Using Gedmatch to find your
Native American Indian DNA
by Earthchild Marie Brito, 10/2017
POBox 633, Reardan WA 99029
Gedmatch is a site where you learn of your DNA results from other
companies where you test. Log in and create a free a account at
https://www.gedmatch.com
There are lots of interesting files on the left-hand side of the home page, and
directions on uploading your DNA raw results and your pedigree are in the
upper light greenish box in the middle of the page.
After you upload your results from your computer, Gedmatch will give you
a kit number to use in all of its tools. This kit number will have a letter
followed by six numbers.
The next thing that you need to do, is upload your gedcom [pedigree or
tree] into Gedmatch so that your cousins can see your ancestry. [My paternal
gedcom is 8684163. I did not add my mother's genealogy because I do not
want emails from a million people about her European ancestors!]
To determine your Native American DNA, first go to the home page of
Gedmatch. In the blue box in the middle of the page, named ''Analyze Your
Data'' is Admixture [heritage]. Click on that. 'Admixture Utilities' will open.
Select Project—click on the arrow and then on Eurogenes. Select how you
want to process it: Admixture proportions by chromosome. Click Continue.
Eurogenes Admix Utilities will open. Enter a kit number. Leave the
calculator model at Eurogenes K13 and click continue. This brings up a large
box with thirteen types of ethnicitys. Along the top of the box are the
chromosome numbers. [#1 has the most segments; # 22 has the least. I have
no idea why!] Scroll down to Amerindian and write down [or take a screen
shot of the box] which chromosomes and which % of those chromosomes
have your Native American Indian DNA.
Note that you cannot add up all the percentages and say that is what you are.
This tool only looks at some of your SNPs, not all of them, and there is
another tool which will quickly tell you if the kit number has Native
American DNA: In the Gedmatch homepage, go to Admixture Utilities.
Select MDLP Project; process it with Admixture Proportions by
Chromosome; enter the kit number and select MDLP World22. This will
bring up all the ethnicities, and tell which chromosome and % they are on.
But, because I am looking for DNA relatives from the 1600/1700 time frame,
I use Painting MDLP World22 at Gedmatch Admixture Heritage; it picks up
smaller bits of DNA than Autosomal Comparison or the above tools, and I
consider these bits clues, rather than ''noise.'' Autosomal Comparison is
found at One-to-One Comparison on Gedmatch; it goes by M, and the results
go by cM. Painting results are in much smaller amounts.
To find the tiniest, as well as the largest bits of your Native DNA, go to the
gedmatch home page and click on Admixture Heritage. Select MDLP
Project. Process with Paint Differences between 2 kits, 1 chromosome and
click continue. This opens the MDLP Project Admix Utilities.
Enter your kit number in the first box and another [mine is M185010] kit
number in the second box. Select the MDLP World22 calculator, enter
chromosome # 1, and click continue.
This will bring up a set of 22 colors which represent 22 different ethnicities.
These colors are slightly different on whichever different computers in use;
there is a way to make the colors more clear, but I do not know how to do
that.
I collect information from my DNA cousins on 4 kinds of
NativeAmericanIndian which are visible on Painting: SouthAmericanIndian
[bright dark green]; NorthAmericanIndian [charcoal grey];
ArcticAmericanIndian [light green]; and MesoAmericanIndian [dirty green].
I do not look at Siberian or any of the Asian colors.
I do collect information on Indo-Iranian DNA and South African DNA
because I think that Wahunsonacock, a Pamunkey Indian who lived from
1545 to 1618AD, had ancestors of that ethnicity from the Caribbean sugar
plantations. Probably because one of his ancestors was sold into slavery and
sent down there, and then a descendant was sold back to North America.
Note that this man is the ancestor of both Pocahantus [who had two children],
and chief Moytoy I, who had 21 children. I believe that all non registered
Eastern Indians descended from Wahunsonacock, who tried to unite all the
original inhabitants of the eastern seaboard, to eliminate the European
terroists. His way of doing this was simple as he conquered each neighboring
tribe, he married one of their women. Lasting peace was accomplished when
he kept his children and sent their mothers back home. Before his death, the
Powhatan Federation contained more than 30 Native American Indian tribes.
Consequently, your DNA is not purely from one tribe. Especially if your
ancestry includes the Tsalagi [Cherokees] because they adopted many strays
of many tribes and nations into their tribe. Usually these new people were
gathered into the Long Hair clan. Cherokee bloodlines [and DNA] include
English, Irish, Scottish, Patawomeck, Pamunkey, Nippissing, Natchez,
Shawnee, and many others. The Cherokees first were recognized by Great
Britain in 1715 and their recorded history begins then, altho the Cherokees of
Oklahoma and of North Carolina only count back to 1836 or so.
