History is written in our DNA, and like our DNA, our history is often complicated.
Over the last several years, 23andMe scientists have explored what our genetics can reveal about the people of the United States and our complicated history with race.
Leveraging many of these insights and ongoing improvements to our ancestry service features, 23andMe released a new feature this week to help people with African American ancestry connect to one of 213 genetic communities of people of African descent in the United States.
This new update offers individuals and families direct connections to communities where their ancestors may have once lived. To understand the significance of these connections, one must know a little about African American history in the United States. Much of that history involves forced migration, often a harsh severing of families from their past. This happened first during the brutal history of slavery when people were robbed from Africa and brought to the Americas. (Read more about this feature from someone who worked on it here.)
The Great Migration
It happened again during what is known as the Great Migration in the United States, which lasted from the end of the 19th Century until the middle of the 20th Century.
During the Great Migration, more than seven million Black Americans left the primarily rural South in search of economic opportunities and to escape the repression of Jim Crow laws and racial violence. Over the years, individuals and families migrated along a few well-beaten paths to northern and western states.
In her book The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Isabel Wilkerson describes how transformative the movement of people was not just for individuals and families but also for the political, cultural, and social fabric of the United States. While these migrants still experienced racism, they also helped fuel political and cultural changes in cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles.
In her book, Wilkerson notes some of the many iconic figures who either came north with their families or who were born soon after their families migrated north, from the writer Zora Neale Hurston, whose family fled Florida to Baltimore and eventually Harlem, to the Blues musician Muddy Waters who left Mississippi for Chicago, to Jackie Robinson whose mother took him and his siblings from Cairo, Georgia and moved to Los Angeles, to the first Black mayor of that city Tom Bradley, whose family were sharecroppers in Texas before moving him and his siblings to Los Angeles.
While the millions of people who made difficult moves north and west found new opportunities and made new lives, they often remained tied to the communities they left behind, either through family or food.
Reconnecting to Roots
Over the generations, some of those ties to the communities from which families came have weakened, but they’ve never been lost.
There were three broad avenues of migration from these southern African American communities. The first was a well-worn path connecting people who now live in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston with communities in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. Another path connects people now living in St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit to rural communities in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Out west, vibrant Black communities in Los Angeles and Oakland connect to towns and parishes in Louisiana and Texas.
Beginning in the 1970s and continuing until the 2000s, some reverse migration has occurred from urban centers. Economic opportunities have driven this more, with people moving not to rural communities in the South but to urban and suburban areas for work and affordable housing.
Rich History of African American Communities
23andMe’s new African American Genetic Groups feature helps those interested in seeing their genetic connections to those rural communities. Many of these communities have a rich history of their own.
23andMe scientists used their Genetic Group analysis pipeline to identify 213 genetic communities of people of African descent in the United States. Based on customer survey answers and geographic representation, scientists inferred that many of these groups correspond to communities formed by the colonial slave trade.
Customers who share enough DNA with a Genetic Group will see this group in their Ancestry Composition report under “Additional Ancestry Regions.” These connections may reflect ancestry as recent as a couple of generations ago or as distant as the 17th Century.
Many of these communities are unique, such as the Gullah Geechee, who descended from enslaved Africans brought to work in the coastal low country and Sea Islands of South Carolina, Georgia, and northeastern Florida. The isolation of these communities, especially in the island communities, allowed them to develop their language, a Sea Island Creole, and traditions and cuisine that mix West African, Caribbean, Native American, and Southern influences. Or the Piney Woods Mississippi African American Genetic Group, connected to dense forests and rolling hills in rural Mississippi, a region that was so crucial for the evolution of Blues music. Or the River Parishes and Greater New Orleans Creole Genetic Group, connected to large and small communities along the lower Mississippi that draw on French, Spanish, Native American, and African cultures.
A Broad and a Granular Model
Two models are used to determine connections to these Genetic Groups. One is broad and includes 33 different groups across wide geographic distributions. The second model is much more granular. This typically identifies more recent Genetic Groups at the county or city level. Because it is less likely for a customer to share sufficient DNA with a small granular cluster, fewer customers will get matches to the granular model.
More than a million 23andMe customers—or about 88 percent of the customers identifying as African American—will see connections to one or more of the African American Genetic Groups comprising the broad model. 23andMe+ Premium customers can see more distant matches, so about 95 percent of our African American 23andMe+ Premium customers will get a match. In addition to 23andMe customers who identify as Black, about 5 percent of 23andMe customers who identify as white but may have a small percentage of African ancestry will also see a result. In many cases, these customers may be unaware of their African ancestry. Still, it’s the result of the ugly history of sexual exploitation and rape of enslaved women by their slave owners. Whereas many African Americans are well aware of their mixed ancestry, which often includes European ancestry, many people who self-identify as white but have some “hidden” African ancestry may not know that same history. They are the descendants of individuals who, at some point, likely “passed as white.”
