Talk:Native American ancestry

Tautology
«Hispanic families in Latin America». Dude, by definition, all families in Latin America are Hispanic, save, perhaps, some immigrant who arrived last night. See Wikipedia: "The term Hispanic (Spanish: hispano or hispánico) broadly refers to the people, nations, and cultures that have a historical link to the Spanish language or the country of Spain."

To reiterate: the only exception would be a non-Hispanic family, say an immigrant New Zealand family who arrived recently to Argentina and has not yet assimilated.XavierItzm (talk) 05:11, 23 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Latin America includes Brazil, not only Hispanic America.--Isinbill (talk) 01:20, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Note to IP editor
Hi IP editor - you are removing a substantial chunk of cited content. Your edit summaries assert that there are studies supporting your changes, but you have not given any specific links. Please set out your concerns with the current content here, and provide citations to reliable sources that might support the changes you want to make; if you persist in removing sourced content without discussion, your IP address may be blocked from editing. Thanks Girth Summit  (blether)  18:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Bryc et al
Relevant source quotes:

Link to figure 3 demonstrating variability of ancestral components by state (data can also be found in Supplemental Document S1):

Differences in African, Native American, and European Subpopulation Ancestry among Self-Reported European Americans from Different States

- Hunan201p (talk) 20:56, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Recent additions, WP:UNDUE
your recent additions include original research and WP:UNDUE weught, including changing the lede to this:

Well, that's not "a theory in human population genetics", but more like the opinion of Kim TallBear. That kind of WP:WEASEL wording is not found in Bryc, et al. (2015) or Spear, et al. (2020), which are actual genetics studies.

And in another edit you even projected TallBear's perspective on to those studies, such as by substituting common-sense language like "Native American ancestry" with markers associated with Indigenous ancestry or what these companies mark as Native American ancestry. In addition to being simply false, this language is clearly adopted from this source, "Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism", which concerns haplogroups and not the genome-wide genetic data found in Bryc, et al. and Spear, et al. and countless other studies, none of which use 'markers', i.e., haplogroups or single mutations, but genome-wide ancestry.

The dogmatic language here: There is no DNA test that can reliably confirm Native American ancestry, and no DNA test can indicate tribal origin is repetitive and well beyond the scope of the article, and gives the article a distinctly biased tone based on what some anthropologists think rather than what genetics research says. - Hunan201p (talk) 21:55, 26 July 2023 (UTC)


