Can DNA Testing Tell Us Anything About Native American Identity?
You might think about Native tribes after watching the movie “Pocahontas”. Basically, there were several tribes that inhabited in United States of America. They have given tribal money and support from U.S. federal government since their rights is ultimately a political or cultural issue. If you think that you have blood relation with these tribes, consider yourself to perform an ancestral search test. Many DNA testing companies suggest that test results can also be used to qualify for ethnicity-specific scholarships and race-based college admissions.
How does Native American DNA testing actually works?
In beginning, DNA sampling is performed by taking only a small proportion of the test taker’s DNA. These test can be performed into two categories – mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) tests and Y-chromosome tests. MtDNA tests are able to track maternal lineage – which DNA is inherited only from one’s mother.
Y-chromosome tests examine DNA that is passed down from grandfather to father to son – which elucidates the paternal lineage of the test taker. In fact that, these tests examine less than 1% of the test taker’s DNA, and focus on either maternal or paternal ancestor.
There is also possibility that mtDNA test are unable to detect constitutional American ancestry. That happens when your maternal lineage (for example, your mother’s mother) does not belong to that inborn population even though all of your grandparents were Native American.
These type of testing has caused misinterpretation among public. When someone had his DNA tested and found that his DNA contained common inborn American genetic markers, it is not necessary means that he is a native of a tribe. Based on the test results, a person is recognized as a native of a tribe in U.S. when he has high frequencies of genetic markers which is common in this particular populations. Developing genetic markers are needed in order to prevent “false positives” results as common genetic markers can be found in non-inborn American populations.
In conclusion, this particular DNA tests do not provide an exact answers to questions of such inborn American ancestry. However, these DNA testing results are accurate and informative. There are still cases that this particular DNA testing fail to detect such ancestry in individuals with inborn American ancestors, and they usually unjustifiably misidentified. The appropriate use of such tests must be reviewed for better identification.