More attempts by scientific community to speciate a "Mormon race"

So, I like Discover magazine.

I like science.  I'm not religious, although I grew up that way. 

But, I think it's interesting the subtle ways that some of them still fall prey to a kind of snarky racism, a la Social Darwinism or eugenics.  I may be overstating my case a little bit, but.....

I suppose if I'm honest, I just viscerally disliked being thrown into a category when I first took this genetic test.  (The whole "CEU" thing.)  I didn't choose to be born Mormon, even though Mormons think I did.  (A Pre-existence condition.... inside joke, possibly influenced by current news.)

I had to make peace with the idea that I was genetically part of a group.  I also liked the genetic test for the ability to deconstruct that identity into its component parts, to better understand myself and my environment.  And now that I've been made into an ethnicity (let's go all the way, and call it a race), I can be actively offended at racial slurs that stereotype me according to my presumed background and presumed beliefs. (tee hee)

And just now, as I am looking at Discover magazine, and I am a little appalled at the way they talk about Mormons.  Do a search term for "Mormon" on their website.  It appears that since Mormons are the least favorite group of mainstream Christians, they are ripe for a flogging from the snarky bloggers who verbally strut their stream of consciousness over yonder.

I'm just not sure how an article with a title like this, especially in a blog called "Gene Expression," would get past a thoughtful editor:  Is Mormonism relatively weird or absolutely weird???

Two years later, the author appears to have a change of heart, or more like he feels some social pressure to not be so, um, xenophobic -- Mormonism isn't that weird  he lets us know, as he has crowned himself Decider of the Weird.  Interesting, since my Super Scientific Face Peering Technology has alerted me to the fact that in the US, he is a genetic outlier.   (That's what the scientists call oddballs, and I've seen a few comments on 23andme boards where some of them are happy that they aren't THAT....)







Then we have this one -- What does a generic Mormon look like? The answer probably won't surprise you.

So, I am trying to figure out just why I am offended by this.  It's kind of funny.  I think we all do it. My husband and I claim to have Mo-Dar -- the analog to gaydar, where you just kind of know when a person is Mormon.  "It's just that special spirit."  

I think it goes back to being pigeonholed. 

 No one has mistaken me for a Mormon recently, so it isn't that.

 I think you have to be actively living the lifestyle to give off the aura.  It could be the "eternal smile" of special underwear peering through one's shirt that really lets people know.  The lowdown from the urban mythology in Discover appears to be that Mormons are more shiny or something because of their intense spirituality....

"Perceptions of health were also responsible for differences in perceived spirituality, explaining folk hypotheses that Mormons are distinct because they appear more spiritual than non-Mormons."

Yes, they misspelled "Background".  And what the !@#$ is an "ecologically important group distinction"?  By face peering (it's like Joseph Smith and his peepstones, yo), you are saving the environment...?  I guess the "ROFL" is a clue that this is done at least partly in jest.

For some reason, the face in H reminds me of the Nauvoo Temple sunstone.  It's probably the focus on the face....

Dad's Dodecad Oracle X -- Population Fitting

These results illustrate a little bit of why we wonder about the accuracy or exactly what we can say with precision about any of these tests:

Dodecad V3

 

Dodecad K12B

Dodecad K7B

Dodecad World9

What I find a little odd about these Oracle X results, is that they don't really seem to mesh with the Mixed Mode population results.  For example, in Dodecad K7B, my dad consistently shows up as Moroccan, Mozabite, Moroccan Jew at a small percentage.  I believe this is accurate, since I have looked at his Rare SNPs and found matches with Haiti only, Morocco only or both Haiti and Morocco.  However, here K7b on Oracle X comes up with some new, unmentioned groups that I want to learn more about, but with whom connections are probably most like distant cousins than descendants.  (If that makes sense.)

I'm going to make a list now of new groups found through Oracle X, that haven't been mentioned in the other Oracles.  A few of them show as 0%, or 0% in one option but some percentage in the other option.  My understanding is in this tool, if it shows up at all, it is because it registered something, although obviously slight.  Also ASW -- is African American from Southwest. (Surely they mean South East US...?).  IBS is Iberian Spanish.  CEU is Utahns.

