A very common question is, “How much DNA of an ancestor do I carry and how does that affect my ethnicity results?”
This question is particularly relevant for people who are seeking evidence of a particular ethnicity of an ancestor several generations back in time. I see this issue raise its head consistently when people take an ethnicity test and expect that their “full blood” Native American great-great-grandmother will show up in their results.
Let’s take a look at how DNA inheritance works – and why they might – or might not find the Native DNA they seek, assuming that great-great-grandma actually was Native.
Inheritance
Every child inherits exactly 50% of their autosomal DNA from each parent (except for the X chromosome in males.) However, and this is a really important however, the child does NOT inherit exactly half of the DNA of each ancestor who lived before the parents. How can this be, you ask?
Let’s step through this logically.
The number of ancestors you have doubles in each generation, going back in time.
This chart provides a summary of how many ancestors you have in each generation, an approximate year they were born using a 25 year generation and a 30 year generation, respectively, and how much of their DNA, on average, you could expect to carry, today. You’ll notice that by the time you’re in the 7th generation, you can be expected, on average, to carry 0.78% meaning less than 1% of that GGGGG-grandparent’s DNA.
Looking at the chart, you can see that you reach the 1% level at about the 6th generation with an ancestor probably born in the late 1700s or early 1800s.
It’s also worth noting here that generations can be counted differently. In some instances, you are counted as generation one, so your GGGGG-grandparent would be generation 8.
In general, DNA showing ethnicity below about 5% is viewed as somewhat questionable and below 2% is often considered to be “noise.” Clearly, that isn’t always the case, especially if you are dealing with continental level breakdowns, as opposed to within Europe, for example. Intra-continental (regional) ethnicity breakdowns are particularly difficult and unreliable, but continental level differences are easier to discern and are considered to be more reliable, comparatively.
If you want to learn more about how ethnicity calculations are derived and what they mean, please read the article Ethnicity Testing – A Conundrum.
On Average May Not Mean You
On average, each child receives half of the DNA of each ancestor from their parent.
The words “on average” are crucial to this discussion, because the average assumes that in fact each generation between your GGGGG-grandmother and you inherited exactly half of the DNA in each generation from their parent that was contributed by that GGGGG-grandmother.
Unfortunately, while averages are all that we have to work with, that’s not always how ancestral DNA is passed in each generation.
Let’s say that your GGGGG-grandmother was indeed full Native, meaning no admixture at all.
You can click to enlarge images.
Using the chart above, you can see that your GGGGG-grandmother was full native on all 20 “pieces” or segments of DNA used for this illustration. Those segments are colored red. The other 10 segments, with no color, were contributed by the father.
Let’s say she married a person who was not Native, and in every generation since, there were no additional Native ancestors.
Her child, generation 6, inherited exactly 50% of her DNA, shown in red – meaning 10 segments..
Generation 5, her grandchild, inherited exactly half of her DNA that was carried by the parent, shown in red – meaning 5 segments..
However, in the next generation, generation 4, that child inherited more than half of the Native DNA from their parent. They inherited half of their parent’s DNA, but the half that was randomly received included 3 Native segments out of a possible 5 Native segments that the parent carried.
In generation 3, that child inherited 2 of the possible 3 segments that their parent carried.
In generation 2, that person inherited all of the Native DNA that their parent carried.
In generation 1, your parent inherited half of the DNA that their parent carried, meaning one of 2 segments of Native DNA carried by your grandparent.
And you will either receive all of that one segment, part of that one segment, or none of that one segment.
In the case of our example, you did not inherit that segment, which is why you show no Native admixture, even though your GGGGG-grandmother was indeed fully Native..
Of course, even if you had inherited that Native segment, and that segment isn’t something the population reference models recognize as “Native,” you still won’t show as carrying any Native at all. It could also be that if you had inherited the red segment, it would have been too small and been interpreted as noise.
The “Received” column at the right shows how much of the ancestral DNA the current generation received from their parent.
The “% of Original” column shows how the percentage of GGGGG-grandmother’s DNA is reduced in each generation.
The “Expected” column shows how much DNA, “on average” we would expect to see in each generation, as compared to the “% of Original” which is how much they actually carry.
I intentionally made the chart, above, reflect a scenario close to what we could expect, on average. However, it’s certainly within the realm of possibility to see something like the following scenario, as well.
In the second example, above, neither you nor your parent or grandparent inherited any of the Native segments.
