DIGGING AROUND OUR AFRICAN ROOTS
PURPOSE — The purpose of this blog is to lay out the information and the process by which I am seeking to solve a genealogical mystery. This is done in hopes that others, especially my “cousins,” will contribute their information, and in so doing help us solve the mystery.
FOR — My Family: For those who have helped me research our family, and for those who are just learning about our kin; for those I know well, and for those I have yet to meet.
THE STORY
When I received my first DNA ethnicity report (this was from Ancestry), most of the results were exactly as expected; however 4% was unexpected, but not surprising. I have subsequently tested with two additional companies (Family Tree DNA and My Heritage). Tables summarizing my current ethnicity results from these tests are shown below for comparison.
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ETHNICITY RESULTS FROM ANCESTRY |
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ETHNICITY RESULTS FROM FAMILY TREE DNA |
ETHNICITY RESULTS FROM MY HERITAGE
While the results differ in details, which vary with the data bases and algorithms used by each company, there is notable agreement. All three agree that while I am primarily of European extraction (with contributions from several different populations) I have a small but consistent African genetic ethnicity.
Ancestry currently shows that I have a total of 3% African DNA, split between Cameroon, the Congo, and what Ancestry calls “Western Bantu People.” With their earlier algorithms, Ancestry gave me 5% African split between Cameroon, Bantu People, and Mali. Bantu is a Language Category, and has little value for geographical location. More helpfully, the Map below shows the modern, geo-political Nation states of Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria, and Congo.
My Heritage gives me the highest estimate, 5.6% of African ethnicity, split between Nigeria and North Africa; while FTDNA gives me the smallest estimate, and places that 2% entirely in Nigeria. As can be seen on our map above, the modern nation states of Nigeria and Cameroon are close geographical neighbors. My Heritage and FTDNA currently seem to have stronger algorithms and/or more specific ethnic data bases than Ancestry.
SUMMARY — Taken together, my results from three companies and a total of five reanalyses (improved algorithms and expanded data bases) agree that I have between 2% and 5.6% (mean of 3.8%) West, Central African Genetic Heritage. I am grateful that I did the ethnicity testing because over the next two generations, my African ethnicity will no longer be detectable. Mine may be the last generation for tracing this family heritage.
LOCATION — From a geographical perspective, the history of the targeted region is worth review. In the mid 17th - early 19th Centuries, when the West African Slave Trade flourished, the area where today’s Nigeria borders today’s Cameroon was called Biafra, as shown on the old map below. While the exact boundaries of Biafra are disputed today (mainly by the government of Nigeria), the general location is accepted. European sailors used the term “bight” (pronounced “bite”) to designate an inlet in the land, and the bay in the curve of the African continent was designated as the “Bight of Biafra,” and was later called the “Bight of Bonnie.” The geo-ethnic data from my DNA testing points to this as the probable location for my African origins.
At the center of the Bight of Biafra is the delta of the Niger River (labeled Port Harcourt on modern map below), which drains much of the West Central African Highlands (see old and new Maps below). Thousands of Africans were sold into slavery, and shipped to the West Indies and North America from this area. Many peoples from Biafra, and especially those living along the Niger River had cultivated rice for centuries.
Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Louisiana as well as Haiti were areas where aspiring rice farmers sought workers familiar with rice culture. Some historians argue that the reverse happened, and that the Africans from rice growing cultures introduced rice farming to these areas. In either event, the first Africans were brought to Louisiana in 1719-20 were brought from this area, although their original homeland may have been further up the Niger River. They were ethic Bambara, heirs of the Bambara Empire, and experienced rice farmers.
The oldest settlement in French Louisiana, Natchitoches was 5 years old and New Orleans was only a year old when the first Africans arrived. In that same year, German settlers from Alsace and Loraine were brought to Louisiana as farmers and were settled along the Mississippi, north of New Orleans. Within two decades, there were four Africans in Louisiana for every European.
The complex race relations of French Louisiana were governed by the Code Noir, published in 1685, and enforced in Louisiana in the 18th Century. Race relations in French and Spanish Louisiana differed greatly from those in British colonies, and a large population of Free Africans existed in 18th and early 19th Century Louisiana. The Natchitoches area was home to a concentration of Free Creole People of Color, as described in a number of contemporary histories and novels. The relationships between European, African, and Native American peoples in Louisiana underwent many changes subsequent to Louisiana gaining statehood in 1812. Branches of my family have lived in the Natchitoches area from 1750 until now.