Athabaskan -- A Native American link, possibly.  Definitely think it could be possible, based on the Mormon lore.  Although the groups in Wikipedia appear to be geographically unlikely -- I think Algonquian is the term for the Native groups of the Northeast, and that seems most probable to me, since that is the side of America that was colonized first.  However, it could still be a stand-in for that -- although why not Finnish, too, if they are linked via Siberia?

Ecuadorian -- Ecuadorians appear to be primarily indigenous (Native American), Spaniard & also sub-Saharan African.  Soooo, it's possible we have all three of those, they just weren't 'assembled' in Ecuador.

Colombian / CLM 30 (also Columbian) -- " Colombians are predominantly Roman Catholic and are a mixture of Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners and Amerindians."  So, also possible we have the Middle East in my dad, along with the other three ethnic groups also found in Ecuadorians.

Papuan --  From New Guinea.  I'm just not sure how this fits in.

Hadza-He -- From Tanzania, lower east Africa.  This could be the Subsaharan.  I understand that African DNA has had much more time to 'speciate' or differentiate itself, so I wonder why it isn't possible to get a finer-tuned reading on the African DNA.  (I also get Yoruba, Luhya, Bantu-Zulu, Masaai....)

Dominican -- This seems plausible, given the Haiti/ Morocco rare SNP finding.

Khasi -- "The Khasi are an indigenous or tribal people, the majority of whom live in the State of Meghalaya in north east India, with small populations in neighbouring Assam, and in parts of Bangladesh."  Perhaps one of our English folk is a gypsy......

Bonda -- "The Bonda (also known as the Bondo, Bondo Poraja, Bhonda, or Remo) are an ancient tribe of people numbering approximately 12,000 (2011 census) who live in the isolated hill regions of the Malkangiri district of southwestern Odisha, India, near the junction of the three states of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh." -- Perhaps the same gypsy connection....

Paniya--- Appears to be another  way of naming an India connection

Gara -- Wikipedia isn't finding an ethnicity that corresponds to this name.  Interestingly, it is a Basque newspaper, part of several Romanian village names, a village in Iran & a town in Morocco -- all which may or may not be what is meant here.

Cambodians -- Not sure how this would apply.  I have heard Davidski or others on 23andme forums say something about Asian being a stand-in for the proto-European, since Europeanism apparently evolved from Asianism.  (I know those aren't words.)

Khmer 90%, Vietnamese 5%, Chinese 1%, other 4%.^[3]

Juang -- "One of the primitive tribes, surviving from the stone age, of Odisha, India".  My dad gets several cave men type results on another tool on GEDmatch.  More so than anyone else I saw on the 23andme forums.  He's just primitive somehow.  Most of those cavemen are from Europe, like Otzi the Iceman.  I guess this is just another one of his cave-people ancestors.

Gadaba -- Another way of naming an India connection.  "The Gadabas are one of the Scheduled Tribes of India."

Cypriots -- From Cyprus, the Mediterranean country.

Cantabria -- Sounds pretty.  "Cantabria (English /kænˈtɑːbriə/, /kænˈtæbriə/; Spanish: [kanˈtaβɾja]) is a Spanish historical community^[2] and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community (province of Biscay), on the south by Castile and León (provinces of León, Palencia and Burgos), on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea (Bay of Biscay)."

Sardinian -- A Mediterranean island.  Possibly more evidence of my dad's primitive essence.  (haha)  They are a very interesting group from a genetic perspective -- 

"Sardinians are one of the most genetically isolated populations in Europe, though they are the single population that encloses all of the genetic characteristics of the Europeans, such as the highest variability of the Y chromosome found among the European peoples.^{[32][33][34][35]}

According to some studies, along with the Basques they represent an example of a pre-Indo-European population surviving in Europe from the Paleolithic period.^[36][37]

Pulliyar -- Appears to be another India reference

Russian -- Garsh.  Maybe his R1a1a haplogroup?   That haplogroup has high saturation there -- 33.4 to 49%.  The average is 46.7%.
"Autosomally, Russians are generally similar to populations in central-eastern Europe^[48]"

Sidi -- Well, I think it's supposed to be spelled "Siddi" -- that would be another way of naming an India connection.  Or, maybe Pakistan....

