DNA USA: A Genetic Portrait of America

I enjoyed this book. I give high marks to books I find useful in my Family History Research, and DNA projects related to that.I have been involved in projects as a participant and administration one of my own since about 2000.This field has been pushed forward by Genealogists seeing the usefulness of enriching their family history research. Bryan Sykesacknowledges that. He is a medical genetists who has written several books and founder of Oxford Ancestors. One of the first Y projects he undertook was his own surname of Sykes, which happens to also be in my fathers family through a grandmother.He wrote the Seven Daughters of Eve which I have which introduces us to the X lineages especially of Europe. I found that an easy read in the confusing Scientific World of Genetics. He brought the same style to this Book.He states that in this book he was following a different methodogy than the current preferred Statistical Style of Scientists of collecting large amoungs of data. His method was to paint a portrait of America. This comes from the use of new techonoly of DNA Chip, Reading large amounts of DNA other than just Y, X or Fingerprint. It is explained in the book but basically is a use ofa computer Algorithm to color Chromosome segments into the colors of Orange for Native American DNA, (Asian), European is Blue and African Indigenous is Green. This method can pick of bits of DNA from a long ago Ancestor.I think some of the bad reviews on this book, doesn't really understand that process, and it really hasn't been used in large segments of the DNA Genealogy projects because I guess it is developing on what we can learn from it.I myself wondered when I tumbed through the book first, reading the latter chapters first (I know I read books sometimes from end to beginning). I wondered what kind of broad conclusions could be made from a small sample like 25 about America.After reading the book I understood. It is mostly because of the short period of time our DNA has been here Admixing. Most of us have to look to other continents and populations to draw conclusions about our tests in our Genealogy projects.His approach was not to do a Indigenous Sampling. The problems with that are outlined in the book. The Academia about this that Indians are only A, B, C, D and now X is very restristive which is causing problems among Family History Projects, Native Americans proofing Ancestry for Tribal Reasons, and those of us who have family stories they want to prove that elusive burning link to Indigenous roots. The timeline of this is outlined in the book's first section.The first samples come from the New England Historical Society where Genealogists have done extensive work on their Plymouth Mayflower Ancestors. DNA tests were done on Volunteers.Bryan took the approach of taking what would come to him in Volunteers and chance encounters as he ventured across America.He made some verying interesting observations and conclusions about Native Americans from the Test subjects some by chance.One is that There is European DNA among some tribes. Especially the Cherokee. Dr Donald Yates has already written about that in his book Old World Roots of the Cherokee, and Melungeon DNA Projects along with his study and series of the DNA ofScotland, England and Wales DNA in Jewish America and early Colonial America, books available at Amazon and www.pantherslodge.com. Yates quotes Sykes in his work as well. I hope. Sykes finds Dr. Yates work on the Cherokee published on www.dnaconsultants.com blog.The findings of Sykes furthers this project of Dr. Yates in my opinion.When Bryan Sykes concieved of his project to do a book on DNA USA, his intent was not to do a project on indigenous peoples. He had a sample of random volunteers beginning in New England with the New England Historical society, folks that haddone extensive work on Genealogy first. Using them located in Boston, They were Mayflower descendants of course, he found there wasn't much mixing of the genes. That was a cultural and religious aspect of the colony. There are still folks whohave lived on family land in towns since that time. Most all of those volunteers were European. HE had the great luck or province to have been introduced to an African- Native American descendant of "Ots-Toch a full blooded Mohawk woman and a French Woodsman and trader named Jacques Hertel. born in France 1603 arriving in America 1620s" p187Quebec returned to French rule in 1632. Hertel was recruited by Samuel de Champlain. He was recruited to improve relations with the Indians. As Native Customs would have