Robert's updated Ancestry.com DNA results

 

Ancestry recently updated its DNA results. I don't completely agree with the current results. The last results showed that I had about 50% Iberian Peninsula results. The current results show that I only have about 38%. I do like the Native American breakdown - it's more specific, and similar to what I had before - around 25%. The other European results confuse me though (not shown in the picture above, click on the link below.) There's a lot of Great Britain percentages: Southeastern England & Northeastern Europe, East Midlands, Northern Wales, and Central Scotland & Northern Ireland. There are also results in Denmark, Southern Germanic Europe, and Sicily. There is even some French Canada: Quebec and Acadia. There is also two separate Sephardic, and one Ashkenazi Jewish results that add up to a total of 6%.

What I know about my ancestry is that I have Spanish and Mexican ancestry. Basically, Iberian Peninsula/ Native America admixture. I also have two great-grandfathers who were from Germany and Switzerland, separately - which should be around 6% of my DNA for each of those ancestors. 

With my Iberian ancestry, there is no doubt some Jewish mixture, and possible mixture from other nearby European countries. For instance, the Pino family which is in my bloodline were from Italy. My German ancestor, Philip Bourguignon, may have also been part French, based on his surname. However, he himself identified as German and was from the Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. 

One last possibility: my Y-DNA results from FamilyTreeDNA are often seen as a Celtic variation. It was once known as R1b1b2 but is now known as R-M269. The Celtiberians were an ethnic group in early Iberia. I do have a few matches in my Y-DNA of people with Irish ancestry.

See my full ancestry results in the link below:

Robert's Ancesty.com DNA results

Do We Descend from All of Our Ancestors? Apparently, Not!

One of my favorite YouTubers is Jarret Ross, the GeneaVlogger. In his series "Professional Genealogist Reacts," he reviews videos on genealogy, often focusing on DNA-related topics.

In a recent episode, he discusses Marcus Gallo's video "You Don't Descend from All of Your Ancestors." The key point is that we are not genetically related to most of our ancestors, especially those many generations back. Although we inherit a limited number of unique genes, we have an exponentially vast number of ancestors. For example, if you go back 15 generations, you have 32,768 ancestors, but only 1,112 DNA segments to distribute among them. This means that only about 3% of those ancestors contribute to your DNA at that generation. As Gallo explains, with each generation, the number of DNA segments increases arithmetically, while the number of ancestors increases exponentially.

(Side note: My rule of thumb is that with every 10 generations, the number of ancestors multiplies by over 1,000. For instance, the 10th generation has over 1,000 ancestors, the 20th generation has over a million, the 30th generation has over a billion, and by the 40th generation, you have over a trillion ancestors! To put this in perspective, my potential ancestor Charlemagne, born in A.D. 748, is about 40 generations back. He would be one of about a trillion ancestors in that generation. Of course, there weren't actually a trillion people living back then, so pedigree collapse definitely played a role.)

In the video, Jarret Ross not only highlights Gallo's insights but also adds his own analysis. Both vloggers explore essential concepts like Y-DNA, mt-DNA, and pedigree collapse. Jarret also recommends several websites and tools for conducting in-depth DNA research.

It's an excellent video. You should check it out!

Who are Juan Antonio Baca's parents?

Who are the parents of Juan Antonio Baca? In a previous post I indicated that the parents of Juan Antonio Baca, husband of Maria Romero and father of Luis Maria Cabeza de Baca, may not be the son of Antonio Baca and Monica de Chavez. Fray Angelico Chavez, in his book "Origins of New Mexico Families", asserted this connection based on a document in the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, CA in which Juan Antonio Baca is shown related to Barbara Baca, the daughter of Antonio Baca and Monica Chavez. However, not everyone one agrees with Chavez's assessment.

In her article "Juan Antonio Baca m. Maria Romero: A Genealogical Proof Standard of", Henrietta Martinez Christmas demonstrates that it is more likely that Juan Antonio Baca was the son of a family from the Rio Arriba (northern New Mexico) rather than the Rio Abajo (southern New Mexico.) She believes that Juan Antonio Baca lived all of his life in La Cienega/ Santa Fe. She shows that all the records for him are in Santa Fe in the Rio Arriba, and that he seems to have a connection to Cristobal Baca and Apolonia Vega y Coca, who Henrietta Christmas theorizes are his parents. The only weakness to her argument is that she does not have access to the Bankcroft document, and therefore cannot definitively discount the document as inaccurate or that Fray Chavez misinterpreted the document.