It’s also possible to see a third example, below, where 4 generations in a row, including you, inherited the full amount of Native DNA segments carried by the GG-grandparent.
Testing Other Relatives
Every child of every couple inherits different DNA from their parents. The 50% of their parents’ DNA that they inherit is not all the same. The three example charts above could easily represent three children of the GG-Grandparent and their descendants.
The pedigree chart below shows the three different examples, above. The great-great-grandparent in the 4th generation who inherited 3 Native DNA segments is shown first, then the inheritance of the Native segments through all 3 children to the current generation.
Therefore, you may not have inherited the red segment of GGGGG-grandmother’s Native DNA, but your sibling might, or vice versa. As you can see in the chart above, one of your third cousins received 3 native segments from GGGGG-grandmother. but your other third cousin received none.
You can see why people are always encouraged to test their parents and grandparents as well as siblings. You never know where your ancestor’s DNA will turn up, and each person will carry a different amount, and different segments of DNA from your common ancestors.
In other words, your great-aunt and great-uncle’s DNA is every bit as important to you as your own grandparent’s DNA – so test everyone in older generations while you can, and their children if they are no longer available.
Back to Great-Great-Grandma
Going back to great-great-grandma and her Native heritage. You may not show Native ethnicity when you expected to see Native, but you may have other resources and recourses. Don’t give up!
| Reason | Resources and Comments |
| She really wasn’t Native. | Genealogical research will help and mitochondrial DNA testing of an appropriate descendant will point the way to her true ethnic heritage, at least on her mother’s side. |
| She was Native, but the ethnicity test doesn’t show that I am. | Test relatives and find someone descended from her through all females to take a mitochondrial test. The mitochondrial test will answer the question for her matrilineal line unquestionably. |
| She was partly, but not fully Native. | This would mean that she had less Native DNA than you thought, which would mean the percentage coming to you is lower on average than anticipated. Mitochondrial DNA testing someone descended from her through all females to the current generation, which can be male, would reveal whether her mother was Native from her mother’s line. |
| She was Native, but several generations back in time. | You or your siblings may show small percentages of Native or other locations considered to be a component of Native admixture in the absence of any other logical explanation for their presence, such as Siberian or Eastern Asian. |
Using Y and Mitochondrial DNA Testing to Supplement Ethnicity Testing
When in doubt about ethnicity results, find an appropriately descended person to take a Y DNA test (males only, for direct paternal lineage) or a mitochondrial DNA test, for direct matrilineal results. These tests will yield haplogroup information and haplogroups are associated with specific world regions and ethnicities, providing a more definitive answer regarding the heritage of that specific line.
Y DNA reflects the direct male line, shown in blue above, and mitochondrial DNA reflects the direct matrilineal line, shown in red. Only males carry Y DNA, but both genders carry mitochondrial DNA.
For a short article about the different kinds of DNA and how they can help genealogists, please read 4 Kinds of DNA for Genetic Genealogy.
Ethnicity testing is available from any of the 3 major vendors, meaning Family Tree DNA, Ancestry or 23andMe. Base haplogroups are provided with 23andMe results, but detailed testing for Y and mitochondrial DNA is only available from Family Tree DNA.
To read about the difference between the two types of testing utilized for deriving haplogroups between 23andMe and Family Tree DNA, please read Haplogroup Comparisons between Family Tree DNA and 23andMe.
For more information on haplogroups, please read What is a Haplogroup?
For a discussion about testing family members, please read Concepts – Why DNA Testing the Oldest Family Members is Critically Important.
If you’d like to read a more detailed explanation of how inheritance works, please read Concepts – How Your Autosomal DNA Identifies Your Ancestors.