More information on the Bight of Biafra, the Bombara, Code Noir, Slavery in Louisiana, and the Creole People of Cane River, Natchitoches can be found in the following references:
https://www.pnas.org/content/99/25/16360
https://www.evergreenplantation.org/evergreen-blog/2020/5/7/the-arrival-of-the-first-africans-in-louisiana
https://www.whitneyplantation.org/history/slavery-in-louisiana/slave-trade-in-louisiana/the-louisiana-slave-database/
https://www.whitneyplantation.org/history/slavery-in-louisiana/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/096746080000700201
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Noir
https://www.whitneyplantation.org/history/slavery-in-louisiana/slave-trade-in-louisiana/the-slave-coast-and-the-bight-of-biafra/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Noir
https://lib.lsu.edu/sites/all/files/sc/fpoc/
https://lib.lsu.edu/sites/all/files/sc/fpoc/history.html
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4234002
https://www.canerivernha.org/cane-river-creoles
TIME PERIOD — The following research is based in the hypothesis that most of my African Heritage (at least for the past 4 to 6 generations) comes from a single line of descent from one African ancestor, rather than from an accumulation of DNA from multiple African ancestors. While both are possibilities, the single-line hypothesis seems to be the simplest and the most probable, and thus is explored first.
In this hypothesis, the math is simple. It is assumed that in each generation I have one ancestor carrying my African genetic heritage, and the specific contribution is roughly halved with each succeeding generation. In considering the following table, you should remember that with each generation, the number of my ancestors doubles (that is I have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents etc.). In the table below, the generations are numbered beginning with me. The number in parentheses is the number of my ancestors in that generation (potential contributors of my DNA). The third column names the generation, and the fourth describes the era of their lives, while the expected % of African ancestry is predicted in the last column.
This Hypothesis would predict the following:
#1 Frances (1939-present) = 2% - 5%
#2 (2) Parent (20th century - 20th Century) 4% -10%
#3 (4) Grandparent (post Civil War - WWII) 8% - 20%
#4 (8) Great Grandparent (Rev. - Civil Wara) 16% - 40%
#5 (16) 2 Great Grandparent (Pre-- Post Rev.) 32% - 80%
#6 (32) 3 Great Grandparent (18th Century) 64% - 100%
#7 (64) 4 Great Grandparent (17th to 18th Century) 100%
If we consider this chart in the context of the History of the United States, we can conclude that the era in which my predominately or fully African ancestor lived probably coincided with the period of the Acadian migration to Louisiana (1765-1785), the American Revolution (1775-1791), the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory by the United States (1803), and the admission of Louisiana into the Union and the second American War with Great Britain (1812); or stated differently after 1765 and before 1812.
CLIMBING THE FAMILY TREE — The next step was a process of elimination made possible by the widespread use of genetic genealogy. With each generation I considered my “cousins,” other descendants of my known ancestors, to determine which cousins shared my African Ethnicity. For example, I first examined data on my first cousins, maternal and paternal. The results clearly indicated that my African ethnicity was shared with my paternal, but not my maternal cousins, thus supporting the conclusion that my father was the source of my African DNA.
This approach has problems, since in every generation, I am using only a sampling of of potential subjects (cousins), specifically only those who have been tested, and who have shared their results. For this reason, I continue to study new DNA results in order to revise my conclusions, if necessary. This problem becomes acute in the 6th and 7th generations, as shown below. The following conclusions are supported by all the data I have been able to collect and compare thus far.
FINDINGS —
Gen #2 - Father — Wilmer H. Jackson, Sr. 1909-1990
Gen #3 - Grandmother — Ida Belle Adams 1887-1978
Gen #4 - G. Grandmother - Sarah Catherine Hamous 1861-1923
Gen #5 - G. G. Grandmother-Marie Aurore Frederick 1814-1904
Gen #6 - G. G. G. Grandparents — Not Currently Determined
Either Phillippe Frederic III (1787-1865) OR
Marie Rosalie Brigitte Lestage (1792-1850)
Gen. #7 - G.G.G.G. Grandparents — Not Currently Determined
Phillipe Frederic II (1750-1803) or his wife,
Marie Barbe Cheletre (1760-1793)
OR
Guillaume (William) Lestage (1748-1797) or his wife
Marie Emmanuel “Manuela” Riche (1750-1816)
The family tree below illustrates the Ancestors of Marie Aurore Frederick, who would have been 32% to 80% African, and who is the last ancestor I can unambiguously identify as a source of my African Heritage.