Now for your Native DNA: On the Painting, look for bright green
[SouthAmericanIndian, which includes the tribes which mingled with
Spanish and Portuguese soldiers in the 1500s, or the tribes which came up
from South America, and therefore also have Spanish or Portuguese DNA:
Creek, Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Delaware, Lenapee...] This is the
only Native color on Painting which comes down from the top, meaning Old
World DNA. All of the other Native American Indian DNA comes up from
the bottom of the Painting, meaning New World DNA.
Charcoal Grey, which is NorthAmericanIndian, is from the Iroquois
Confederacy of the 1700s: Iroquois, Mohawk, Seneca, Tuscarora/Lumbee,
Onondagu, Cayuga, Natchez, and Oneida.]
Light green, ArcticAmericanIndian, is from the Powhatan Federation of
the 1600/1700s, including MicMaq, Delaware, Shawnee, Mohican,
Nanticoke, Patawomeck/Pottawattami, Pamunkey, Chickahominy, Fox,
Natchez, and Mattaponi.
Dirty green, MesoAmericanIndian, is from Central America and includes
Maya, Inca, and Tsalagi—the original ancestors of our Cherokees. If you
have a Hispanic background, you will have a lot of Meso in your Painting but
probably are not Cherokee...
[If you contact the originators of the Paintings in Gedmatch, they will tell
you that what I am doing is not correct. But, I am doing it with a captive
audience of my DNA cousins, who have paper trails back to the tribes and
people which I say are our ancestors....believe whomever you wish....] I have
all 4 kinds of Native DNA, and significant segments on 4 chromosomes.
Significant segments show you have an ancestor of that ethnicity since 1700.
I got into DNA genetic genealogy by chance, when a tri-racial cousin of
mine showed me how to do Painting.
The three graphs at Painting show your DNA, then the DNA of the kit you
are comparing with, and then how you share DNA segments.
On the bottom graph, black designates NO MATCH and it is rather hard to
see the charcoal grey along the top of that. Use a magnifying glass.
Another tool on Gedmatch will give you DNA cousins who share your
pedigree [only, of course, if both of you have your gedcoms at Gedmatch!]
on the Home Page, scroll down to Analyze Your Data and look at 'genealogy'
on the top right. Click on Gedcom + DNA Matches. Type in your kit
number. This will bring up a spreadsheet with the cousins you match. You
can click on their gedcom ID number to see if they have common ancestors
with you. It will be up to you to run each kit number thru Painting. Of
course, you can always email each cousin on the list and ask them if they
have Native ancestors. Do not send emails to more than one person at a
time; it is against the Gedmatch rules ! My list is 21 pages long.... about a
dozen of them are serious researchers and are in my Facebook cousin page.
My DNA tri-racial and adopted-out cousin, Linda Williams, who does match
me on my Native DNA, my Indo-Iranian DNA, and my South African DNA,
has this to say: ''But let me add here that anyone in this game who is
seriously hunting ancestors should have a solid DNA Cousins Chromosome
Database so as you get a new cousin, all you have to do is look at the
chromosome they are matching on, and next refer to your database list and
you already now know who to check that person against to see if they
triangulate with anyone with you. Anything short of this, you will be
spinning your wheels ceaselessly in circles getting nowhere fast.''
My database list is a book I am working on. When I am finshed doing
comparisons of my DNA cousins who descend from the Hornbuckles, and of
the ones who descend from Motoy or Pocahantus, I will be ready to contact a
professional genetic genealogist and get some answers.
In the meantime, my third professional genealogist, Michelle Centers, is
almost finished searching for the parents of Rebecca Hornbuckle, whose
unnamed mother was birdclan Cherokee according to affidavits on the Siler
Role applications. [Siler ignored them and consequently her descendants
were denied entry to the Cherokee tribes.]
I think that Rebecca got her surname from one of Charlie Hornbuckle's
ancestors, possibly from his paternal grandmother, Cassandra, who was born
about 1750 in Virginia, British America, and married Solomon Hornbuckle in
Stafford county VA. Since these families inter-married, our Rebecca may be
related to, or descended from, the Bolens or the Hardins.
My next research project will be more of Rebecca and William's
NativeAmerican descendants: my Reed and Mayes lines.
If this file interests you because you have Native American Ancestors in the
1700s on the eastern seaboard of what is now the USA, then friend me,
[Marie Brito] on Facebook—my profile photo is my kindergarten pic—and I
will add you to the cousin group. Any of the group members can also do that.
There are 350 of us, and because the group is Secret, it is not visible to the
public. The name of the group: RebeccaHornbuckle+WilliamCarter.
PS: If you want to know your straight maternal DNA, go here:
https://dna.jameslick.com/mthap/