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Roberta, I enjoyed this article, but will have to read more carefully to digest its meaning. I just ordered a full sequence MtDNA test for my wife, age 43. Her mother was a Fairweather (maiden mame), whose mother was a Vautier, whose mother was a Vollmer. My sister also did a full sequence MtDNA test a few years ago. I have the results but have not studied enough and do not know enough to derive any significant benefit or understanding of the results. We are virtually positive our mother had Native American DNA. She was a Qualls (maiden name), whose mother was a Brown (maiden name), whose mother was a Harbert ( maiden name), whose mother was a Tinney (maiden name). I have photos of all these women except for Annie Vollmer, my wife’s great grandmother. The photos of Martha Ellen (Harbert) Brown and her mother Savannah (Tinney) Harbert (married to Joe Bailey Harbert) are, in my opinion, unmistakably, reflective of definitive Native American physiological traits. I will be happy to provide all results of my sister’s FTDNA test and all photos and other hard data. I have been a huge supporter of FTNA going back at least ten years and have referred innumerable customers to them. I have tested at 111 markers (Y-DNA, Bryan Surname Project)) and have a few very good and valuable matches. I have also tested for L- 226 (Irish Tyoe 3, O’Brien; County Clare). i have referred many customers to FTDNA (Bryan, McDaniel, Qualls surname projects). My maternal grandmother was Josephine (Brown) Qualls. She married Hugh Benton Qualls, son of John Yell Qualls, son of Martin Qualls. Josephine, her mother Martha Ellen Harbert Brown, and Martha’s mother Savannah (Tinney) Harbert all are believed to be of Chickasaw Indian heritage. None of them registered on the Dawe’s Roll, so we have to rely on DNA, pictures, and family lore and tradition. Would you be willing to help me in the analysis and interpretation of my sister’s MtDNA results?
Yes, I do mtDNA reports for people regularly if you need help. Also, if you’re not a member of the American Indian project at Family Tree DNA, you are welcome to join.
Hi. Many years ago I traced my maternal grandfather’s ancestry back to Colonial Mobile, (now Alabama). Among my many research delights, I found a (French) corporal Lavigne who married a Marie-Henrietta TIENSA. There is no such surname anywhere, and I discovered the TÆNSA were Native People living in Tensas Parish, Louisiana, just across the Mississippi River from Natchez, MS.
Do you have any DNA pointing to these people? I believe the tribe to have gone extinct and absorbed by the French in the 1700’s.
I would be very proud to prove any native ancestry, but non showed up on my Ancestry.com DNA test results I just received.
Any comments or suggestions would be most welcome.
I descend from James Harbert and Rebecca Tinney, I think it is the Tinney line that has Indian heritage, possibly Choctaw. One of Savannah’s sons took his family to Oklahoma and is on the Dawe’s Roll.
Thank you for the break down. I love people like you who do the math and science of it. I think people forget how many ancestors are being spoken about when you go back that far. I know sometimes I forget. I found your other blog post about that if anyone needs a reference…https://dna-explained.com/2013/08/05/autosomal-dna-ancient-ancestors-ethnicity-and-the-dandelion/
Averages are not all that we have to work with. We know a lot about the variability in inheritance and the probaility of inheriting nothing from a particular ancestor. Graham Coop has written about the variable amount
https://gcbias.org/2013/11/04/how-much-of-your-genome-do-you-inherit-from-a-particular-ancestor/
and how many of your ancestors are genetic ancestors as well as genealogical ones
https://gcbias.org/2013/11/11/how-does-your-number-of-genetic-ancestors-grow-back-over-time/
I have one percent Western African according to ftdna(this showed up even before they started including trace amounts). I am still wondering if this could be from very far back or should I expect it to be from a 4th great grandparent. I have a couple of people I am trying to verify in my tree. I am not sure if I have the right people in the census (they did not stay in one location/rented farms), but a man I think may be my 3rd great grandfather is listed as mulatto(not his wife or children, though) in the 1850 census. If I have the right guy, and his correct parents, his mother and father but not all of his sibling are listed as mulatto in previous censuses back to 1830. I am not sure if this is possible, probable, or unlikely with me having 1% African dna. I would really like to see possible shared dna projections for people with mulatto ancestry (since there may have been intermarrying with others of mixed race for some generations).
A few of my family show a tiny bit of Indian ancestry in our autosomal DNA. Like many families there is a story that we have an Indian ancestor. I recently found my great-great-grandfather in a list of colored volunteers in the Civil War in the Union Army. The list describes him as having dark eyes, dark hair and dark complexion. He is listed on a census as white. The military unit he was in was not an African American unit. Does the term *colored* include those of American Indian ancestry ? What could possibly be the reason for making a list of soldiers that were not purely of European descent ?
Colored means different things in different contexts, but generally, in that time and place, it means “not white.” Discrimination was rampant at that time and non-white soldiers had to serve in “colored troops.” What you can discern from that is that her wasn’t entirely white, but he could pass for white (census.) Have you ordered his military records from NARA?
I got his military and pension records many years ago. There was no mention of any mixed ancestry.
My great-great-grandfather’s mother was German, the step-grandmother was a Goins, descended from the known early slave Gowens/Goings/etc. The bio-grandmother was Asinor Wells, that I have never been able to trace with any assurance. The name, Asinor, is unusual.
