Inheritance Breakdown with Ancestry

Another fun aspect of Ancestry DNA's services is the ability to check which parent contributed to the ethnicities estimate in one's DNA origins. For my Haitian parent, it is interesting to see that the entirety of their 11% European ancestry is derived from their mother. This matches my genealogical research into the origins of this grandparent, who appears to have affranchi ancestors during the colonial period. As we speculated previously, the non-French ancestry may all be France but due to the measurement of French DNA in Ancestry's algorithm, the French ancestry was split into Scotland, France, Portugal and Wales. Anyway, the results confirm my theory about our Haitian parent's mother. 

The father, however, may have been entirely or almost entirely sub-Saharan African in origin. What is interesting about him is the entirety of our parent's "Nigerian" ancestry allegedly came from him. If so, we assume this grandfather had substantial "Nigerian" origin. That, however, is a problematic concept and, based on the records we have for French slaving, we assume his "Nigerian" ancestry was likely some mix of Ibo, Yoruba, Nupe, Hausa and possibly others. Our grandmother, on the other hand, was the one who possessed far more ancestry from Cameroon, Congo, and Western Bantu Peoples. She was also the one who bequeathed Senegalese ancestry to our parent.

The African ancestry of these two was, therefore, rather distinct though they occasionally overlapped. According to Ancestry's Chromosome Painter, our grandfather's "Nigeria" segments were often rather long, perhaps hinting at recent ancestry. If Ibos were among the large number of enslaved Africans in Bainet during the late 1700s, perhaps he had, at least in part, Ibo origins. Our parent also matched with Yoruba and Igbo Nigerians through her test results. She also matched with Mandinka people from Sierra Leone and Mali and two individuals from the DRC. Therefore, we consider it likely that she is of Yoruba, Ibo, Bambara, Mandingue, "Congo" and possibly Wolof, Akan, and "Arada" origins.