Shared African Matches

Since we have been perusing African matches on Ancestry again, we couldn't help but notice that I only share a handful of the same with my Haitian parent, the source of most of my sub-Saharan African ancestry. While we generally shared matches with the same regions of West Africa, we rarely shared the same individuals. Often, however, they were Yorubas who received Haiti as a Journey. Their last names and the predictable mixture of "Nigeria" and "Benin & Togo" in their admixture results are usually a dead give away of this. However, looking at our shared matches might give us more probably identical by descent matches, or perhaps more specific ones. 

First, we both shared 10 cM and 11 cM across 1 segment with someone from Ghana. Based on their last name, a Ga origin is probable. However, that Ghanaian match was only 28% Ivory Coast & Ghana in his admixture results, a pattern Tracing African Roots has demonstrated to be more common for Ewe. Thus, we highly suspect this person has Ewe origins. The Ewe of Ghana overlap with those of Togo and, thus, Benin. Of course, we could also share DNA with this person through their Ivory Coast/Ghana estimate. For example, our parent has another Ga-Dangme match on 23andme. All of his grandparents are identified as Accra natives and his surname suggests Ga-Dangme origins. Our parent even has another Ga match on Ancestry, with 8 cM shared DNA. This Ga's results included a 34% Benin & Togo estimate.

The next shared match was a big surprise. It was an African DNA match that I missed previously. And it is to a woman from Cameroon (estimated 95% Cameroon results). Her last name is also common in Congo, but her low Western Bantu score leads me to think she hails from a Cameroon ethnic group, likely the Bamileke. According to a Cameroonian friend, our match's surname is specific to western Cameroon. Since areas of Cameroon sent captives to the Biafran coast, perhaps some Haitians do harbor distant Bamileke or Cameroonian origins. Intriguingly, the Cameroonian match is supposedly from our parent's maternal side.

Perhaps even more baffling is our shared match with a person with roots in Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Judging by their admixture results and surnames, we assume one parent is of Temne extraction while the other may be Edo or Urhobo. I assume our shared ancestry in Nigeria is more likely than Sierra Leone Temne peoples to explain the match, but more information is needed to reach any conclusion. Indeed, this person may have some Fulani ancestry, too, if their trace North Africa estimate and Senegal estimate are any indication.

Finally, the Igbo connection. This one always struck us as clear based on the documented presence of a large Igbo population among the captives in colonial Haiti's South. Similarly, the only close African DNA matches for both myself and our Haitian parent was with an Igbo from Nigeria. Furthermore, our parent's 23andme results also identified the Igbo and Southeastern Nigeria as a close match. Igbo ancestry (as well as other Nigerian lineages) are undoubtedly part of our origins.

North-Central Nigeria and Hausa Ancestry in Haiti

After reading Fonte Felipe's insightful comments on the 2024 Ancestry Update and its relevance for Afro-descended populations, like Haitians, we were inspired to check our matches through our Haitian side. I wanted to gather a very rough idea of how many Haitians who are matches (close and distant) received the new North-Central Nigeria category in their estimate. Since they used a large reference panel population that seems to be centered on the Hausa people (as well as some smaller groups in northern Nigeria), this is a step in the right direction for Ancestry to begin distinguishing between Northern Nigeria and southern Nigeria. Who knows, perhaps one day they will also have better data and include northeastern Nigerian groups like the Kanuri for full coverage of the vast Northern region. As for now, we at least know the North-Central Nigeria category includes Afizere, Anaguta, Atyap, Berom, Ham and Hausa. 

What strikes us in our brief attempt at tracking this new category in our Haitian matches was its rarity. Perhaps this was due to the update including other new categories that created more problems and hindered a better understanding of the West and Central African ancestry in African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and Afro-Latin American populations. Nonetheless, the North-Central Nigeria category seems to be based on a large panel of over 500 people and, according to their map, correlates very strongly with the Hausaland region of northern Nigeria and southern Niger. Their map does not extend this category further east into Borno, so we assume they do not have any data on the Kanuri or those other groups yet. That the category does seem to correlate well with Hausa and northern Nigerian groups can perhaps be verified in its infrequent appearance. 

A cursory examination of all Haitians out of 1,612 matches, of which we searched for via family trees and typical Haitian surnames, only revealed 16 with the North-Central Nigeria, usually at 1% or 2%. The maximum, besides my own estimated 5%, was 4%. Only 3 of our matches had a score of 3% in the North-Central Nigerian category, including one second cousin. Since my Haitian side's matches present a probably disproportionately Sud-Est-centered view of Haitian genetic diversity, called Port-au-Prince to Western Department du Sud-Est, and there aren't as many Haitians taking these Ancestry DNA tests as other groups, one should only interpret this carefully. Nonetheless, it does match the rather limited or low historically attested presence of Hausa and northern Nigerian groups among the enslaved African population in Saint-Domingue. Intriguingly, we also came across distant matches with roots in Louisiana, often with French surnames, who had low amounts of North-Central Nigeria ancestry, too. This seems plausible given the documented presence of Hausa captives in Louisiana. One can check runaway slave notices for evidence of their presence there, too. And from what we could see with African Americans or Louisiana Creole matches on our Haitian side, the vast majority always had low estimates for North-Central Nigeria. 

Unfortunately, we did not search the matches on the Puerto Rican side as heavily. Since the documented Hausa presence in the Spanish Caribbean, to my knowledge, is only attested for Cuba, which, like Brazil, received many slaves from northern Nigeria during and after the wars and conflicts generated by Uthman Dan Fodio's jihad, we assumed most Puerto Ricans would have even less North-Central Nigeria than Haitians. We did find 4 close and distant relatives who did harbor North-Central Nigeria, but usually only at 1%. Nonetheless, we should probably explore the question of captives from Hausaland and other areas of today's northern Nigeria in Puerto Rico. After all, it's certainly possible that the smuggling and intra-Caribbean trade in slaves from other parts of the West Indies introduced some from the "Central Sudan" region. But we overall expect this to be far lower than Cuba and Brazil.

Which brings us to our final point. It will be interesting to see more data on Brazilians and Cubans with the update in North-Central Nigerian ancestry. We could be wrong in assuming too much here, but the rise of the Sokoto Caliphate and the conflicts that followed may have generated a notable increase in northern populations sold into slavery and reaching the Americas. By then, after 1804, a disproportionate share surely reached Cuba and Brazil. The British West Indies, however, also received its share. The documented presence of Hausas among the African Muslims in 19th century Trinidad, for example, is a topic explored by historians like Michael Gomez in Black Crescent. Indeed, we even have a brief ajami source written by a Philip Finlay, of Gobir, who lived in Trinidad. So we expect that some Afro-Caribbean, Cuban, and Brazilian groups will have some minor degree of Hausa ancestry. Jamaica was likewise the setting for a  possibly fictionalized or invented narrative written about a Katsina prince who was sold into slavery in Jamaica. Furthermore, there's the documented case of a West African Muslim enslaved in Jamaica who wrote an Arabic account of his background, indicating his mother's Hausa family's connections to Katsina and Borno.

The next step for Ancestry DNA should be to improve its process for identifying and distinguishing the major regions of Nigeria and including more northern populations. We would also love to see more data on how the North-Central Nigeria estimate varied for Haitians. After all, our own matches were biased toward the Sud-Est, so seeing more representative samples for Haitians might reveal some slight regional differences.