 * This is uncontroversial language. "Markers" is used in a number of the sources; it's not OR to use this language in an article that discusses DNA. Terms like "alleles" could be used as well, but "markers" is more common sense for a general readership. Read the other sources. The source you added is not scholarly and uses some problematic language. Multiple scholarly sources agree that these genetic results cannot reliably indicate if someone has Native American ancestry. Therefore, we cannot call it "Native American ancestry" or things like "Native American genes" in Wikipedia's voice. The Kim Tallbear quotes were already in your version. I just relocated them in the paragraph and compressed refs. The sources are geneticists. If you don't like what they have to say about the lack of genetic material donated by (or stolen from) Indigenous people in their databases, or the lack of reliability of their databases, there's nothing I can do about that. If you like, we can add more about the commercial DNA companies that will tell you that your Dalmation is Apache. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 22:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * you wrote: "Markers" is used in a number of the sources;
 * This is incorrect, as they do not rely on "markers" in the sense that your sources describe.
 * Bryc, et al. (2015) do not rely on 'markers', and explicitly champion their study as one that relies on genome-wide ancestry rather than markers:
 * The authors continue:
 * Spear, et al. 2020 also say:
 * The sources you have added to the article regarding "markers", such as the "Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism" refer only to single-point markers, those found in Y-DNA and mtDNA:
 * You cannot twist this and apply it to genome-wide studies using over 100,000 markers from across the genome. These anthropologists are only referring to Y-DNA haplogroups and mtDNA haplogroups when they say "markers". They're not referring to genome-wide ancestry research that includes a vast expanse of the autosomes.
 * The source you added is not scholarly and uses some problematic language.
 * You are presumably referring to Spear, et al. (2020). On what grounds do you assume it is un-scholarly and what is the "problematic" language in the article?
 * Multiple scholarly sources agree that these genetic results cannot reliably indicate if someone has Native American ancestry
 * ...Actually, I haven't seen where any of these sources describe Bryc, et al (2015) or Spear, et al. (2020). Could you show me where? Otherwise you are making WP:OR conclusions. It doesn't seem to me like you actually understand what these authors are criticizing. - Hunan201p (talk) 23:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The one I wasn't sure is scholarly is Fitzerald, largely due to being on Routledge. But I see she cites Tallbear, as well, and uses "markers" in the link you posted:
 * - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 23:21, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe Routledge is considered an unreliable publisher? I am certain that Fitzgerald is using 'markers' in the same sense as the other authors: uniparental markers. - Hunan201p (talk) 23:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I didn't say unreliable, just that at first glance the text didn't seem scholarly. I didn't cut the source, just added more. The thing is, you're trying to say that an Indigenous perspective on Indigenous genetics is Undue Weight? Is that what you're saying? If you don't like the exact wording around "markers" please propose something exact that doesn't use Wikipedia's voice to say these are unquestionably "Native American" indicators in cases where the researchers and companies have admitted that their samples are either from other populations or can't be isolated enough to claim they are solely "Native American". This is in no way personal, but I hope you understand by reading about the issues around this why we have to be precise about our language, both in terms of accuracy, as well as what we can and can't say in wiki-voice. Best, - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 23:47, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not against Kim TallBear being cited in the article. The problem with the article is when we project POV on to non-TallBear sources, as I noted above. We have to cite the sources as they are, in order to maintain the neutrality standards that are the foundation of Wikipedia. Undue weight cannot be lent to an anti-genetics POV, especially from fringe sources like TallBear who deny the objectivity of science. It must be recognized that TallBear herself readily admits that she is going against the grain, as can be seen in the citations you've already added. - Hunan201p (talk) 21:38, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The "objectivity of science" is only as objective as the scientists interpreting it. Tallbear is not "anti-genetics", if you actually read her work. She is just critical of how the results are interpreted and applied, as are many in the field who know the history of the treatment of Indigenous peoples and others who have been colonized by the scientists studying them. I ask you to look at your assumptions in the ways you are phrasing things, both here on talk and in the article. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 22:17, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Tallbear is not in the field of genetics (she is a sociologist who critiques genetic research), and she describes the field of genetics, and many Native American tribes, as unsympathetic to her views, as we see in her New Scientist interview cited in the article. Pande (2022) says:
 * Pande is not at all critical of TallBear. What she does show is that Tallbear is fighting an uphill battle against genetic science.
 * It is true that TallBear belongs to a community of sociologists who share similar views about genetic research, per Hoover 2023:
 * However they are not actual geneticists, and this kind of thinking is conspiciously absent in actual genetic studies, as TallBear says.
 * These views are, of course, perfectly relevant to the article's discussion. And they should be cited and mentioned here. The problem is when we lend undue weight to them, to the point where we use critical language to describe actual genetic studies, as we've done with Bryc and Spear. These studies do not even claim to establish anyone's tribal affiliation or Native-ness. They simply give estimates for population-wide Native American admixture.
 * The use of the word "theory" in the lede is another example of being out of whack with WP:NPOV, which is probably why someone other than myself removed it.
 * It also helps to add context to the Tallbear and co. content, by explaining that Native American tribes increasingly do employ genetic testing as a method of determining membership. A blanket statement that the tests are useless is misleading without an explanation of who is using them and their popularity. Other points from Kim TallBear, for instance that genetic testing might threaten Native American political authority, are also relevant to the topic, as is the notion that genetics cannot determine cultural affiliation, which is not fringe and could be cited from different authors. - Hunan201p (talk) 23:34, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Which tribes are you referring to that "employ genetic testing as a method of determining membership"? Legitimate tribes only use DNA to confirm direct relationships / paper trail, such as confirming paternity/maternity. No legitimate tribe takes ethnicity percentages the way they are presented in this article. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 18:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It is true that TallBear belongs to a community of sociologists who share similar views about genetic research, per Hoover 2023:
 * However they are not actual geneticists, and this kind of thinking is conspiciously absent in actual genetic studies, as TallBear says.
 * These views are, of course, perfectly relevant to the article's discussion. And they should be cited and mentioned here. The problem is when we lend undue weight to them, to the point where we use critical language to describe actual genetic studies, as we've done with Bryc and Spear. These studies do not even claim to establish anyone's tribal affiliation or Native-ness. They simply give estimates for population-wide Native American admixture.
 * The use of the word "theory" in the lede is another example of being out of whack with WP:NPOV, which is probably why someone other than myself removed it.
 * It also helps to add context to the Tallbear and co. content, by explaining that Native American tribes increasingly do employ genetic testing as a method of determining membership. A blanket statement that the tests are useless is misleading without an explanation of who is using them and their popularity. Other points from Kim TallBear, for instance that genetic testing might threaten Native American political authority, are also relevant to the topic, as is the notion that genetics cannot determine cultural affiliation, which is not fringe and could be cited from different authors. - Hunan201p (talk) 23:34, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Which tribes are you referring to that "employ genetic testing as a method of determining membership"? Legitimate tribes only use DNA to confirm direct relationships / paper trail, such as confirming paternity/maternity. No legitimate tribe takes ethnicity percentages the way they are presented in this article. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 18:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Which tribes are you referring to that "employ genetic testing as a method of determining membership"? Legitimate tribes only use DNA to confirm direct relationships / paper trail, such as confirming paternity/maternity. No legitimate tribe takes ethnicity percentages the way they are presented in this article. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 18:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Bryc et al. data collection

