I want to know what my true heritage is?

Question

I'm French-Canadian,Native American(Blackfoot and Iroquois),Irish,English,Swedish,Scottish... Dutch.I want to know exactly how much,percent wise,of what I am and my family doesn't even know if that's all we are and I have a lot of European nationalities but I have the main traits of Native American or Asian,especially with the eyes,facial structure and hair, so idk.Where do I go to find this stuff out?

Answer 1

I'm afraid you can only know the truth by good ol' fashioned genealogical research...and that would only give you rough "percentages" on paper.

It's hard to find percentages through DNA, since you never know which genes are going to pop-up in offspring, especially someone with a widely diverse heritage.

My mother's ancestry is mostly Polynesian and my dad is all Caucasian.  My siblings all resemble each other, but some have more pronounced Polynesian features and some have more Caucasian.  Genetic dice...

Answer 2

American Indian (Everyone born in the U.S. is Native American) tribes have citizenship records just like the U.S.

Go to your Blackfoot and Iroquois Tribal Office's for info:

http://www.blackfeetnation.com/Departmen...

http://www.crowtribe.com/pop.htm

DNA Test (You pay for) will only tell you what you want to hear.

Good luck bro.

Answer 3

You have two basic choices; the paper trail (obtaining whatever documents, website, whatever information) or DNA.

If you are looking for percentages, forget it; never happen, for the simple reason that you will never find more than a tiny percentage of your ancestors.

I believe that DNA will present a better over-all picture; mine shows ancestors all over Europe and around the world. By paper trail, I have covered all of Europe plus Native American and a few others.

So, try these:

You should start by asking all your living relatives about family history.  Then, armed with that information, you can go to your public library and check to see if it has a genealogy department.  Most do nowadays; also, don't forget to check at community colleges, universities, etc.  Our public library has both www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com free for anyone to use (no library card required).

Another place to check out is any of the Mormon's Family History Centers.  They allow people to search for their family history (and, NO, they don't try to convert you).

A third option is one of the following websites:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/...

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739...

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/...

http://www.cyndislist.com/

http://www.geni.com/

Cyndi's has the most links to genealogy websites, whether ship's passenger lists, ancestors from Africa, ancestors from the Philippines, where ever and whatever.

Of course, you may be successful by googling: "john doe, born 1620, plimouth, massachusetts" as an example.

Good luck and have fun!

Check out this article on five great free genealogy websites:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...

Then there is the DNA test; if you decide you want to REALLY know where your ancestors came from opt for the DNA test. Besides all the mistakes that officials commonly make, from 10% to 20% of birth certificates list the father wrong; that is, mama was doing the hanky-panky and someone else was the REAL father. That won't show up on the internet or in books; it WILL show up in DNA.

I used www.familytreedna.com which works with the National Geographics Genotype Program.

No. 1 thinks I should warn people that a lot of time and effort are involved; I myself have spent thousands of hours searching...

Have fun and revel in the excitement of what you can find!