Does Ancient DNA Prove Native American Ancestry? (No — Here’s Why)

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]to say that your great great-grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee. To me, what that means is is not necessarily that he's 100% Native American. What that means is is howdy. I'm Ann Lee with Family History Fanatics and I'm here to help you understand your DNA. For today's question, it is coming from one of our viewers, Stacy Burke, BAS.

[00:00:27]She says, "I am trying to compare my kit to Kenowick man Clovis and Anzik one."

[00:00:32]So these are ancient DNA remnants that have been recovered. Kenowick shows 52.7% shared snips. The others are around 48%. On the 1:1 autoomal was told, "My great great-grandfather was full-blooded Cherokee. Ancestry did not bring up Native American. It showed some Spain Portugal. Does anyone know if this comparison shows Native American or could he have been Spanish? All right, so there's several things here that we're looking at. First off, the ancient DNA that we're comparing, Ken McMman, Clovis, and Anzac, these were all from skeletons that were found in the Americas and I believe in in the United States um area in in different portions.

[00:01:16]Kenowick was up in Washington. I believe Clo Clovis was in New Mexico and I can't remember where Anzik was found but they're all like 10,000 15,000 years years old. So that's the first thing to understand what we're comparing to.

[00:01:32]We're comparing to some you know fragments of DNA that are 10,000 to 15,000 years old. When she says it showed 52% shared snips and 48% shared snips on the other, that's actually not unusual at all. If you go and you just compare random people on JedMatch and you look at what the percentage of shared snips is, it's probably going to be in the 50 to 60% range. Even me and my wife, I think, is somewhere around 70% range as far as the shared snips.

[00:02:02]It's not the total amount of shared snips that's important. What's really important on DNA is how much of those shared snips are all together, which creates a segment. Now, the rest of it is has to do with Native Americans. And what I think Stacy is is conflating here is that these ancient DNA samples should relate to current Native American samples and be able to be compared with hers and and and seeing if there's a tie in there. I was told my great great-grandfather was full-blooded Cherokee. So, so Cherokee is one of the Native American tribes in the United States. One thing to know about the Cherokee is is they were a couple things is first off, they were considered part of the five civilized tribes. And really what that was is those were the tribes that I guess you could almost say they westernized. They blended into society.

[00:02:55]there was actually a lot of intermaring with the Cherokee and some of the other civilized tribes with primarily Scottish immigrants um but other European immigrants that came there and that that was all happening in the in the 1700s and 1800s. So when to say that your great greatgrandfather was full-blooded Cherokee is kind of hard to prove because by that time, you know, great great-grandfather was probably in the the mid to late 1800s. By that time, I'm not sure that there was any full-blooded Cherokee left. And you could be Cherokee in your part of the nation and that is considered full-blooded because that term full-blooded Cherokee really came about after all this intermingling happened. And it had to do with okay who was a member of the tribe and what benefits from the US government do those tribal members get and depending on how full-blooded you were would depend on you know what what certain benefits or rights you were entitled to as part of that tribe which means they had to put a delinine point and so for all of these tribes there was a delining point usually it is the do rolls um that you can look up 1880s time frame is for the to the rules but I can't remember off the top of my head but in essence what they did is they they set a time and said okay if you are a member of the tribe if the tribe recognizes you as a member for this role this census in essence then you are considered full-blooded and so your descendants from there it all depends obviously if a full-blooded Cherokee marries a full-blooded Cherokee then their children are full-blooded but if a full-blooded Cherokee marries marries somebody outside, then they're no longer full-blooded. They are only 50%. Now, a lot of the the tribal rules, you know, 50%'s fine, 25%'s fine. When you get down to an eighth and less, well, then all of a sudden, yeah, you don't get to be considered a Cherokee or you don't get certain rights or privileges that members of the Cherokee Nation have. So to say that your great great-randfather was a full-blooded Cherokee. To me, what that means is not necessarily that he's 100% Native American, what that means is is probably from the do rolls. He was on the doaw rolls or his both of his parents were on the doaw rolls. Okay.

[00:05:20]Ancestry did not bring up Native American. That's right. Because there have been very few Native Americans that have tested their DNA for North America in particularly for the United States.

[00:05:32]There actually has been a lot of testing for the Caribbean and a lot of testing for Mexico and South America, but not in the tribes in the United States. And so you're not going to find anything that shows up as, oh, this is Cherokee DNA.

[00:05:46]We don't have any kind of good sample to tell us what Cherokee DNA is. Besides the complications I just mentioned about them intermingling with the Europeans, it shows some Spain and Portugal. That makes perfect sense because Spain and Portugal were the first colonists over in the Americas and the first people that were having kids with the Native Americans. Uh, does anybody know if this comparison shows Native American or could he have been Spanish? All right, this is going back now remember to the comparison with Kenowickman, Clovis, and Anzik. The problem with Kenowickman, Clovis, and Anzic is their samples being so many thousands of years old and they're really being isolated samples.

[00:06:30]We don't have families from, you know, that time period or anything else. We have no idea other than in general that these Kenwick, Clovis, and Anzac ancestors probably came over from Asia. We have no idea anything more about them. And so we really can't say, oh, the Cherokee are descended from the same people that Kenowick man was from or that Clovis was from or that Anzac from. We don't know that. We have no idea about that. And so we can't even make any assumptions about that.

[00:07:06]So does this comparison show Native American? No, it doesn't. Um, you can be 100% European and compare with Kenowick man and share 52% of your snips like I do simply because you're human and humans share a lot of DNA and there's a lot of snips that have been, you know, really, really, really old as far as when they uh appeared long before most of humans separated, which is why you can find them in every population on Earth. This doesn't tell you anything about your Native American ancestry, but it's not necessarily because you don't have any, but also at the same time as what I mentioned, it's not necessarily because you do have any either. Um, you just don't know at this point. Thanks for watching today. If you have any questions, please put them in the comments below. Be sure to like and subscribe to our channel. And if you'd like to watch another video about DNA, watch this one right up