 * Hunan.... the study you cite relied on self-reporting for ethnic identity:
 * Given that criteria, it's possible, even probable, that none of the DNA in their studies came from actual Native American people. There are also multiple other sources that indicate these companies have no North American Native DNA samples. Go read Pretendian. This is a big problem. You don't seem to understand that using a source's voice is not "NPOV" to put into Wikivoice when there are conflicting voices. The criticism of the lack of actual Indigenous participants in these DNA studies is documented and admitted to by the DNA companies themselves. It is in no way fringe. You are pushing a POV here that, while I'm sure you consider yourself well-meaning, seems to be to have some very large blind spots and inherent bias. I'm sorry, but you really don't seem to understand the problem here. : - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 23:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You have misunderstood the quoted paragraph. Bryc, et al. generate cohorts of self-reported European American, African American, and Latino individuals from self-reported ethnicity and identity. Notice, there are no Native American cohorts in this study. The ancestry estimates (which do include Native American ancestry) are obtained from genotype data by using a Support Vector Machine-based algorithm that infers population ancestry with Native American, African, and European reference panels, leveraging geographic information collected through surveys (see Durand et al.33).
 * So, the Native American ancestry reference panels in this study are not taken from the sample, and are not self-reported, but from the reference panels obtained from Durand, et al. Bryc et al. actually mention the limitation of using Indigenous Central and South American reference populations that you referred to, which can also be added to the Bryc et al. section.
 * But your continued switching of the section title and messing up the language in this section with an unwarranted WP:NPOV wikivoice for Bryc and Spear is unjustified. I am pretty sure most people at the original research noticeboard would agree with me that you are the one with an WP:NPOV bias here. - Hunan201p (talk) 19:16, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * You need to be more clear about exactly what is the source of what they are calling "Native American DNA". Why do you think this source is more important than all the others that say the companies do not have any North American DNA to match people with? - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 19:34, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This is the Durand cite: 33. Durand, E.Y., Do, C.B., Mountain, J.L., and Macpherson, J.M. (2014). Ancestry composition: A novel, efficient pipeline for ancestry deconvolution. bioRxiv pp. 010512.
 * But it's still 23andMe's inadequate, boycotted by Natives, database.
 * "I previously wrote about a large-scale genetic analysis among the American population by personal genetics and genealogy company 23andMe, using its extensive database to begin to decipher the ancestral origins of various ethnic groups in the United States. Though the study involved more than 160,000 people, less than one percent of those who participated self-identified as Native American." - Suresh, Arvind (6 Oct 2016). "Native Americans fear potential exploitation of their DNA". Genetic Literacy Project. Archived from the original on November 23, 2021. Retrieved 7 Sep 2021.  The article then goes on to discuss the boycotts. Correction: Carey discusses the boycotts. Officially by the Navajo Nation, unofficially by Natives in general. -  CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 19:52, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The study makes clear that the reference panels were obtained from Durand, et al. Thus, I could not have been more clear. I made no judgment as to the "importance" of this source; I simply described it accurately from a detached, objective POV, per WP:NPOV.
 * Your desceiption of Durand, et al. is inaccurate and your quote not relevant. Durand, et al's sample includes 1700 samples from public databases, and 8000 from 23andme. Native American ancestry is computated using four ASW individuals with high proportions of Native American ancestry (NA20299, NA20314, NA20414 and NA19625)., three of whom have previously been reported as likely to have Native American ancestry (Gourraud et al., 2014)..
 * But none of this matters. All we can do is fairly and accurately cite Bryc et al, without expressing what is "inadequate" or not about this peer reviewed, expert-published study. To do anything else is nothing short of original research. Their study wasn't "boycotted" by anyone. - Hunan201p (talk) 20:07, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Where is the data on Durand? The cite is just text. Four people? Three people? What? How is that a meaningful database? I have no idea what your point here is. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 20:14, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * It's OK if you have no idea, because none of this relevant to anything we can say about Bryc et al. in Wiki. Making judgments about the methods of one source to criticize the quality of another, when not explicitly stated in the source, is well outside of what is allowed here per WP:OR. - Hunan201p (talk) 20:21, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * No, you misunderstand WP:OR. As Wikipedians, we can and must evaluate sources for reliability and credibility. When it comes to Indigenous topics, we must bear in mind possible bias. We need to know the agendas, perspectives, and details about the researchers and their studies. Indigenous articles on the 'pedia have had to be cleaned up due to racist "studies" being included. The marketing of ethnicity percentages, based on flawed studies, is a big issue. If we don't know more details than that they used 23andMe, or a study with unknown criteria, it's a huge problem with inclusion of said study and your uncritical promotion of it. It certainly can't be used, solely and in opposition to a handful of other sources that contradict it, to say in wikivoice the opposite of what all the other sources say. