One Drop Rule. Pt. 1

I grew up hearing a story that my mother heard before me and her mother heard before her. Family tradition has it that my maternal grandmother’s grandmother possessed a strong Native American heritage; either Creek or Cherokee. And while in her later years my grandmother nay-sayed the possibility, she was dark-complexioned, and a couple of her sisters, more so. And yet, to date no one in the extended family has come across any documentation to substantiate oral tradition.

A couple of years ago my mother’s first cousin, the son of one of the four sisters, ordered a DNA kit from one of the better known agencies, and took the test for which any amount of study is fruitless. Ultimately, the results indicated a total lack of any Native American heritage.

Perhaps a year later I followed his lead, and ordered a DNA kit from a different company. Having self-administered the test, I re-boxed the vial, dropped it in a mail slot, and awaited the results.

When the website finally indicated my test data was available, I clicked on the appropriate icon. The line entries indicated pretty much what I expected; good English, Scottish and Irish bloodlines. But there were a few surprises in the offing; including traces of Spanish, Arab and Jewish heritage. And yet again, not a drop of Native American blood in my veins.

Of course, I was disappointed.

Fast forward several months.

At my mother’s request I ordered a DNA kit from still a different company than her cousin or I used, it was subsequently delivered, I put it in the car and transported it to the nursing home in which my mother resided. By this time in her life my mom’s health was failing badly, and it was all she could do to ‘conjure’ up enough saliva to fill the tube. However, I knew that once she began, she would either manage to provide enough of that bubbly, opaque liquid to bring it up to the line on the vial, or she would “be out” a whopping $200.

After perhaps 15 minutes I checked the tube, and the fluid hovered just above the line; at which point I said, ‘enough,’ snapped the cap, and stuck it in the postage-paid box. Little could I have known my mother would never read her results, or hear her results read to her. For you see,

…she passed away just days after I mailed the kit off for processing.

A few weeks later, the website indicated the conclusion of testing, and I eagerly brought up the results. The data which greeted my eyes was more surprising than that which my own DNA kit indicated. (Of course, it is important to note that each of us are the products of our parents and all those ancestors who preceded them, and only our siblings possess the exact same genetic makeup as our own).

Again, the test results yielded nothing new in terms of the presence of Native American bloodlines, but was otherwise pretty much what I expected.

…Pretty much

However, as I scanned the genetic readout, one indicator received my full attention.

Sub-saharan Africa – 1.8% (with 1.7% originating in western Africa; the major contributor of slaves to the American homeland).

My mother was 1.8% African-American

which taken in context implicated that I am .9% African-American

(And while my own DNA test failed to provide similar information, I can only surmise that any results below 1% were either untestable or excluded from the final tally).

Since this information came to light, I have reflected not only on the raw data, itself, but on the time I spent in the presence of my grandmother and her sisters. As I indicated earlier, they were dark complexioned; so much so my great aunts might have passed for another ethnicity. Over the years, I have often pulled out that old photograph of the four sisters, and as they say, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

A few weeks before my mother passed away she said something which I don’t recall having heard before.

“Sometimes my friends would ask me. ‘Are you part black?’”

And to be fair, some of her adolescent and young adult pictures do, when judged against those posing beside her, indicate a mixed heritage.

Of course, I have questioned how my mother’s 1.8% and her mother’s relatively small 3.6% African-American heritage could attribute to such dark complexions as each exhibited, but I suppose this is an quandary left for another day.

At any rate, there seems to be little doubt, based on my mother's DNA results, that one of my ancient ancestors was African-American. And one has only to 'do the math' to determine that this particular ancestor would have been my 5x great Grandfather or Grandmother; an ingredient which fits in nicely when considering the presence of slavery in the colonies, sometime in the 18th century, and during the era of the American Revolution.

(To be continued)


By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 39. Copyright pending

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