Tuesday, October 16, 2018

You don't see me kissing up to my 100% German boss by telling her stories of my single German ancestor from 19th century Pennsylvania

Carl Zimmer and Razib Khan have made a big deal on Twitter about the inaccuracy of the claim that Elizabeth Warren is no more Indian than the average White American. Razib, a geneticist, says that when the data are interpreted accurately, Warren would probably have 10 times the Indian ancestry of the average White American.

Truth is, 10 times the tiniest fraction is still tiny. Zimmer said the vast majority of white Americans have ZERO Indian ancestry. So you can have a absolutely trivial amount of indigenous blood and still have much more than most of us.

Assuming the Stanford geneticist is correct, Warren had an Indian ancestor 6 to 10 generations back. My parents have carefully documented our ancestry going back many generations. Most of my ancestors are English with a little Welsh, Irish, Scottish, and Danish mixed in.

But I do have one grandmother exactly six generations back who was born in Germany but ended up in Pennsylvania in the 19th century. Have any of my relatives ever dreamed they were German, or even part German? A huge tree of ancestors, and one damn German? It's absurd. I would be a liar if I told people I was German. My boss is 100% German, but you don't see me kissing up by telling stories about my German grandmother.

UPDATE: Hmmm. I wonder if it would work...

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous6:02 PM

    Elizabeth Warren has more Neanderthal genes than Indian genes: 2% probably vs <1%

    ReplyDelete

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