The most common matches will be to the Southern Black Belt African American Genetic Group, which includes Alabama, Mississippi, and parts of Georgia.
About a quarter million 23andMe customers — or about a quarter of 23andMe customers who identify as African American — will see a match to one or more of the more granular African American Genetic Groups. The most common match for these customers includes the Catawba River Basin African American Genetic Group, the African Americans from Anderson, Spartanburg, and Laurens Counties Genetic Group, or the Florida Parishes Creoles Genetic Group.
Find out more
23andMe customers can see their Genetic Groups by going to their Ancestry Composition and clicking through, while 23andMe+ Premium customers can see additional, more distant connections using this feature.
Are you still waiting to be a customer? You can find out more about 23andMe’s Ancestry Service and other services here.
List of Broad Model African American Genetic Groups
Albemarle Sound African Americans
Ark-La-Tex Creoles
Arkansas West Timberlands African Americans
Avoyelles Parish Creoles
Central Carolinas Piedmont African Americans
Central Georgia Piedmont African Americans
Central Kentucky African Americans
Chesapeake Bay African Americans
Creoles of Cajun Country
Delmarva Peninsula African Americans
Georgia Coastal Plain African Americans
Lower Alabama African Americans
Lower Cape Fear African Americans
Lower Tar-Pamlico River Basin African Americans
Maryland Western Shore African Americans
North Carolina Northern Coastal Plain African Americans
North Carolina Northern Piedmont African Americans
North Carolina Western Piedmont African Americans
Pearl River Basin African Americans
Pee Dee River Gullah
Piney Woods, Mississippi African Americans
River Parishes and Greater New Orleans Creoles
Savannah River Basin African Americans
South Carolina Lowcountry Gullah
South Carolina Piedmont African Americans
Southern Black Belt African Americans
Southern Mississippi Pines African Americans
Southern Plains African Americans
Upper Cape Fear African Americans
Virginia and Upper Ohio River Valley African Americans
Virginia Piedmont African Americans
Virginia Tidewater African Americans
Yadkin-Pee Dee Basin African Americans
List of Granular Model African American Genetic
Alabama
African Americans from Andalusia and Boykin
African Americans from Crenshaw and Jefferson Counties
African Americans from Monroe and Escambia Counties
African Americans from Oak Hill
African Americans from Opelika, La Fayette and Seale
African Americans from Pickens and Tuscaloosa Counties
African Americans from Shelby and Perry Counties
African Americans from Wilcox County and Mobile Bay
Central Alabama Prairie African Americans
Central Alabama River Basin African Americans
Clarke County African Americans
Hale County African Americans
Lower Cahaba Valley African Americans
Lower Coosa River Basin African Americans
Lower Tennessee River Basin African Americans
Lower Tombigbee River Basin African Americans
Marengo County African Americans
Mobile-Tensaw Delta African Americans
Northern Alabama Wiregrass Region African Americans
Russell County African Americans
Southern Alabama River Basin African Americans
Southern Alabama Wiregrass Region African Americans
Tallapoosa River Basin African Americans
Upper Pea River Basin African Americans
Arkansas
Clark County African Americans
Ouachita County African Americans
Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania
African Americans from Charles and Prince George’s Counties
African Americans from Frederick, Carroll and Montgomery Counties
Central Delmarva Peninsula African Americans
Chesapeake Bay Western Shore African Americans
Choptank River Basin African Americans
Northern Chesapeake Bay African Americans
Northern Delmarva Peninsula African Americans
Patuxent River Basin African Americans
Severn River Basin African Americans
St. Mary’s Peninsula African Americans
Georgia
African Americans from Bulloch and Effingham Counties
African Americans from Byron, Ellerslie and Cataula
African Americans from Conyers, Social Circle and Adairsville
African Americans from Crawford, Georgia
African Americans from Greene and Taliaferro Counties
African Americans from Greensboro, Georgia
African Americans from Hall, Habersham and Jackson Counties
African Americans from Hancock and Washington Counties
African Americans from Houston and Taylor Counties
African Americans from Jasper and Lamar Counties
African Americans from Mitchell and Baker Counties
African Americans from Pike and Meriwether Counties
African Americans from Preston
African Americans from Talbot and Harris Counties
African Americans from Terrell and Randolph Counties
African Americans from Wadley and Bartow
Burke County African Americans
Central Georgia Fall Line African Americans
Dodge County African Americans
Georgia Lower Coastal Plain African Americans
Georgia Suwannee River Basin African Americans
Gwinnett County African Americans
Macon County African Americans