And the generation previous to that, my gr.gr.grandfather’s gr.grandfather, was a transported convict 1735, released in Baltimore Co., MD in 1742,who married Jane Green in 1744, that I never could trace. The status of a convict certainly limited his associations during his 7 year tenure and then whom he could marry when freed. They moved to the Virginia frontier by 1750, where I imagine the qualities of character trumped a checkered past or ethnic prejudice. He served in the French and Indian war, and sons all served in the Rev. War. The entire family moved to KY after the War.
I don’t have a picture of my gr.gr.grandfather, but do have one of his son, my great-grandfather. I don’t see any trace of African in his face but can imagine Indian. His son, my great-uncle, looked very Indian to me, and in the summer was extremely dark. He also had almost no facial hair.
Our family has a physical characteristict common to NE Asians, an apparent lack of apocrine glands, but do not have the dry ear wax.
My grandfather was one of three brothers who married three sisters from another family, and we have DNA results from descendants. My dad’s cousin’s daughter shows up closer related to me than she would normally, as I expected. Many other people in past were doubly related to me, and not as close cousins marrying, but as relatives marrying. I also have several double ancestors from back five generations or more . I would think this would probably make matches appear closer in time, or reinforce DNA that might have faded out in autosomal DNA tests. Would you please make a comment on this, and maybe show a way to chart this.
Yes, they appear closer in time. That’s called pedigree collapse and you just have to do the math with the fractions. I can’t think of an easy way to display this because everyone’s situation is different. I feel for you Rosemary – this makes everything more complex. As for autosomal, it would be less likely to wash out if you could potentially inherit that segment from two sources. This is the same principle as identical by population – and now you understand how those populations came to carry so much of the same DNA:)
I am probably a lot like my ancestors. Math fractions frives me batty. I will go for close approximations.
My grandfather was one of three brothers who married three sisters from another family, and we have DNA results from descendants. My dad’s cousin’s daughter shows up closer related to me than she would normally, as I expected. Many other people in past were doubly related to me, Would you please make a comment on this, and maybe show a way to chart this.
Ooops – Something happened with the message posting and this above posted twice., and something I was writing concerning Qualls disappeared completely. Grrrr. I have a couple of exact Mt-DNA matches to Qualls, although my Mt-DNA is western European. I have met a Qualls who appeared 100% Native American. My husband’s aunt married a Qualls descendant as her 2nd husband (no children). One of these researched DNA matching Qualls lines is buried in a Sanders Cemetery in northern Arkansas. What I have is on my tree is at Ancestry.com., where there is also Brown and Bryan / Bryant, but unknown if those lines are related to Qualls.
I own a book, “Social Anthropology of North American Tribes,” by Fred Eggan, . U. of Chicago Press, that discusses marrying traditions within tribes. The thing that caught my eye is the claim that old clan marrying practices are the last to die out of the old traditions. This is interesting related to both DNA and genealogy.
Roberta, thank-you so much for these educational posts!
Before my father died, he tested through ancestry, and I’ve transferred his data to Family Tree DNA. Is it possible to upgrade his results (for mitochondrial DNA) from that original data?
No. The only thing transferred is the results of the autosomal test, not his actual DNA. However, if he has a sister, or his sisters have children, they would carry the same mtDNA as your father.
OK. Thank-you so much for clarifying this!
DNA tests show that I am 1% Native American. It actually was a big surprise. A very distant relative who wrote a family history book had suggested I did have a Cherokee ancestor but the generation above me (her ggc) had never heard this, and ,the reason was straight dark hair and copper coloration and the last name of Ross. Not very good evidence. However using your chart, my NA ancestor was likely to be born late 1700s- early 1800s. And newspaper accounts indicate that my late 1700s Ross ancestor had been arrested, with others – including a coastal North Carolina Native American village resident. This puts the Ross family of the late 1700s to at least knowing Native Americans, thus increasing the possibilities of that being the source of my 1%. (newspapers then and now print arrests, but rarely trials, but my Ross was in the colonial forces the next year) . I don’t pretend that this proves anything, but after years of looking at charts where folks were born before their parents, this at least fits.
My situation is similar, Steven R.
Often times we read experiences of people with strong played-up family lore about a Native American ancestor, who are severely disappointed that it does not show up at all in an autosomnal DNA test.