Fulani -- A West African group -- They are in Guinea, but are they in New Guinea? I just keep thinking about a phrase in Spanish -- "Fulano de tal" -- which is the Spanish (Mexican?) way of saying "What'shisname".  Which is sometimes what this genetic exercise makes me feel like.

Bulala -- African.  A Muslim people from Chad.  Apparently influenced by French colonialism.

Mada -- I'm not sure, but I think it's another way of naming an India connection.  I like this statement I found about an exemplar of this group, also known as the Yousafzai, a Pashtoon tribe: 

The Yousafzai is an agriculturist, generally fine, well-limbed man, of a good physique and appearance with great deal of race-pride, well dressed and cheery, while his hospitality is proverbial.

”

My father's Dodecad 4 grandparent results

Again, my dad is 1/4 British, 1/4 colonial American, 1/4 more British, and 1/4 Danish.

Here are what the 4 Dodecad tools have to say about his 4 grandparents.

Dodecad V3:

Dodecad K12b:

Dodecad K7B:

Dodecad World9:

My father's Dodecad Mixed Mode Populations

Not going to speculate about anything just yet.

Here's my dad on Dodecad V3, Mixed Mode:

Here's my dad on Dodecad K12b, Mixed Mode:

Here's my dad on Dodecad K7b, Mixed Mode:

Here's my dad on Dodecad World9, Mixed Mode:

I find these results somewhat different from Eurogenes.  I try to get a more precise answer as to why they differ, but I haven't yet received a satisfying answer.  There is overlap that might not be readily obvious.  For example -- Yoruba in Eurogenes may be partly accounted for with Moroccans, Canarias, Puerto Rican and/or Brazilian.  Basque may be a subset of the English population somehow.  His Family Tree DNA results also show French, Spanish & Basque DNA.

And then there's this guy:

It may just be the moustache, but I think he has a bit of a Spanish look.

My father's Dodecad results - 1. Pie charts

The Dodecad tool was the first tool I used at GEDmatch to parse out my DNA, and I was somewhat shocked when it knew immediately that I was from Utah.  (Technically I have lived elsewhere, but really Utah is the locus of many family generations....)  This is where I first heard the term "CEU".

 Dieneke's anthropology blog is a formidable read for someone who has no background in anthropology, but still covers many interesting threads.  There are four tools through GEDmatch from Dienekes that section up the world in different ways and provide interesting perspectives, which we are then left to interpret and analyze.

I am going to show the pie charts for the four tools together, so I can compare them against each other.

This is Dodecad V3 -- this is the first calculator I used and the one that immediately showed Utah (CEU) as the top result in the population finder.

This is Dodecad K12b.  I like it, because it uses 12 populations and so gives more choices to compare. 

This is Dodecad K7b for my dad -- the world is grouped into only 7 types, and so results vary.  However, it should be mentioned that each test still has sample populations that test out with an average percentage for each type.  So, for example, there are British participants in each test with known, full British ancestry.  They will test differently with different amounts of each component in each test.  So, in other words, it's likely that your main group that you align with should still be available for comparison to see how much you coincide with or trend away from the average.

Below is World9 -- World9 is unique compared to the others, in that it actually creates an Amerindian component.  This shows a little higher than what I have estimated were possible if my g+ grandfather Solomon Mack were actually 100% Native American in a previous post, which we know he isn't.  So, it's either a Finnish thing, or a Finnish and hint of Native American that can account for this result.

One thing I might want to try later is narrowing down which chromosomes for my dad show high in Amerindian with World9 and see how that compares with other tools -- like the East Asian & Siberian above, his McDonald painting, my painting, etc.  I have already found a Finnish person linked to the largest "Siberian" segment, but haven't ruled out a small segment on the 17th chromosome as Native American.

Dad's Eurogenes, chapter ii -- Oracle X

I'm having difficulty with Blogger, so I'm starting a new post for the Eurogenes Oracle X results for my dad.

