For decades, I have been told that one of my great-grandmothers was half-Cherokee, making me at least 1/16th Native American. Recently, though, I sent a DNA sample to AncestryDNA, and these are the results — no Native Americans of any kind. I was also told that I have no Irish ancestors, and that’s not supported by the data, either. Here are the numbers that go with the map above.
The results do support a less precise estimate of my ethnicity: I’m an American mutt. No surprise there.
“I have two cooks … one of them, Mr. Foutz … fancies himself quite the expert in worldly cuisine. … If we fed this army in the same manner Mr. Foutz has attempted to feed me, there would be mass desertion. He actually set out an elaborate dinner whose main attraction was bugs. Covered in some kind of sauce, mind you, but bugs nonetheless. I made the decision at that moment that Mr. Foutz would better serve this army by shouldering a musket.” ~George Washington, to Benjamin Franklin (Source: Rise to Rebellion, by Jeff Shaara, p. 385.)
I’ve just been told that this guy, whose name we know as Andrew Fouts, is an ancestor of mine. I rather like the idea of being descended from someone who fed insects to George Washington.
RobertLovesPi.net 