In my case, it’s the opposite of that! There is absolutely no family lore that I am aware of about any Native American ancestry. But a test came back at about 1%, which I really did not expect. I have also run various tools on GEDmatch.com to confirm that this is indeed North American/Beringean rather than just noise.
Looking back about six to seven generations, there are several branches of the family tree that seem to appear out of nowhere, without any available biographical information and whose ancestry I haven’t been able trace back any further. So it’s not really possible to pinpoint where exactly my native ancestry could have originated. It’s rather frustrating! All I know for sure is that everybody at that time seems to have come from New York or the surrounding areas (possibly including north of the Canadian border), so any tribal connection would likely have been in that region.
Roberta, i got my FTDNA MyOrigin2 so do with 3 others from my families. But i felt to miss understood with these things. I’m Adrian, have about:
99% East Asian DNA: 73% Southeast Asia + 26% Northeast Asia + 1% Siberia. (Y DNA O-CTS5492, mtDNA Hg B4c2).
My Aunt’s / My Father’s Sister have about:
100% East Asian: 76% Southeast Asia + 24% Northeast Asia (mtDNA Hg M7c1c3).
Based from these DNA results were my Aunt’s, perhaps my Father’s too, have slightly more “Western Indonesian” or Vietnamese than me. But, the people arounds me told a different “opinion”. They thought when my face and body were more “Indonesian”, Thai or Vietnamese than my Father’s and his sisters. 😥
I have a question, I know this pertains to recombination but how,. ? At FTDNA.
First, my mother’s parents are first cousins.
William and Mary .. my 3rd great grandparents
Son .. this cousin is listed as 4th cousin but I have to type in the surname to find this cousin.
Son…… this cousin doesn’t show up at all.
Son . this cousin is on my 1st page of matches and is 2nd-4th cousin.
Son . this cousin is on my 1st page of matches and is 2nd-4th cousin also.
Others that I haven’t done genealogy with show up as 2nd-4th cousins also
Son… me and my grandparents are 1st cousins. .
My question is is why doesn’t one cousin show up at all and one has to be looked up by typing in the surname, yet we do genealogy together and descend from our 3rd great grandparents.
I’m really sorry Marianne, I can’t follow this. When I do consults, I always request or draw a chart for that very reason. So I can’t answer your question.
Thank you anyway. 🙂
Thank you for this great post!
I would like to do the DNA test and then I heard about which is they swab your mouth and send you a package thing to do so and then you pay how do I go about getting this test done ???
You can click on the Family Tree DNA link on the sidebar of this blog. Then click on the test you want to order. Since you put your comment on this particular article, I’m presuming that you are interested in the ethnicity portion of the test – so you would want to order the Family Finder test.
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Thanks for this post.
I think I understand you but what’s confusing to me is that if a lot of our ancestors DNA is no longer with us, and it many cases it has not been simply diluted but skipped over, then how can scientists say that humans have ~98.8% genetic similarity with chimps, since humans and chimps supposedly have a common ancestor? Or is it that that Native ancestor has no more in common with person Y than say a 6th cousin of the same (non-Native) continental racial group?
I know that genetic relatedness is largely a function of concentric circles from most in-bred to most outbred. e.g. parents/sibs/>gparents/>cousins, etc.>sub races/ethnicity>continental race>chimps>other mammals, etc. and onwards
I don’t think I understand the question, exactly. The mutations that we carry is what is being measured. Some mutations occurred in isolated populations and have been passed to the present in some descendants, but not in others.
Sorry. Let me get at the question another way that is hopefully more clear. If a European does not inherit the DNA from their Native ancestor, is that person then no longer biologically related to that Native ancestor? So that it could be said that that person is genetically 100% European? Sorry if it’s a stupid question.
Not a stupid question at all. We still don’t know everything there is to know about genetics. Perhaps there are some Native segments that aren’t yet identified as such. Or perhaps they are too small to pick up. You are still related to that ancestor. It’s just that the amount of their DNA that you carry today may be very small.
Great explanation except when I found out that DNA inheritance is not predictable at all really, especially when you do have a very mixed family from African to Native American to Spanish to very Scandinavian. You can have full siblings with similar but very different inheritance and looks.
can my british heritage dna”ethnicity” dissapear even if it is 6- 8 geberations back, because my 6-8 great grandfather was british, and i don’t show any british ancestry
Yes, it can.
if all my 6-8 generations grand parents was the daughters- daughters all the way to my mom an they descended from my british ancestor who was a male, and now i am a male, am i still related to to him genetically, or would i be related only of they were all males and i carry his y-chromosome which I so happen don’t…
You can carry some of the same autosomal DNA. However, you can still be your ancestor’s descendant even if you no longer carry any of his DNA, or at least no DNA in common with other descendants.
is it also possible if that i can carry none of his autosomal dna??
