Hi Trevor,
If you had Pico or Terceira ancestors, I could definitively tell you something more about your own ancestors, but I think there is a very decent chance you have ancestors from Sao Miguel who were owners of property and as sad as it is, that property is sometimes in the form of slaves.
I want to correct a possible misconception as to the two huge lines of descent I mentioned for Pico and Terceira involving slaves. They were not slaves except for the first one or two oldest generations. After that they were just villagers like everyone else. We don't have the benefit of photos for anyone but the most recent 4 or 5 generations from the late 1800s forward and then only if they had enough money to pay for one. So we can't tell who looked like what which could help us identify where a certain look is coming from, whether that is the darker Mediterranean look or an African look. Or maybe an oriental look as would be the case of my 1% Asian DNA result.
Off the top of my head, I think I remember two others on this list mentioned they found a slave ancestor. And I believe both have now done the Family Finder test. Maybe their findings reveal something their paper trail can back up.
The two lines I mentioned are not the same as these other two people. One does also come from Pico, but I know little about their descendants. Maybe this list member will elaborate and I'm sure he is reading this.
As I wrote earlier, there is a good chance that in my case, our 1% African and 1% Asian is coming from my ancestors in Chile. We do have a picture of my father's great-grandmother who is 100% Chilean and she does have a darker complexion, but pretty much similar to what is typical in Chile these days. In her DNA is a large percentage of native DNA. And I found many of my matches in Brasil who have something similar.
Doug da Rocha Holmes
Sacramento, California
Pico & Terceira Genealogist
916-550-1618
Sacramento, California
Pico & Terceira Genealogist
916-550-1618
---------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [AZORES-Genealogy] MyOrigins surprise findings from Family
Finder DNA testing
From: ttcostadc via Azores Genealogy <azores@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thu, May 08, 2014 11:27 am
To: azores@googlegroups.com
Doug,
I am actually not certain which side of my family the Niger-Congo Genesis comes from. I do not know of my Portuguese ancestors (in particular) having any slaves, but I do know my English ancestors did. My Portuguese great-grandfather was pretty dark, but he looked more middle-eastern to me. I have been assuming the Portuguese is where I get the North African reading from. Much of Sao Miguel is from the Algarve and Alentejo, I have read; that's pretty close to North Africa. Ultimately, I think traditional genealogy is the best way to give definition to these relatively broad strokes, as we gather records and really see what was going on. I can't imagine how you have documented huge lines of African ancestors. I would imagine the records would be hard to find. Maybe our Azorean ancestors kept more detailed records than our American ancestors. Well, I certainly am curious of who my African ancestor (or ancestors) might have been. The Family Finder is a near-term test, as you have mentioned. Paper research should be able to get us there.
-Trevor Costa (Va/DC)
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