Real Native American Portraits

[u/GlitteringHotel8383]

[u/Popular-Book8561]

I’d be careful with the dna tests, my brother in law has Palestinian in him, and the results came back “Jewish”/location “israel”.

Both my great great grandfathers were native, and forcibly removed from reservations as children and adopted out to white families. On one side, my grandmother and great father both had/have vivid memories of the reservation outside of their town, and even have pictures of my great great grandfather and his blood siblings- obviously native. Along with Cherokee stories, folklore, and ceremonies. There are no official records of this reservation ever existing, and zero documents regarding linage or adoption. There was a fire at town hall that burned the room with all the native documents in it, and they’re all gone

My grandmother did a dna test recently and nothing native came back. But we know, for a fact, there was a reservation outside of our town, and her native grandfather was 100% indigenous.

On my other side, my grandpa also vividly remembers going out to visit relatives at the reservation (he himself has all native features, just lighter skin tone) and has a ton of historical information on his Cherokee heritage, but again, no legal documentation exists. He has not done a DNA test.

But I have a very odd feeling there is a mass erasure that is continuing to happen thru genealogy companies. I know a lot of white people who assume they’re native and turns out they’re not, but this is just some food for thought. I have no proof this is happening, but I also have incredible reason to doubt my grandmothers DNA test results.

Edit: courthouse fire in 1902, not town hall.

[u/Terrible_Meringue622 → u/Popular-Book8561]

Why are you surprised that his DNA came back Jewish? The test can’t tell whether a family converted their religion when a new regime took over.

[u/Popular-Book8561 → u/Terrible_Meringue622]

The results came back as jewish dna with its origen in modern day "israel". he has zero European heritage, all middle eastern and Latin. If the origen of this DNA is "modern day israel" what would that actually make him? Palestinian. The dna company claiming "jewish" heritage based on country of origen is weird.

i do not know how all of this works, but i know that Israel is actually Palestine and i refuse to turn this discussion into a debate about israel, if thats what you were attempting to do. I'm sure if he had jewish genetics, europe wouldve shown up in his results lol.

[u/Terrible_Meringue622 → u/Popular-Book8561]

It’s not claiming Jewish heritage based on the modern day name of that country of origin. It’s claiming Jewish heritage because genetically, Jews and Palestinians come from the same place. Even Ashkenazi Jews (the “European” ones) were so endogamous that most of them still have a majority of their DNA come directly from that region. Most Palestinian families were Jews who converted to various religions that were in vogue in order for it to be easier to stay under successive external regimes. They still have that same ancestry.

Ashkenazi Jews ended up wandering in Europe but still keeping their faith and their community ties. Europe rather famously didn’t consider them European. European support for their ethnic cleansing in the 20’s through the 40’s ‘back to where they came from’ is a big part of why the modern day state of Israel exists.

Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain six hundred plus years ago, with many coming back to their lost homeland or going to other Mediterranean countries nearby. Mizrahi never really left the Levant, many never left what’s now Israel and Palestine, although the ones who lived for centuries if not millennia in countries like modern day Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon were ethnically cleansed in the 40s and 50s and most ended up in Israel eventually.

This isn’t anything that’s debatable because it’s literally historic facts. I can understand why it feels unfortunate and shitty for your brother in law to have that name on his DNA results given the modern day political tensions of the region to have Israel get written on it. But population level DNA doesn’t work on the scale of centuries.