And if you are male do you still carry the dna your 6-8 grandparent had on his y-dna
Y DNA and autosomal are different. Here’s a primer of the different types of DNA. https://dna-explained.com/2012/10/01/4-kinds-of-dna-for-genetic-genealogy/
Okay, my question is probably a very simple one, but its rather confusing to me. My family can be traced to almost 100% European……..I thought. I did have the Native American grandmother and great grandmother, but both of them supposedly married Irishmen. So basically the only “non Euopean” thing that would show up is a possible Native American connection.
Well, it did as 1%. Okay, exciting for me but not super surprising. Then I see 1% Benin Togo.
Shocked is all I can say! So my question is this……..with only 1% does that mean that there was probably only one relative from that area at some point? One of my children is adopted and has 10% from that area. It means so much to me that we have this connection but I am at a loss as to how it happened. Excited but confused.
Hopefully you understand all my ramblings. Thank you,
Nichole
No, it means that the person was probably more than 5 or 6 generations in the past.
Hi, Roberta. I’m having some difficulty in using your chart to determine how much indigenous ancestry I would be expected to have. I have five known 4th great grandmothers, 2 known 5th great grandmothers and 2 known 6th great grandmothers who were fully indigenous. If I simply take the level of grandparent and multiply the expected % by the # of indigenous ancestors at that level, I would get about 40% which sounds way too high. What am I doing wrong in the calculation?
Using the chart, 4th great grandparents provide 1.56%, times 4, 5th are .075 times 2 people, sixth are .04 times 2. That total is 6.465%. Not sure what you were doing.
Well, that sounds more reasonable (I show 10% Indigenous on Ancestry). What I did was mis-read the # on the side (# of generations) as the # for the GGPT level, such that I was multiplying 4 x 6.25%, 2 x 3.12%, and 2 x 1.56%. Thanks for clarifying.
This is a gold mine! I was recently able to upload my raw DNA results from 23andMe to My Heritage without the cost of paying for it for life. I finally got the results back yesterday. MY African ethnicity was pretty much what all the companies have told me. But there were a few surprises. One being 1.7% Ashkenazi Jewish. NO company not even family Tree DNA said I had any Jewish component. Then .9% Middle eastern. and 13.3% Eastern European. I know that points to a direct 3rd great grandparent. The 1.7% to a 6th great grandparent, and the .9% to a 7th great grandparent. I thought about these things and went to sleep on it and when I woke up I realize that no company will have the same proprietary database. and they are all correct in their results. So I’m glad I did this! My Spanish was 7% and I had already had that confirmed at a lower percentage from 23 and me. It is a great thing this testing. My YDNA I did figure out by Family Tree DNA testing up to 37 markers in 2008. It took 10 years but a got a match from a man in Northern Ireland in Nov 2018 who brought my my family name of Hawthorne. I had to do the pick and shovel work to find the actual man in 2019. My 2nd great paternal grandfather I found for free as my dad gave me enough information in 1968 about my 2nd great grandmother Phoebe Ann Clarke born in Virginia in 1862 and her children born between 1880-1896 with this man that the family had no idea who he was in 1968. I was 12 and took the mission to find him from my father. My great grandfather and his older brother both from Roanoke VA got married in the eastern part of Virginia in the early 19 teens. Both had their mother’s name on their certificates and one brother had Henry Clarke the other Morris Clarke. SO I knew it was only one man. These marriage certs I found for free on Family Search.org. in 2009. Ancestry.com where I have my main tree allowed me to find Henry Morris Clarke born in 1863 in Roanoke, Halifax County, Virginia in the 1870 census. I found his mother and stepfather and his half brothers and sisters. I know his father was of European decent having tested my YDNA in 2007. But Robert A Hawthorne Jr born 1835 in Fairfield, South Carolina, was his father. That was with the help of my cousin Derek from Northern Ireland who allowed me to use his paternal line research. His family never came to the US but he and I were projected by the 37 marker test to be 8th to 12th cousins. So that was the pick and shovel.. It has been an adventure and I have had autosomal matches that back up this tree..I also got a picture of my 3rd great grandfather. Thank you for providing this service and your expertise!
Your success story just made my day.