Northern Chattahoochee River Basin African Americans
Northern Flint River Basin African Americans
Treutlen County African Americans
Warren County African Americans
Wilkes County African Americans
Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia
Greater Louisville African Americans
Muskingum River Basin African Americans
Pennyroyal Plateau African Americans
Southern Ohio African Americans
Louisiana
African Americans from Franklin and Lake Providence
Barataria Bay Creoles
Coastal Prairie Creoles
Creoles from St. Landry, Evangeline and Acadia Parishes
False River Basin Creoles
Florida Parishes Creoles
Lafayette Parish Creoles
Mississippi River Delta Creoles
Natchitoches Parish Creoles
Pontchartrain Basin Creoles
St. Martin Parish Creoles
Vermilion Parish Creoles
Mississippi
African Americans from Amite, Pike and Wilkinson Counties
African Americans from Attala and Noxubee Counties
African Americans from Benton and Panola Counties
African Americans from Clarke and Lauderdale Counties
African Americans from Collins and Laurel
African Americans from Crawford, Mississippi
African Americans from Friars Point
African Americans from Hermanville
African Americans from Jasper and Smith Counties
African Americans from Jefferson and Yazoo Counties
African Americans from Kemper and Neshoba Counties
African Americans from Lee and Franklin Counties
African Americans from Leflore and Holmes Counties
African Americans from Lena
African Americans from Pinola, Mendenhall and New Hebron
African Americans from Sharon
African Americans from Tallahatchie and Jones Counties
African Americans from Union Church
African Americans from Vaughan and Silver City
Harrison County African Americans
Lower Pearl River Basin African Americans
Marion County African Americans
Marshall County African Americans
Montgomery County African Americans
Rankin County African Americans
Simpson County African Americans
Walthall County African Americans
Winston County African Americans
Yalobusha County African Americans
Yazoo River Basin African Americans
North Carolina
African Americans from Caswell, Alamance and Chatham Counties
African Americans from Hollister and Arcola
African Americans from Wayne and Wilson Counties
Cape Fear River Basin African Americans
Catawba River Basin African Americans
Chowan River Basin African Americans
Lumber River Basin African Americans
Martin County African Americans
Northampton County African Americans
Northern Sandhills African Americans
Pamlico Sound African Americans
Vance County African Americans
Oklahoma
Central Oklahoma African Americans
South Carolina
African Americans from Anderson, Spartanburg and Laurens Counties
African Americans from Darlington and Chesterfield Counties
African Americans from Edgefield, Saluda and Greenwood Counties
African Americans from Horry, Marion and Dillon Counties
African Americans from Scranton, South Carolina
African Americans from Sumter and Lee Counties
Berkeley County Gullah
Charleston and Sea Islands Gullah
Clarendon County African Americans
Edisto River Basin Gullah
Georgetown County Gullah
Lexington County African Americans
Southern Lowcountry Gullah
Wateree River Basin African Americans
Williamsburg County African Americans
Tennessee
African Americans from Jackson, Mercer and Denmark
African Americans from McMinnville and Murfreesboro
Duck River Basin African Americans
Franklin County African Americans
Hardeman County African Americans
Hatchie River Basin African Americans
Middle Tennessee African Americans
Texas
African Americans from Center and Hemphill
African Americans from East Austin and Giddings
African Americans from Fayette and Titus Counties
African Americans from Grapeland, Crockett, and Palestine
African Americans from Harrison, Smith and Tarrant Counties
African Americans from Itasca
African Americans from Lavaca and Gonzales Counties
African Americans from Matagorda and Wharton Counties
African Americans from Montgomery and Anderson
African Americans from Navasota, Huntsville, and Lubbock
African Americans from Red River and Lamar Counties
African Americans from Travis and Henderson Counties
Cass County African Americans
East Central Texas African Americans
Freestone County African Americans
Hopkins County African Americans
Navarro County African Americans
Robertson County African Americans
Rusk County African Americans
Texas Pine Belt African Americans
Upshur County African Americans
Washington County African Americans
Virginia
African Americans from Brunswick and Prince George Counties
African Americans from Louisa and Hanover Counties
African Americans from Nelson, Amherst and Augusta Counties
Buckingham County African Americans
Dan River Basin African Americans
Middle Peninsula African Americans
Northern Albemarle Sound African Americans
Northern Neck Peninsula African Americans
Potomac River Basin African Americans
Richmond Basin African Americans
Roanoke Valley African Americans
Virginia Central Piedmont African Americans
Virginia Peninsula African Americans
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