it, or other romantic and practical reasons, Hertel met and married Ots-Toch a full-blooded Mohawk woman. Working on Trader projects with Dr. Yates and my own story with Southeast Indians and traders, I have seen this cultural tradition at work where a Trader was given a Chief.s daughter in marriage, and sometimes I believe there was a exchange sometimes of a Traders daughter with the Tribe. This being the case in my research. The Trader often had a family back "home" wherever that was. Samuel de Champlain is said to had an Indian Family.in the case of the volonteer he calls" Atticus Finch" (explained how the psuedonyms came about in the book). had the same situation that I an many have is the crossgenerational DNA Ancestors meaning back and forth from Grandfather's to Grandmother's . to Atticus.In most genetic explanations, they say you can't detect DNA or don't really have DNA showing up in your DNA Fingerprint or atDNA testing further back than perhaps, 6 generations based on the percentage being reduced by each generation of yourchromosome exchange as you go back.. That has never really made sense to me since This is based on Statitics not actual reality in how DNA Strands are inheirited they had to come from someowhere further back. This is how recombination isgenerally viewd as in the picture. So, many of us are trying to prove by DNA our Native American Ancestor, and many don't find it in the current tests unless it shows up in Ancient Y or X but somethings you hit that jackpot and it does if the Native American DNA was passed down to your parents. Even in families brothers and sisters will not have the same recombination it will show up in one and not another, or even cousins. So testing many family members is expensive but you can learn from it.Back to Atticus. His Chromosome paintings, that is 23andme DNAchip techonogy shows at present mabye 400 bases or pairs of your chromosome which the computer algorithms will color Orange for Native American, Blue for European, and green forAfrican. THe rest or gray as not noted for this project purpose. He showed in his painting, African American, and smigen of Orange. This Ancestor was 12 generations between Atticus and Ots-Toch. She was a woman, he was a man. This statson this was roughly estimated by Sykes, one two-thousandth of his DNA to be from Ots-Toch, There would hae been a two fold dilution each generationThe Headline in the book is "European genes became present among Native Americans as early as 10,000 years ago.There is Europeon DNA in Africans. Indigenous Africans that have tested are surprised by this. But it is likely because of Fisherman along the African Coast, The Portuguese were there since 1472 or earlier. There is a Mediterrean influence in the North. African Americans have a large portion of European DNA , however not all of it is from White masters or colonists as some thought.There is Chinese DNA in the Cheyenne from the time of Chinese Laborers imported i n1860s to build the railroad. There was a large group that joined them after an Indian raid on the railroad.(And other research has shown an earlier Chinese influence on the Navajo)The Cherokee tribe and its story is told in the book by a chance meeting he had with a Cherokee man while in San Francisco. His story was from a family that was on the trail of tears and later moved in the next generation after the depression intoCalifornia. In the project there was a volunteer who had Cherokee DNA. There is a lot of European DNA showing up in Cherokee portraits along with Native markers. This is something that Dr Donald Yates has researched a long time as well. Sykes concursthis pheomenon of the Cherokee, the problem this is with the Blood quatum rules for joining tribes, and other Native descendants have shown Native DNA in their portraits with a lot of European.I don't think the Genetic profile of America is finished this book has been a great introduction about the problems and some interesting conclusions. Sykes paints us one of the first portraits based on new technology.I think instead of being disappointed with the book based on your expectations of what the process and results should have been, Academia needs to stop sitting on its Laurels and protecting its turf, and get to work on making new discoveries and new appiclations for the DNA Technology to the consumer. It is a new day, as this new Technology and Genealogists use of it, demands more for its use, and the medical applications that can go forward.Kudos to Bryan Sykes. I enjoyed the book and understood his journey and story. Great Beginnings for us in the USA to build on!

