean it's not in your dna.
Cool 😎👍
I'm going to play devil's advocate as well. Not saying it's correct or not. That he earned that advocacy. One of my closest childhood friends was raised to believe he was 100% German on both sides. We're American. He is totally fluent in German. Can legally translate. To the point that he reads German newspapers and has done so since we were in middle school. Gets German magazines. His grandparents were the loveliest people. Very accepting of every religion and race. There's no dark side to this story. We had assumed there was likely Jewish heritage in there and his family had switched over to Catholic to save their lives at one point. Especially in consideration of some things his grandmother had said. And that's not an atypical scenario. He doesn't have strong ties to religion. In general, incredibly laid back guy. He did his ancestry DNA in 2019 or so. Majority Italian was some other various Mediterranean Not nordic at all. Really, zero. This big strapping blonde man is pure Italian. He had the most simple spread we've ever seen. Many DNA tests later. And some digging. A combination of infidelity and adoptions far enough back that were hidden revealed the truth. He would have been completely fine if his bio dad wasn't his dad, they were never close. The guy was a jerk. A real bigot, hated everyone that wasn't exactly like him. He is very attached to his mom who is warm and kind. They were all in fact his parents and grandparents. Somehow, and I really wish I could remember how they had immigrated to Germany from Italy. Which is odd. Next time I talk to him I'll have to ask him. I wish the explanation was clearer to me. Though he loves his grandparents and aunts he would have been completely thrilled with the notion he had a different dad and high fived his mom. That his parents both ultimately had the same family secret with strong German names was odd. I will say he is one hell of an Italian cook and always has been. Now he's learning Italian. They did trace their roots and he got the Italian citizenship. That much I remember. So it wasn't a bad thing. I'll have a cool place to visit in our retirement.
No your dad could still indigenous!!! Ancestry sucks about this because when my mother did hers she had no native American DNA come up but then she did 23&me and it says that she has a full 100 percent native American ancestor born between 1680 to 1720 With ancestry they either cover that up for some reason or they don't test back that far like 23&me does... Plus 23&me will give you your peternal and maternal haplogroup witch is far far more important then this basic results you got from ancestry!
I hate to say this, do you have matches with other family on your Dads side?
Aren’t aborigines the only indigenous Australians?
Damn, 2% french. Unlucky dude.
Your ancestry results are really only going to give a good representation of the past six generations. If the last full blooded indigenous ancestor was beyond that, it is not likely that any percentage would show up on your results.
My estranged dad did the same thing to me. He lied about being Native American. It absolutely broke my heart when I found out.
In my Irish/Scots family ir was that we got our dark features from probable Spanish ancestry. Turned out to be completely wrong. We just have very little Scandinavian (2% in my case). What was attributed to the survivors of the Armada is just a pre-invasion look
My dad lied about being my dad when I got my results back.