North African Ancestry Via Chromosome Painting

Using DNA Painter and North Africa matches on My Heritage, we have been able to locate distant matches on segments classified as "Northern Africa" by Ancestry. Naturally, all the matches are quit distant (8.2 cM to 9 cM), but it confirms that some of these matches we found on Ancestry probably are due to shared North African ancestry, even if it is most likely identical by state matches. Three of the matches are assigned to Chromosome 3, but one is on Chromosome 1. In addition, two other North Africans are DNA matches based on shared segments assigned to "Spain" or "Portugal" on Ancestry.

Most of the North Africa matches shared segments assigned to "Northern Africa" on our third chromosome. All three appear to be Moroccans living in Europe. With two of them, we share the same segment of DNA while the one who shares 9cM has a somewhat longer segment in common, encompassing most of the "Northern Africa" segment on the chromosome. Since we do not have any known Canary Islander ancestry, we suspect the North African admixture here is a testament to the centuries of North African interactions with the Iberian peninsula, probably dating back to medieval times. 

If Ancestry one day gets its act together and shows users which segments they match others on, searching African DNA matches will be even more informative and useful. Our hope is to one day pursue this with West and Central African matches. It would be amazing to explore this with the West African ancestry of Haitians.