Am I part Native American or African American

Question

What DNA test will allow me to determine if I am Part Native American or African American

Answer 1

An autosomal DNA test (the most popular and common kind). I'd recommend Ancestry.com's test if you want to use it to learn more about your genealogy.

Comments

While you can get the autosomal test at several different places, ancestry.com has the largest database and will therefore is likely to have the most results at matching you to relatives who have been tested.  FTdna.com and 23andme.com are also popular testing companies.  If you can be a little bit patient, they all have sales frequently during the year, so it may be worth waiting a few months until you can take advantage of the lower cost.  The sales are usually tied to holidays - expect to see them before Mother's Day, Father's Day, Christmas, plus a few other times.

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Autosomal DNA tests are great for finding relatives and for tracing your ancestry to a specific continent, not so reliable for assigning ethnicities to your ancestors.

Answer 2

I don't think you can prove Native American ancestry with DNA, and you need to trace your ancestors to a specific tribe.  The reasons are explained better in this Wiki article.

Native American ancestry - Wikipedia

Just giving a perspective, or different view. Of course you are free to make your own choices to prove the link.

Comments

On 23andMe my granddaughter shows 23% Indigenous American today. Her father is Mexican, grandmother definitely of tribal origin in Mexico. She gets about the same % Southern European (which seems to show the Conquistadores!). And the rest is Northwestern European (mostly Irish).

I believe that category was ʻNative Americanʻ some time ago.

I agree that, currently, you cannot trace to a specific tribe with  DNA. But I perceive that improvements are are making the test results more reliable.

Answer 3

Your question is tagged with "mitochondrial", so I'm guessing that you already have a clue about the answer. A Full Spectrum mtDNA test, at FTDNA, could yield a result that indicates a native haplogroup. My ancestors had C1c and D1, which are both native haplogroups. I'm not familiar with the research on African American haplogroups.   

You can also take an autosomal DNA test at Ancestry (or FTDNA or MyHeritage) to also get an ethnicity estimate. I have seen Ancestry attribute various native regions in Canada, parts of the US, and into Central and South America. I assume that they have an African American ethnicity measurement, but I have no experience with that. Sorry.

Comments

My daughter's Ancestry DNA test did pinpoint her African American ethnicity to South Carolina which is correct. It was also able to name the African countries her ancestors came from.

They are improving their database all the time and I find them to be most accurate to my paper trail research. I've also tested with 23 and Me and uploaded my Ancestry DNA test to My Heritage and Ged Match.

23 and Me is most useful if you want to take their health surveys. I'm not sure how accurate those are as I have not formed an opinion yet.