DNA Ancestry Composition
23andMe ancestry composition analysis based on 351 identified DNA segments across multiple ancestral categories.
Sub-Saharan African
229 segments
European
104 segments
Asian
10 segments
Indigenous American
6 segments
Unassigned
2 segments
Sub-Saharan African
European
Asian
Indigenous American
Unassigned
About This Data
This ancestry composition is based on a 23andMe segment table (version 0.5), not a direct percentage report. Row counts are directional indicators, not precise percentages of genetic ancestry.
The Sub-Saharan African signal resolves to three historically specific populations: Nigerian (Yoruba/Igbo, Bight of Biafra), Ghanaian/Liberian/Sierra Leonean (Ashanti/Akan, Gold Coast), and Angolan/Congolese (Kongo Kingdom, West Central Africa) — the three dominant source regions of the transatlantic slave trade to the American South and Caribbean. The Senegambian signal (3 segments) reflects the earliest Atlantic slave trade corridor, where many enslaved Africans were already literate in Arabic and familiar with rice cultivation.
The European signal includes Spanish & Portuguese (7 segments) and Southern European (11 segments) alongside British/Irish and Northwestern European. In an African American profile, this Mediterranean/Iberian presence typically indicates either Louisiana Creole ancestry (French, Spanish, African, and Native American families who were free before the Civil War) or Caribbean-routed ancestry (enslaved people transiting through Spanish colonies before arriving in North America).
The Indigenous American signal (6 segments, ~1.7% by count) is supported by chromosome painting data showing 2.53% Indigenous American by base pairs on Copy 2. The King family settled at Camp Izard, Marion County, Florida — a Second Seminole War fort built in 1836 along the Withlacoochee River in the exact epicenter of Black Seminole alliance territory. The geographic fit for Seminole Freedmen ancestry is strong, though other southeastern Native American interaction remains possible.
The Filipino & Austronesian signal (2 segments) is unusual in African American DNA. The most historically grounded explanation is the Louisiana bayou Filipino communities: Filipino sailors from Spanish galleon crews established "Manila Village" in Barataria Bay, Louisiana in 1763 — the earliest documented Asian settlement in North America — and intermarried extensively with French Creole and African American families through the 18th and 19th centuries. If the Iberian/French European signal reflects Louisiana Creole heritage, this may be from the same geographic origin.