Like almost all African Americans, I have white ancestry. That’s not a surprise; it’s a legacy of slavery. For many African Americans, those white ancestors can’t be named (as is my case, though not for lack of trying). Relations between male slave owners and their female slaves weren’t generally advertised; anonymity is another legacy of slavery.
My secret lies in my DNA. There’s a DNA test called an admixture test, which measures an individual’s percentages of European, sub-Saharan African, and Asian/Native American DNA back to about the time of Columbus. According to this test, the average African American is 24 percent European—in other words, mostly African. (Despite the persistent family myths of Cherokee great-grandmothers, very few African Americans have any discernible Native DNA.) My admixture reveals something about me not evident to the eye, not present in the paper trail. It’s something only science can see. My percentages of European and sub-Saharan African DNA are almost exactly equal. DNA tells me I’m as white as I am black. Society, however, has something else to say.
What I’ve learned through hosting my genealogy series on PBS, Finding Your Roots, is that most of us know precious little about our ancestors. If there’s any way that the American people are monolithic, regardless of their backgrounds, it’s in their secretiveness. From African American guests, Ashkenazi Jewish guests, guests of Irish and Italian and Chinese…
