Reviews

Well, this book isn’t really brief and it isn’t really about everyone, but it is interesting. It starts off great, but does go off on some tangents here and there. A few of my favorite highlights from the book:

1 – We all descend from royalty. Charlemagne is the ancestor of all Europeans alive today. However, we don’t necessarily carry his DNA.

2 – Genetics is a lot more complicated than many of us learned in school with Mendel’s peas.

• Going back more than a few generations, it is a web not a tree.
• People moved in all directions all the time.
• Genes interact and there usually isn’t just one gene for a trait.
• Diseases often have several variations with different gene combinations.

3 – Race doesn’t exist in genetics.

4 – There is a really great story of how they proved some bones dug up from a parking lot were from Richard III.

5 – The environment affects our DNA and we can pass these changes on to our offspring. In particular, farming has had a big impact on our genes.

Does that interest you? If so, this book might be for you. Get it here: A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes by Adam Rutherford

One surprise, the author is very negative about genetic genealogy. It is good for people to be warned in this area since there are scams. However, he could have mentioned where there are good tests and how it can be useful, which is mainly to find cousins so that you can collaborate on your genealogy research. If you want to be an educated consumer, read: Which DNA Test is Best?

This is an interesting book. As the marketing blurb says, “Who is a Native American? And who gets to decide?”

Have you seen ads for genealogy dna tests so that you can prove your Indian ancestry? It is a lot more complicated than they lead us to believe.

The author places our current interest in genetic genealogy in context, reminding us that our history includes racism, colonialism and eugenics.

Most alarming, samples have been collected and used for things without consent. This raises questions such as who owns and profits from the samples?
The author is a professor and is enrolled Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate. She also is descended from the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.

The author did an interview after the book was published: There is no DNA test to prove you’re Native American.

“Kim Tallbear warns that genetic tests are a blunt tool. She tells Linda Geddes why tribal identity is not just a matter of blood ties.”

Before DNA testing, people did traditional paper research. To be a tribe member, you might need to prove as much as one-quarter blood quantum. (That means one grandparent was a tribe member or two ancestors further back.)

And it isn’t just about biology or blood. It is about culture and citizenship. It is complicated. As Tallbear says:

“I think we need to stop conflating the concept of a tribe with a racial group. I and many of my relatives have non-native fathers, yet we have a strong sense of being Dakota because we were raised within an extended Dakota kin group. We have a particular cultural identity, based in a land that we hold to be sacred. That’s what gives our lives meaning. It’s what makes us who we are.”

I have been interested in this topic because, like a lot of us, I have a family story that we have an Indian ancestor. In my case, it was quite specific. Supposedly, my great-great-great grandfather, Peter LeClair, was a French Canadian fur trapper and he married an Indian maiden. It is the whole reason I started doing genealogy research decades ago! I wanted to know more about that.

And yet, it doesn’t seem to be true. The parish registers and other sources document these ancestors of mine back to the early settlers of Quebec, but there is no sign of an Indian. I still wonder . . . who started this story? And why?

More Resources

• The author’s website.
• Proving Native American Ancestry Using DNA – Don’t believe the myths that a test will tell you your tribe, you will join and receive money. It doesn’t work that way.
• Tribal Enrollment and Genetic Testing from the National Congress of American Indians’ American Indian & Alaska Native Genetics Resource Center.

There is a lot I like about this book. And I have a few concerns. First, the positives . . .

This book does a nice job of explaining complicated topics. It is pretty – it has an attractive layout and lots of illustrations. I love the famous examples such as with the Romanov family and Richard III. I also think the match worksheets in the back are interesting – a lot of us could probably be more organized with what we are doing and learning.

In addition, he does a great job of making the point that your genetic family tree is a subset of your genealogical family tree. People still might be your ancestors even if you don’t have any of their DNA. And we don’t share that much DNA with cousins either. While we share on average 50% atDNA (that is autosomal DNA) with a sibling, a parent or a child, we only share roughly 12.5% with a first cousin! (p.94) The charts and illustrations really help visualize these types of things.

My 3 areas of concern . . .

1) Money and choosing tests – If cost were not a factor, the advice is to do multiple tests, on all the people you can, at all 3 companies (p.211). At current prices at the time of this writing, that is $835 for a man and $476 for a woman (because you cannot do the Y-DNA test on women). Yowza. Scary! That is a lot and adds up fast for multiple people. Who can afford that?!

Recommended Tests	Current Prices
Y-DNA (111 markers) @ FamilyTreeDNA	$359
mtDNA (full) @ FamilyTreeDNA	$199
atDNA @ FamilyTreeDNA	$79
atDNA @ Ancestry	$99
atDNA @ 23andMe	$99 ($199 if you want the health info)
Total	$835 (or $935 if you want the health info)

The author does also acknowledge that cost is a factor for most of us and offers a flow chart to help decide, but I think a lot of people will still feel confused about what to do and feel restricted by the high costs.

2) Scientific validity – Ancestry in particular has really gotten people frustrated in this area in recent years and I haven’t seen anyone announce things are all better yet. For more info, see: Ethnicity Results – True or Not?

3) Privacy – Both Ancestry and 23andMe have in their terms that they can use your data for other research and they can sell your data and you can’t opt out. I haven’t seen anyone announce things are all better yet on this either. See the Cone of Shame section here: The Best and Worst of 2015 – Genetic Genealogy Year in Review

More resources on privacy since it is so important:

• Privacy info from ISOGG
• Privacy & GEDmatch (since it is a highly recommended tool as well)

And sadly, the book is already starting to get out of date since it is almost a year old. For more current information since the book was written and another perspective by a different author, see: 2016 Genetic Genealogy Retrospective

In summary, this book is great for someone wanting to better understand the science behind the DNA tests, but to help decide which tests to choose and which company to use, you probably want to do some additional reading, such as:

• Choosing a DNA testing company
• What’s a Good DNA Ancestry Test?