Oracle X has given me some exotic results on other tools, although Eurogenes, for my dad at least, seems pretty true to his acknowledged family tree.  I will be posting all of the different tool's results for review and contemplation in other posts.

Oracle X does acknowledge that the results are speculative at this time, and may change in the future.

Here is Oracle X, option 1, EU test for my dad:

Here is Oracle X, option 2, EU test for my dad:

Here is Oracle X, option 1, J test for my dad:

Here is Oracle X, option 2, J test for my dad:

My father -- Several Genetic Perspectives -- 1. Eurogenes -- EU & J tests

This is my dad according to Eurogenes, the EU test on GEDmatch.  It is supposed to be the best test for Europeans, as it is uses more European samples (I think that's why).  More about Davidski and his EU test (for Europeans) and J-Test (for Jews) can be found on his blog.

There is a feature called Mixed Mode populations that I love dearly, but I think I overuse it.  I think you are not supposed to over-believe in the secondary populations.  Basically what it does as I understand it, is it takes all of your ancestors, via your SNPs that have been tested, and makes them separate into two camps on the globe.  And it does that 30 times, since there are many different poles that can be found within a person's genetic story -- to give you many different perspectives.  It cannot pin down specific ancestors and tell you who they are and where they came from.  I believe it is theoretically possible to do that, but you'd need lots of people providing samples, who also happen to have really thorough paper-based pedigrees. (Ancestry.com, anyone?)



I'm going to now show the pie chart for my dad on the J-test, and then get to mixed-mode populations after that.  Then I'll show you some other charts of  different tools by different geneticists.  (Dodecad & Harappa World.)

Just so you know, my dad's results look pretty standard for a British person.  The West African (which is definitely there, but isn't enough to make it onto the pie chart) may be the exception.

Also, my dad is 1/4 recently British (Lancashire, Nottingham, etc), 1/4 colonial American (British, Scots Irish, others), one more fourth recently British (Chedworth), and 1/4 Danish.

The Oracle-4 feature is nice -- it goes from 1 set of possibilities to 4.  I am going to just show the four grandparents presented in each test, to see how it compares to what we know about his grandparents through their paper trail.

Here are the 4 grandparents through the EU test.  Seems pretty close:

Here are the 4 grandparents through the J test.   Very similar results:

The Mixed Mode population on Eurogenes doesn't veer very much from our published family tree information.  We know he has 50% British, 25% Danish and 25% American which includes more British, Scots Irish, French Huguenot, Irish, Palatine German and possibly others, including African most likely.   However, as I shall show on other tools, other ethnicities do come up, although it could always be an average or composite of different kinds of people -- similarities, instead of actual descendency.

Here is the mixed mode population results for the EU test:

 Here is the mixed mode results for the J test:

NO means Norwegian. DK is Denmark.  IE is Irish.  EE is Estonian.  The other ethnicities with 0% are just placeholders, as you can tell from the fact that they are in alphabetical order, starting with A.

Crypto-Jews..... meet Crypto-Mormons

I just found this story today, which I think is cute. Yes, "cute".


 Perhaps I should have something more profound to say about it... like... somehow it gets at the heart of what I'm researching here. .... The heart's inexplicable attractions.

Why is it that religious traditions that are mocked or deemed inferior still struggle on in the hearts of man?  I don't have a good answer, and maybe this is all spin, but religious fervor that lives on in secret -- when there is no apparent social or economic motive to sustain it -- is something that does puzzle me and I think even delights me. (Although I am not much of a believer in anything, and I definitely see the downside of zealotry.)


Ok here it is -- there are Crypto-Mormons in Russia!!

Western Folklore link

 "'Whole tribes of Native Siberians call themselves Mormons. Many people in villages around Orenburg and Samara are Mormons but will deny it if you ask them. My grandfather was a Mormon, but he died long ago,'" are paraphrases of the more common story types."

 I have to pay more to read more... $16.  Maybe later.

Anyway, I just find this fascinating given prior discussions about Native Americans and Siberians having an ancient link.  Also a segment of one of my dad's chromosomes was believed to be Native American but then turned out to be Siberian with a more recent Finnish expression....

  Read more here