By RaquelRuiz |

I just watched the show (I'm on the East Coast). It was excellent! I am
wondering if Maria Cortez or anyone else can share how/where one goes about
testing Native American DNA at the level described in this episode by
Carlos Bustamante of Stanford University. Also, does anyone know how much
African DNA one needs to have to be able to obtain more specific
information re areas of origin in Africa than the larger regional areas
provided by FTDNA? And where one would get it done? I looked at the
23andMe website but it didn't really offer much information.

Hopefully this gets posted in time to encourage more member to watch the
program!

Dr. Gates mentioned he used three labs. Maybe there is a way to find out which ones he used. I think FTDNA lab has a place on their website to ask questions about their different tests.

Emilie
Port Orchard, WA

> Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 21:29:36 -0500
> From: ruiz.raquel061@gmail.com
> To: general@nuestrosranchos.org
> Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] PBS Finding Your Roots
>
> I just watched the show (I'm on the East Coast). It was excellent! I am
> wondering if Maria Cortez or anyone else can share how/where one goes about
> testing Native American DNA at the level described in this episode by
> Carlos Bustamante of Stanford University. Also, does anyone know how much
> African DNA one needs to have to be able to obtain more specific
> information re areas of origin in Africa than the larger regional areas
> provided by FTDNA? And where one would get it done? I looked at the
> 23andMe website but it didn't really offer much information.
>
> Hopefully this gets posted in time to encourage more member to watch the
> program!

Testing Native American DNA at the level described in this episode by
Carlos Bustamante of Stanford University is not available by any of the
three labs. This has been confirmed by Cece Moore the DNA consultant for
the show. The three labs that Dr. Gates mentioned are FamilyTreeDNA,
Ancestry.com, and 23andme.

The Stanford Lab that Carlos Bustamante runs is the one that published the
academic study DOI: 10.1126/science.1251688 that has been commented on here
at NR before at http://www.nuestrosranchos.org/node/22310 If I remember
correctly, there are two authors in that study that are from Jalisco,
Andrés Moreno Estrada and Héctor Rangel Villalobos.

In that article you can see the divisions of the different Native American
groups. They use a program called Admixture as well as PCA (principal
component analysis) as well as TreeMix to find the differences between the
populations.

At the end of the article it has the following information: Access to the
MCCAS data set may be obtained under the terms of a data transfer agreement
with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; the contact
is S.J.L.. Individual-level genotypes for new data presented in this study
are available, through a data access agreement to respect the privacy of
the participants for the transfer of genetic data, by contacting C.D.B.,
A.M.-E., and INMEGEN (http://www.inmegen.gob.mx/).

Hopefully all three DNA companies take advantage of the offer. I would
really like for the bloggers of Dodecad, Eurogenes, and MDLP, and
Harrappaworld to also take advantage of it so they could add the
calculators to www.Gedmatch.com

Until then 23andme is the best one for ethnic identification but
FamilyTreeDNA has a larger database of Mexicans because they send kits to
Mexico whereas 23andme does not. FTDNA also does a much better job on the
Y-DNA side with matching, up-to-date SNP testing, and DNA projects one can
join. FTDNA also has mtDNA projects and matching that is also very useful
to us. The Y-DNA testing done by 23andme is 4 years behind and hasn't
announced plans to improve it. Also the trees at FTDNA are better than
23andme.

Saludos,
Armando

I would think the more information you want the more expensive the series of tests are.
From: Emilie Garcia
To: "general@nuestrosranchos.org"
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2014 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] PBS Finding Your Roots

Dr. Gates mentioned he used three labs.  Maybe there is a way to find out which ones he used.  I think FTDNA lab has a place on their website to ask questions about their different tests.

Emilie
Port Orchard, WA

> Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 21:29:36 -0500
> From: ruiz.raquel061@gmail.com
> To: general@nuestrosranchos.org
> Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] PBS Finding Your Roots
>
> I just watched the show (I'm on the East Coast).  It was excellent!  I am
> wondering if Maria Cortez or anyone else can share how/where one goes about
> testing Native American DNA at the level described in this episode by
> Carlos Bustamante of Stanford University.  Also, does anyone know how much
> African DNA one needs to have to be able to obtain more specific
> information re areas of origin in Africa than the larger regional areas
> provided by FTDNA?  And where one would get it done?  I looked at the
> 23andMe website but it didn't really offer much information.
>
> Hopefully this gets posted in time to encourage more member to watch the
> program!

No, the testing that Raquel was asking about is not currently available
through any of the DNA testing companies for any price. It's not a question
of price of why it isn't available. It's a lack of desire for
implementation up to this point.

