Ghana, Togo and Benin

Although our Haitian parent shares a Ga DNA match with me, suggesting an identical by descent relationship, we wonder if we are matching these Ga from Ghana via their Benin & Togo marked chromosome segments or via what Ancestry refers to as "Ivory Coast and Ghana." We suspect part of the reason for matches with Ga from southern Ghana is their genetic overlaps and historical interactions with the Ewe and peoples to the east, a major source of the Haitian people's ethnogenesis (the Slave Coast).

We were able to check on Gedmatch for a Ga person (judging by their surname, suggesting roots in the Ada region) who matched our parent, and compared the shared DNA segment to the label assigned to Chromosome 18 from Ancestry (with the help of the DNA Painter tool). Well, it turns out this Ghaianain person's shared segment with our parent falls under the Benin and Togo-marked segment. We wonder if it is similar for the other Ga we matched with, all of whom had very high Benin and Togo estimates. As for the Ga in Saint-Domingue, Geggus has described them as being lumped into the Coromantees (Cramanti in the Saint Dominguan press) category with the Akan. If one of our ancestral regions, Bainet, was partly supplied in captives by British smugglers, then the "Coromantees" were definitely present in the Jacmel Quartier, perhaps under the more frequent name of Mine (Mina). What makes things more confusing is the broad use by the French of the term Gold Coast, likely overlapping with the Slave Coast trade and perhaps bringing in Ga and Ewe groups from southeastern Ghana to French ships there, too. Descourtilz even mentioned the Ga peoples of "Acra" in a short chapter of one of his books on the African "nations" of Saint Domingue. There they were, unsurprisingly, lumped in with Akan groups.

Interestingly, our mother matched a Mandinka person from Sierra Leone on a segment of Chromosome 2 marked Ivory Coast & Ghana. We would love to know which populations were used for the reference panel for that area, although it is no surprise if someone from Sierra Leone might have similar DNA to some of the groups in Ivory Coast and Ghana. However, at least her match with a Congolese person did fall on a segment assigned to "Western Bantu Peoples" even if the specific match is not from one of the ethnic groups present in colonial Haiti. 

Exploring African Matches

Whilst searching for matches on the maternal side, we also sought to take note of any African matches. Going by family trees and surnames, we only encountered a few on Ancestry DNA. Unlike our Haitian parent, we did not find any matches with Malians or people from Sierra Leone. Nonetheless, we did find it interesting to note a shared 10 cM match with a person bearing a Ga surname. The Ga, who speak a Kwa language, would have been present in Saint Domingue to some degree, and can be found in Ghana. Since the French slave trade along the Gold Coast was on a smaller scale, it is possible Ga or related groups may have been acquired via intra-Caribbean slave trading or, perhaps, via the Slave Coast. The more surprising match, and of course the weakest, was with a Ugandan person at 8 cM of shared DNA. This is almost certainly due to the common ancestry of Bantu-speakers in Uganda and populations in Central Africa. I guess this is perhaps evidence of Central African ancestry that Haitians bear, although I did not detect any closer matches with Congolese or Angolans. 

The more common and to be expected matches were with Igbo and Yoruba individuals from Nigeria. We seem to have inherited, through the maternal side, matches with members of one particular Igbo family. Based on a posted family tree, all of their ancestors were Igbo and they seem to hail from Owerri. What we found remarkable here is the rather high 23 shared cM with one of these Igbo, only somewhat smaller than our Haitian parent's shared 29 cM with this individual. This does seem to strongly suggest Igbo and southeastern Nigerian peoples contributed heavily to the genetic makeup of Haitians. One finds evidence of this in records of the French slave trade and plantation inventories in Saint Domingue. As for the Yoruba matches, this is not too surprising either, as the "Nago" were undoubtedly present in Saint-Domingue. Yoruba or people from southeastern Nigeria and Benin with related genetic components were clearly present in Haiti. Through Ouidah, Porto-Novo, Badagry (which is recalled in the name of a lwa in Haitian Vodou) and other ports of call along the Slave Coast, captives of Yoruba origin were sucked into the hell of Saint Domingue.

Overall, the results of this search demonstrate the largely Lower Guinea ancestry in Haitians. We were surprised to not find Mali or Mandinka matches, like our Haitian parent, but in the future more users from Senegal, Mali, Sierra Leone, and other parts of Africa might upload their results and show up as matches. What is most striking for now is the strong Igbo connection, something noted in our Haitian parent's African matches. Trying to check for African matches assigned to our other side should be next, although the vast Hispanic customer base showing up as matches presents more difficulties for finding them. As a side note, it was also amusing to see distant matches with white people in Quebec, showing matches from the maternal side with France-associated ancestry.