
Students surprised by results of DNA testing of ethnic background - webwanderings
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/12/28/i-honestly-thought-of-myself-as-simply-american-dna-testing-shocks-college-students
======
weavie
So I would like to know what the results would be if you tested say, British
people. Would they typically come up as 100% British, or would they also be a
similar mix? In which case for an American to come up as 50% British it
wouldn't mean that 50% of her ancestry is actually from Britain.

Britain itself is a mix of various Anglo, Saxon and other groups. At what
point did this become the "British gene"?

I don't think I fully understand how this works.

~~~
Quarrelsome
Genetics of England at least are predominantly Anglo-Saxon which we tend to
treat as the starting point. You do have to fudge the data a bit to see it but
a study took English people whose family since their Great Grandparents lived
within a 100 mile radius (i.e. non-migratory) and found their genetics were
very predominantly Anglo-Saxon... or well at least over the dataset
homogeneous to a point (the assumption being Anglo-Saxon). The historic cut
off points of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall are clearly demonstrated in the
genetic data which lends it some credence as that was the reach of the Anglo-
Saxon invasion.

------
Retric
I have some doubts as to the accuracy of these tests when spread across
several ethnic groups. Anyone have more info?

~~~
ryao
I was an intern at the DNA Learning Center West of CSHL in high school. Their
stance on ethnic identification from genetic testing was that it was nonsense.
There is no way of calculating these percentages.

~~~
mjolk
> Their stance on ethnic identification from genetic testing was that it was
> nonsense. There is no way of calculating these percentages.

Don't let reality get in the way of a bit of political propaganda.

------
throwanem
I mean, I have Italian, Austrian, and Scots-Irish ancestry that I know about
with certainty, and no doubt a bit of everything in Europe plus North American
Indian and African besides, but so what? I could hyphenate myself to a fare-
thee-well, but I don't see what good that would do myself or my country, and
to do so strikes me as disrespectful both of those among my ancestors who
immigrated and naturalized because they felt being American was worthwhile,
and also of those who were transported against their will and nonetheless
found a better life here than that they'd been forced to leave behind.

~~~
agumonkey
It's still good to avoid separating ourselves from others based on some
external reason. So many times one can think "this groups is this" as if it
was a solid, internal factor.

------
truth_sentinell
How can DNA have nationality? I don't understand. Can someone please enlighten
me?

~~~
tormeh
It helps thinking about it the other way around, ie. nationality has DNA. For
Americans this may sound absurd, but it's very common in non-immigration heavy
countries. Whether "German" or "Norwegian" are nationalities or ethnicities is
not a settled debate. This is why being non-white in Europe can be hard in
some ways. Some Germans have a rather uncharming word for people with their
nationality but not their ethnicity: passport-German. The meaning being that
you're not really German, you just have citizenship, which is far less
meaningful. I'm not hating on the Germans, btw; most countries are worse than
Germany. I chose it as an example because they debate a lot about this, so
everything's really visible. Just know that the US is the exception.

~~~
douche
I was actually shocked by the levels of overt racism I saw when I lived in
Berlin a few years back. I was living with a family as part of a foreign
language exchange program, and the mother was a elementary school teacher. She
would baldly say things about Turkish immigrants or Africans that would take
me aback. I'm not from the most progressive and enlightened part of the
country, but even my racist and crotchety grandfather wouldn't be quite that
open about it.

~~~
tormeh
Makes me wonder whether Americans really have that big of a problem with
racism (relative to other countries), or whether they just talk more about it
than others.

Btw, if you're interested in what it's like being black in Germany you should
check out [http://schwarzrotgold.tv/en/](http://schwarzrotgold.tv/en/) . It's
a series of interviews with black Germans, with English subtitles. The front
page video is an interview with a mixed guy who as a child worked in an ethnic
circus/display of a sort and in his youth was actually kicked out of the
Hitlerjugend for being black. He's really thought a lot about this. Extremely
fascinating. Tried submitting to HN, but no traction.

------
spodek
Clickbait headline. The students sounded pleasantly surprised, which I guess
wouldn't generate as many page views.

They also extrapolated wildly from what they learned:

> _“My ancestors were strong,” Gilmore said. “They did the dang thing and came
> and really survived. So it’s sad but beautiful: I am built on a wall of
> strength.”_

Or maybe they used the results to justify beliefs they already wanted. No one
descended from ancestors who died before having children.