Armando

On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 3:52 PM, Erlinda Castanon-Long <
longsjourney@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I would think the more information you want the more expensive the series
> of tests are.
> From: Emilie Garcia
> To: "general@nuestrosranchos.org"
> Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2014 11:28 AM
> Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] PBS Finding Your Roots
>
> Dr. Gates mentioned he used three labs. Maybe there is a way to find out
> which ones he used. I think FTDNA lab has a place on their website to ask
> questions about their different tests.
>
> Emilie
> Port Orchard, WA
>
>
>

Thank you for your responses. It sounds like our best option right now is
to encourage ftdna to expand their test offerings to include testing of
more distinct Native American groups, such as the testing shown on Finding
Your Roots.

Raquel

On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 7:03 PM, Armando wrote:

> No, the testing that Raquel was asking about is not currently available
> through any of the DNA testing companies for any price. It's not a question
> of price of why it isn't available. It's a lack of desire for
> implementation up to this point.
>
> Armando
>
> On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 3:52 PM, Erlinda Castanon-Long <
> longsjourney@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I would think the more information you want the more expensive the series
> > of tests are.
> > From: Emilie Garcia
> > To: "general@nuestrosranchos.org"
> > Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2014 11:28 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] PBS Finding Your Roots
> >
> > Dr. Gates mentioned he used three labs. Maybe there is a way to find out
> > which ones he used. I think FTDNA lab has a place on their website to
> ask
> > questions about their different tests.
> >
> > Emilie
> > Port Orchard, WA
> >
> >
> >

Yes, the best option right now is to send messages to FTDNA to encourage
them to implement the data set from Carlos Bustamante's lab for the Native
American ancestry from Mexico. If anyone is able to contact Bennett
Greenspan directly then that would be even better. The more people they
hear from the better. One average we have about 32% Native American DNA and
a lot of people have more than that including those in my own family. That
is such a large amount for Mexicans that data set should not be ignored. I
would think that we are also a significant minority in the FTDNA database.
If we let our voice be heard then they should take action sooner than
later.

Razib Khan is the one that did myOrigins and he left out some Native
American tribes that he shouldn't have. It caused the Native American
ancestry to be split with what is now called East Asia - Northeast Asia. So
that amount should be added with the New World - Native American for the
true Native American/Amerindian/Mexican Indian amount that we have. This
can be proven with using the DIY Dodecad 2.1 Wrapper, the Admixture
calculators at Gedmatch, and testing with AncestryDNA, 23andme, or Geno
2.0. The only company or 3rd party calculator that severely under reports
or splits the Native American ancestry so much is FTDNA. That also needs to
be fixed.

Armando

On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 9:09 PM, Raquel Ruiz
wrote:

> Thank you for your responses. It sounds like our best option right now is
> to encourage ftdna to expand their test offerings to include testing of
> more distinct Native American groups, such as the testing shown on Finding
> Your Roots.
>
> Raquel
>
>

Armando,

I e-mailed Dr. Greenspan when he first set up FTDNA, I forget what about now, but one thing I recall is that he said that the reason he started it was that he and other Jews wanted to know which class they belonged to, the highest being the priest class descending from Aaron, the brother of Moses. One Hispanic, a Catholic priest in New Mexico proved to be descended from one of that class, a hidden Jew in the New World. A former co-worker of mine, maiden name Cohen, told me her father was of the priest class, that he had been buried wearing a miter like popes wear. I will e-mail Mr. Greenspan and tell him of our concerns. Since I think you said that FTDNA is the only one sending kits to Mexico, he may already be interested in finding out how many Mexicans descend from hidden Jews that came to the New World, and what class they belong to.

Thanks for the info,

Emilie
Port Orchard, WA

> Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 08:11:10 -0600
> From: fandemma@gmail.com
> To: general@nuestrosranchos.org
> Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] PBS Finding Your Roots
>
> Yes, the best option right now is to send messages to FTDNA to encourage
> them to implement the data set from Carlos Bustamante's lab for the Native
> American ancestry from Mexico. If anyone is able to contact Bennett
> Greenspan directly then that would be even better. The more people they
> hear from the better. One average we have about 32% Native American DNA and
> a lot of people have more than that including those in my own family. That
> is such a large amount for Mexicans that data set should not be ignored. I
> would think that we are also a significant minority in the FTDNA database.
> If we let our voice be heard then they should take action sooner than
> later.
>
> Razib Khan is the one that did myOrigins and he left out some Native
> American tribes that he shouldn't have. It caused the Native American
> ancestry to be split with what is now called East Asia - Northeast Asia. So
> that amount should be added with the New World - Native American for the
> true Native American/Amerindian/Mexican Indian amount that we have. This
> can be proven with using the DIY Dodecad 2.1 Wrapper, the Admixture
> calculators at Gedmatch, and testing with AncestryDNA, 23andme, or Geno
> 2.0. The only company or 3rd party calculator that severely under reports
> or splits the Native American ancestry so much is FTDNA. That also needs to
> be fixed.
>
> Armando
>
> On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 9:09 PM, Raquel Ruiz
> wrote:
>
> > Thank you for your responses. It sounds like our best option right now is
> > to encourage ftdna to expand their test offerings to include testing of
> > more distinct Native American groups, such as the testing shown on Finding
> > Your Roots.
> >
> > Raquel
> >
> >

