In Canada, there are advantages to proving your First Nations (aka Native American for those not familiar with the term First Nations) heredity. Here’s a direct link to some of the benefits available to Canadians with proven First Nations heredity – https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1461939932579/1461939954663.
A company, Viaguard Accu-Metrics, was recently accused of providing fake DNA evidence of First Nations heredity – https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/dna-ancestry-test. If you don’t read the article, basically somebody became skeptical of the DNA company’s First Nations claims and submitted three DNA samples that were supposed to be grandparent, parent, and child, but includes a dog’s DNA and the other two samples were from the same person, and here’s the results (note Snoopy was the dog):
On Aug. 26, 2017, he received three separate emails from Viaguard, each containing a link to a PDF. The test results, which he provided to CBC News, were identical — both Côté and Snoopy had 20 per cent Native American ancestry: 12 per cent Abenaki and eight per cent Mohawk.
Here’s the link to their First Nations/Native American testing, http://www.accu-metrics.com/first-nation.php but it’s showing File not found. if you click on it which is why I haven’t hyperlinked it. I checked out Viaguard Accu-Metrics website and it offers a variety of DNA testing options. Time will tell if the company suffers negative feedback on its other DNA tests as a result of this situation especially since they do offer legal testing for certain DNA testing. In an unusual twist, they offer a variety of dog DNA testing:
Canine Parentage Analysis
Dog Breed DNA
Designer Dog Breed DNA
Canine Breeds
Pit Bull Exemption
I haven’t looked at the rules for Canadian proof in the link to the Canadian First Nations benefits above, but it sounds like a DNA test was considered proof of First Nations heredity. It will be interesting to see how this turns out since there are other companies (AncestryDNA, FamilyTree DNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage, LivingDNA, and several other companies) that provide Native American percentages. In my opinion, if it’s a small percentage, it may be noise and not actual Native American. How small a percentage constitutes possible noise depends on which DNA expert you believe with ranges of 1 – 10%.
In the United States, each tribe determines the rules for tribal membership with most tribes going one of two routes with some tribes requiring both routes to qualify for tribal membership. The two roots are blood quantum – basically your percentage of tribe based on the 50% rule (you are half your parents’ tribal percentage). This can range from a low of 1/32 to a high of 5/8 and each tribe that uses this system as part of their requirements for tribal membership sets the percentage. The second route is being able to trace an ancestor on a tribal census with those handful of tribes who are listed on the Dawes Rolls generally requiring tracing to an ancestor who was on a Dawes Roll. The downside to this system is many tribal members used fake names or were unaware of the various tribal census or Dawes Rolls. Some tribes require both systems – blood quantum and tribal census/Dawes Rolls. In those cases, if you can prove one, but not the other, you wouldn’t qualify for membership.
The only time U. S. tribes accept DNA testing is to prove or disprove a child/parent relationship. For example, a person claims a person is or isn’t the parent of a child. In that case, the tribes will accept a DNA result that determines if there is or isn’t a parent/child relationship.
One thing most people don’t get is you don’t inherit exactly 50% of your parents’ ethnic results. You can inherit anywhere from none to all of a parent’s specific ethnic results. Also, currently all that DNA ethnicity results can provide for Native American tends to be limited to how much Native American you have. While some companies claim to narrow it down to specific tribes, none can conclusively prove it. Maybe one day there will be a way to conclusively prove if you have certain markers, then you have an ancestor that was from a specific tribe. However, that’s probably at least a few decades away. Not enough full-blooded Native Americans have tested at this point, and after some shenanigans by a few researchers, many tribes actively discourage tribal members from DNA testing.
Ups Downs Family History 