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    HRHDuchessNapsalotHenry Louis Gates, Jr.
    3/20/17 5:44pm

    I did my 23&Me (my mom got the whole family kits for Christmas) and was surprised to learn I had a bit of Ashkenazi Jewish DNA in me as well. Not nearly so much as 5% - closer to about .1% We don’t have any records of anyone coming from that area so I’ll have to do some digging.

    I also have about 2% of West African DNA (I’m mostly British/Irish), which 23 & Me said can be traced to about a 5th-generation direct ancestor from about the 1700s. I’m going to go deep-diving into our family history to see if I can figure that out.

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    AustinHenry Louis Gates, Jr.
    3/17/17 11:05am

    Absolutely fascinating. I used a feed-reader, so I opened the browser and re-read it. Thank you for this piece. Looking forward to reading even more of The Root

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    Reckless1966Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
    3/17/17 12:01pm

    I recently was given a gift of a 23andme genetic and ancestry package. I’m white and also had heard there were native Americans somewhere in my family free. If there are, I’m not a descendant as no native DNA showed up. I also got a couple surprises in my DNA:

    1% Ashkenazi Jew and 1% sub-Saharan African. The rest was all various types of European.

    I wish everyone could get these tests done. It’s really interesting.

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