This is the most recent book on genetics by Sykes. I have now read all of his books on this sugject and found each of them as informative and entertaining as previous ones. In addition to this one being another excellent tour of genetics and geneaology it is also a travel log of sorts since his analysis of the genetic history of the USA took him many places to talk about his findings but also on his continuing research for linkages between individual human families and the rest of those among whom they may have wandered, let alone married or left progeny.In this case his searches begin with some anthropological mysteries of the early humans settling the American continent (The Point of Clovis). This early investigation leads him to conclude a somewhat different prehistory of the continent than general opinion. He finds perhaps four human movements converged as first inhabitants of the North American Continent. Of the four mitochondrial clusters he studies a familiar conclusion emerges supporting movement of peoples across the Bering Sea from northeastern Asia but a fourth group perhaps originating in the far east coming here across the Pacific Ocean.Since I appreciate his writings related to my own investigations into my past in believing there may have been more than one strain of ancient human on this continent, I am encouraged to regard, perhaps fantasize is a better word, my distant ancestral past as including those before my personal recorded history beginning in Norway. Having gone as far back as the 1500’s I try to imagine how some even earlier ancestors may have come from the far east during the great migrations of 400 to 600 AD. And then to imagine them moving across the northern parts of the Euro-Asian continent to arrive at the northernmost parts of Scandanavia.Since there are no conclusive answers from such a distant past, his writing is in the form of mysteries he is compelled to solve one way or another. In the process he takes us along on his mental and physical journeys while exploring our ancient history in a geological era immediately following the last ice age about twelve thousand years ago. In the process of this exploration he outlines scenarios of probable behavior of those early inhabitants wandering a new continent of America. These mysteries he relates to contemporary inhabitants whose maladies in the present, such as diabetes among Indians of the Southwest, traceable with a probability to early habits of eating dominated by foods conducive to evolving as a specific physical condition requiring medical treatment. One logical conclusion to our past and its effect on our present diets.He creates imaginative scenarios in his travles that come across as just short of fictional accounts as to how artifacts were left behind as clues to his continuing investigations. These little scenarios contribute both an intriguing sense of the reader being there as a fictional observer but stories conclude with probable histories of earliest ancestors. In this he writes in a manner similar to Peter Ward a palentologist whose scientific journeys around the world are presented as though ‘you are there’ witnessing how ancient ancestors may have behaved and in what physical circumstance they may have been as geological eras came and went.By Chapter five he reaches northern Europe and my specific interests in Scandinavian geneaology. Soon thereafter he moves on to Scotland and the biggest gathering regarding common surnames of almost fifty thousand people from around the world. Next he quickly moves to Jewish and Negro genetic history in the USA. Then follows his travels to meet personally with families and geneaological groups throughout the USA, hence the title “DNA USA”. To the end of the book his travels in the USA are both informative and entertaining. Among those he visits are contemporary families whose traditions date back to the Pilgrim Fathers and early Indian tribes.He leaves the reader with some research resources in appendices. There are charts of genetic clusters identified for Native Americans tied back to his seven daughters of Eve as described in his prior book of the same name. Next he presents the chromosomal signatures of the McDonald clan and finally the 146 genes related to individual human bodily functions.All in all this is a good reference book as well as simply entertaining and informative reading.

A whistle stop tour of the USA. A brilliantly captured and entertaining birds eye view of the complex human genetics of this vast country - a true melting pot. Prof. Sykes of Oxford University, England, has caught the essence of just how mixed us humans really are, the conclusion is: nothing is simply black or white, our origins can be surprising and unexpected. This is a serious book, full of interesting observations and facts, and at the same time seriously entertaining, written in the Prof.s usual easy manner - the reader is invited to be part of this amazing journey. Perhaps this book is even more poignant now than when first published a decade ago. - A real page turner!U. Turner

There was too much personal and travel.information for a book that was supposed to be about genetics. It rambles on a lot and didn't seem to have much cohesion. Disappointing compared to the other works by this author which I have read.

Genetics is one of my great interests and I was born and spent my childhood in the western states of the USA. There was "sooo much" information that was brand new to me that I found this book one of the most interesting I have ever read !!

This book is even more fascinating than Seven Daughters of Eve by the same author. 1. It is very well written.2.the author is humble and tries hard to be objective3. The information is always tempered by explaining the possibility of errors and why. 4. We humans need to know these facts about ourselves which should help us to recognize how alike and at the same time how different we all are. The author is to be commended for his hard work and his humanity. A truly great and wise man.

bryan sykes , great analysis and author