Hello Emilie,

I think that the reason the other DNA companies do not send kits to Mexico
is that Mexico won't allow the spit kits to be sent. The DNA collection
kits by Geno 2.0, AncestryDNA, and 23andme all consist of spitting into a
vial. I had called National Geographic at one time asking them why they
didn't ship to Mexico and they told me it was because Mexican customs
didn't allow it. The swabs that FTDNA uses seem to be allowed by the
Mexican customs to be sent there because there hasn't been any trouble with
multiple kits being sent there and returned.

What was stated to be proven might not actually be the case. That
conclusion was reached when Y-DNA testing was brand new and a lot of
assumptions were made with the limited data and testing that existed at the
time. There are a lot of things being learned with the BigY SNP testing,
FullGenomes testing and ancient DNA testing and a lot more will be learned
in the next 10 years. FTDNA also plans on releasing an SNP-pack for Y-DNA
testing. That will also help with a better resolution of the Y-DNA
phylogenetic tree.

Armando

On Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 1:49 AM, Emilie Garcia
wrote:

> Armando,
>
> I e-mailed Dr. Greenspan when he first set up FTDNA, I forget what about
> now, but one thing I recall is that he said that the reason he started it
> was that he and other Jews wanted to know which class they belonged to, the
> highest being the priest class descending from Aaron, the brother of
> Moses. One Hispanic, a Catholic priest in New Mexico proved to be
> descended from one of that class, a hidden Jew in the New World. A former
> co-worker of mine, maiden name Cohen, told me her father was of the priest
> class, that he had been buried wearing a miter like popes wear. I will
> e-mail Mr. Greenspan and tell him of our concerns. Since I think you said
> that FTDNA is the only one sending kits to Mexico, he may already be
> interested in finding out how many Mexicans descend from hidden Jews that
> came to the New World, and what class they belong to.
>
> Thanks for the info,
>
> Emilie
> Port Orchard, WA
>
>

I made a mistake about the Geno 2.0 kit. It also uses cotton swabs. It is
only AncestryDNA and 23andme that uses a spit kit. I had to go dig up a kit
that my wife had used 2 years ago and the instructions were in it that
mentioned the cotton swabs. The package is even larger than the AncestryDNA
and 23andme packages which threw me off. Enrique corrected me that Geno 2.0
does send kits to Mexico. The service rep at Nat Geo that I spoke to over
the phone must not have known that the kit can actually be sent to Mexico.
The delivery info tab at
http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/ngs/browse/productDetail.jsp?product…
states Not available for shipment to Russia and Mexico.

Armando

On Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 10:50 AM, Armando wrote:

> Hello Emilie,
>
> I think that the reason the other DNA companies do not send kits to Mexico
> is that Mexico won't allow the spit kits to be sent. The DNA collection
> kits by Geno 2.0, AncestryDNA, and 23andme all consist of spitting into a
> vial. I had called National Geographic at one time asking them why they
> didn't ship to Mexico and they told me it was because Mexican customs
> didn't allow it. The swabs that FTDNA uses seem to be allowed by the
> Mexican customs to be sent there because there hasn't been any trouble with
> multiple kits being sent there and returned.
>
> What was stated to be proven might not actually be the case. That
> conclusion was reached when Y-DNA testing was brand new and a lot of
> assumptions were made with the limited data and testing that existed at the
> time. There are a lot of things being learned with the BigY SNP testing,
> FullGenomes testing and ancient DNA testing and a lot more will be learned
> in the next 10 years. FTDNA also plans on releasing an SNP-pack for Y-DNA
> testing. That will also help with a better resolution of the Y-DNA
> phylogenetic tree.
>
> Armando
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 1:49 AM, Emilie Garcia > wrote:
>
>> Armando,
>>
>> I e-mailed Dr. Greenspan when he first set up FTDNA, I forget what about
>> now, but one thing I recall is that he said that the reason he started it
>> was that he and other Jews wanted to know which class they belonged to, the
>> highest being the priest class descending from Aaron, the brother of
>> Moses. One Hispanic, a Catholic priest in New Mexico proved to be
>> descended from one of that class, a hidden Jew in the New World. A former
>> co-worker of mine, maiden name Cohen, told me her father was of the priest
>> class, that he had been buried wearing a miter like popes wear. I will
>> e-mail Mr. Greenspan and tell him of our concerns. Since I think you said
>> that FTDNA is the only one sending kits to Mexico, he may already be
>> interested in finding out how many Mexicans descend from hidden Jews that
>> came to the New World, and what class they belong to.
>>
>> Thanks for the info,
>>
>> Emilie
>> Port Orchard, WA
>>
>>
>

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