The importance of figuring out who are Juan Antonio's parents is to figure out once and for all if Juan Antonio's lineage goes directly through the paternal line to the original Cristobal Baca (the other Cristobal Baca's 2nd great grandfather), the progenitor of the Baca family in New Mexico. If Cristobal Baca and Apolonia Vega y Coca are Juan Antonio's parents, than Juan Antonio's line does go directly up the paternal line. If his parents are Antonio Baca and Monica Chavez, it does not. This is because Antonio Baca is the son of Josefa Baca and an unknown father. Antonio took his mother's surname, not his father's.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I hope that one day we can answer this question by using DNA. I am hoping that descendants of Antonio Baca and the younger Cristobal Baca take a Y-DNA test to help us clear up this problem.

Sources:

Fray Angelico Chavez, Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, Revised Ed. (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1992) pp. 144 and 152.

Henrietta M. Christmas, "Juan Antonio Baca m. Maria Romero: A Genealogical Proof Standard of", Herencia, Vol. 13 (January 2005), pp. 26-31.

Notes on Baca family Y-DNA

Last week, FamilyTreeDNA President Bennett Greenspan gave the New Mexico Genealogical Society a two part presentation on genetic genealogy.

In the audience was a woman who is a distant relative of mine. I won't write her name on this post, but I will say that her maiden name is Baca. During a break, we began speaking about our families. We had spoken before, and may have even talked about our Y-DNA certificates. Since only men have the Y chromosome, this Baca cousin had to have her brother take the test.

Her brother's certificate shows that we are separated by only on step in the 37 marker test (although he has taken the 67 marker test, I have only taken the 37.) DYS # 448 shows "17" for me and "18" for him. According to her research, on her direct paternal line she is the 5th great-granddaughter of Luis Maria Baca through his 1st wife. On my direct paternal line, I am the 4th great-grandson of this man through his 2nd wife. Therefore, she is seven generations separated from Luis Maria Baca while I am six generations separated. According to our Y-DNA TiP report, there is an 77.81% chance that we are related within six generations and 84.11% chance that we are related within seven generations.

Comparing our Y-DNA results are important for me because it may prove that I am descended from Luis Maria Baca (aka Luis Maria Cabeza de Baca.) According to my uncles, my great-grandfather Juan C. de Baca y Luna was adopted, which might mean that he himself is not the great-grandson of Luis Maria Baca. I have found in my research, though, a baptismal record that shows that he is the legitimate son of Martin Baca and Maria Rita Luna, which makes him Luis Maria Baca's descendant. I believe the misunderstanding that he was "adopted" is the fact that his mother remarried after his father died.

I am still trying to find more information through DNA. For instance, I would like to find out if it is true that Luis Maria Baca was the descendant of Josefa Baca, through her son Antonio Baca (see Fray Angelico Chavez's "Origin of New Mexico Families", pages 144 and 152) or through a more direct Baca paternal line that extends to the 1st Baca male in New Mexico, Cristobal Baca.

Right now, there are 21 men who have submitted their results to the Baca Y-DNA project for comparison. Within that project, there is a group of 6 men who match significantly enough to be considered to be in the same lineage. There is only one other pair of two who match, and everyone else are distant enough not to be considered part of the same lineages. I am one of that group of 6. I have not been able to compare my lineage against any of the other five men except for the one I mentioned before. I have sent out emails to the others to see if they will respond.

If you have the Baca surname, I suggest that you take a FamilyTreeDNA Y-DNA test so that we could have more data. I suggest taking at least the 37 marker test in order to make a good comparison. Share your family tree information with other people in project so that we can compare our trees. For more information on the cost of the test, visit www.familytreedna.com.

Remember, only men can take the Y-DNA test (a man's Y-DNA is what makes him male, as opposed to female.) If you are female, you will have to have your brother, father, grandfather, cousin or uncle on the same paternal line take the test. Also, the Y-DNA test only looks at the direct paternal line - usually the surname line - father's, father's, father's, father's, father, etc. There are other tests that will show a maternal line (MtDNA) and other lines of your DNA (Family Finder.) Visit the FamilyTreeDNA website for more information.