My Great, Great, Grandmother Marie Aurore Frederick, who married John Theodore Polhemus, lived in a time period when the American (Anglo-Saxon/British) ethnic groups were replacing the French and Spanish ethnic groups as the dominant culture in North Louisiana. After the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory in1803 and statehood in 1812, thousands of immigrants poured into Louisiana from the other States. Most of these were farmers who settled in the North, Central, and later West Central portions of the state.
Marie Aurore’s very name bears testimony to the “Americanization” process. She was born Marie Aurore Frederick in 1814, and under that name, she was married in 1848 to a transplanted native of New Jersey — John Theodore Polhemus. However, before her death in 1904, she became Mary Laura Hamous and her deceased husband was called John Paul Hamous. Both of their names (her’s French/German and his, German) were Anglicized, thus reducing their connections to non-British heritages. During this period, race relations were also altered, and Native American or African "roots" were deeply buried by "Americanized" families.
A LITTLE HELP FROM A COUSIN —
This was as far as I could go until I got a bit of help from a cousin, and the plot thickened. During the last years of his life, my cousin, HH became more interested in genealogy, and during the last months we did some work together. Since his death, I have pursued the work we began. This portion of our investigation focuses on HH, and his ancestors.
HH tested with the one major genetic genealogy company I had not tested with — 23 AND ME. HH showed a higher percentage of African Ancestry than I did, and higher than any of our other first cousins. Further, 23 AND ME indicated in their report that there were probably two separate contributions (rather than a single ancestor) in his African Ancestry.
HH’s paternal ancestry is a “Who’s Who” of the History of Louisiana. He is a direct descendent of the, founder of Natchitoches, the French explorer and adventurer, Louis Antoine Juchereau De St. Denis, and from the Lemoine Family of French Canada, which includes the first Governors of Louisiana. DeSoto Parish is named for his 5th great Grandfather, Don Emanuel (Manuel) Antonio De Soto Y Bermudez, and his family has lived in Natchitoches Parish for over 400 years.
When we compared HH’s maternal and paternal first cousins, we found evidence of African Ancestry from both of his parents (Mother and Father). The following family tree shows HH’s parents (2), grandparents (4), great grandparents (8), and great, great grandparents (16). Among his great, great grandparents, you will find the familiar name of our shared great, great grandmother, Marie Aurore Frederick (1814-1904). Among his Paternal great, great grandparents, I call your attention to the name of Marie Ephrosine Lestage (1812-1850).
Above you can see the family tree for Marie Aurore Frederick, and below you can review the tree for Marie Ephrosine Lestage. Comparisons of the two trees reveal that Marie Aurore Frederick and Marie Ephrosine Lestage are first cousins — in fact they are “double first cousins.” That is, their parents married siblings (a Lestage brother and sister married a Frederick brother and sister), so that the girls (Marie Aurore and Marie Ephrosine) share two sets of grandparents, rather than one (as is the case for ordinary first cousins). The shared grandparents create the “double first cousin” relationship. Double first cousins are as close genetically as siblings. HH has more African DNA than his Maternal first cousins (including me) because he is doubly descended from our common African ancestor -- But WHICH ONE?
Of the EIGHT shared, potential ancestors ( 1. Phillipe M. Frederic, 2. Catherine Bernard Antoni , 3. Michel Cheletre, 4. Anne Barbe Pommier, 5. Reynauld Lestage, 6. Marie Laquesone, 7. Henri Riche, and 8. Marie Jeanne Josephe Clermont), three are second generation Louisiana settlers, being children of original German Coast Settlers. These three are Philipe M. Frederic, Catherine Bernard Antoni and Anne Barbe Pommier. The European ancestors of these 3 have been heavily researched, and we do not believe they have African ancestry.
The other five are all “reported” to be immigrants from France (all were reportedly born in France and died in Natchitoches). These include Michel Cheletre, Reynauld Lestage, Marie Laquesone, Henri Riche, and Marie Jeanne Josephe Clermont. I believe that the most probable candidate for my African ancestry is Marie Laquesone, but I have no evidence to support such a finding. It is mostly a matter of elimination. The evidence that exists for a French birthplace or heritage for Marie Laquesone is incomplete, and questionable. A potential African heritage is inferred by the absence of proof of European heritage. More research is clearly needed,
LOOKING FOR OTHER COUSINS — Our best hope of solving this puzzle is through information from other Cousins, descendants of one or more of these EIGHT POTENTIAL AFRICAN ANCESTORS. I hope that others will read this blog, and volunteer to share their family trees and/or ethnicity findings.