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 20:36, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * All of the studies I have added to the article are peer-reviewed and published by known genetics experts. We cannot evaluate their contents, only report what exactly what they have said in a fair and neutral way. You have not provided a single study thst contradicts it, just media reports describing it, and not in the same way as yourself. The word "racist" is unwarranted here. - Hunan201p (talk) 21:34, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is known to have a problem with inherent bias. The same problem exists in academia. You cannot ignore all the other sources and only use one to bias the lead. That is what WP:UNDUE weight is. I have fixed this oversight. I strongly suggest you do not edit war to privilege one source, with an unknown pool of donors and an admitted comparison population that relied on self-id, over all the other sources that admit there are little to no North American Natives in the data pool of 23andMe and the other commercial companies being used for these studies. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 22:52, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I have not privileged any one source. Note that the quote I added to Bryc, et al. in the lede was purely WP:SECONDARY in nature. Bryc et al. describe mutliple other studies purporting to have done exactly this: detect Native American ancestry in non-Indigenous populations. Any criticisms of Bryc's methodologies obviously don't apply to this factual WP:SECONDARY content.
 * On Wikipedia, we cite sources fairly without lending undue weight to POV. That's exactly what I did. You are doing exactly the opposite, repeatedly, by introducing speculatory language and intruding on Bryc, et al. with your unrelated sources SureshGLP and CareyNHGRI, to cast WP:SYNTH doubts and preserve your POV. You won't fare well with this kind of blatantly biased and heavy handed editing no matter who you think you are. - Hunan201p (talk) 23:39, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * You are mixing up your refs here. Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Native Americans in the United States are not the same populations. The databases have some of the former, but cannot isolate the latter, per the sources, but you continue to revert to say this, removing the sources that document this. How is this not WP:TENDENTIOUS and WP:UNDUE on your part. This is wholly inappropriate for you to hide the data this way. I am not excluding your fave study, but you are cutting refs to the ones that say they do not have enough North American DNA donors to say it's "Native American" - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 00:50, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm going to delve a wee bit into OR to make a point. We can look at say, a specific mitochondrial DNA subtype that's found among PNW folks. BUT it's also found in Thailand. And Bolivia. This specific subtype can't specifically show a certain tribal association, simply a general area. But also Bolivia. And Thailand (and a number of other locations). There are also other subtypes that show up in arctic Russia and Spain as well as Indigenous areas of the United States and Canada. I have yet to see any test results that associate with a specific tribe and would be interested in seeing that research and the methodology associated with it. Indigenous girl (talk) 20:05, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * strangely enough, Kim Tallbear describes one such study in which a Native haplogroup was liked to a tribal member, on page 174 of her 2013 book Native American DNA.
 * On page 174 she writes:
 * Tallbear's book is far more reasonable than the title of the New Scientist article she was interviewed for and that doesn't surprise me because let's face it the idea that no Native American descent can ever be traced is an incredibly stupid, dogmatic, unrealistic, and anti-science thing to say. - Hunan201p (talk) 23:46, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Again, this is what I already mentioned above. The sole use of DNA by tribes is to match one person to a particular relative, as in paternity tests or grandchildren and cousins who may have been adopted out. Person to person. This is a whole different thing than the blunt tool of ethnicity admixtures. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 00:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Hunan201p I'm not going to argue with you. I am actually familiar with that study and Y-chromosome analysis identified a range of Native American, West Eurasian, and African haplogroups in the population. The probable Cherokee ancestor was due to matches in self-identified individuals in the larger project. Remember, this study occurred about 15 years ago and we have learned that self-identification is more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to supplying genetic material. Indigenous girl (talk) 01:31, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Again, this is what I already mentioned above. The sole use of DNA by tribes is to match one person to a particular relative, as in paternity tests or grandchildren and cousins who may have been adopted out. Person to person. This is a whole different thing than the blunt tool of ethnicity admixtures. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 00:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Hunan201p I'm not going to argue with you. I am actually familiar with that study and Y-chromosome analysis identified a range of Native American, West Eurasian, and African haplogroups in the population. The probable Cherokee ancestor was due to matches in self-identified individuals in the larger project. Remember, this study occurred about 15 years ago and we have learned that self-identification is more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to supplying genetic material. Indigenous girl (talk) 01:31, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Unverifiable weyanoke link
My attempts to find a verifiable link to Weyanoke.org Tallbear citation have proven unfruitful.

Wayback machine has a number of "captures" of the link, but all are the same rotted page as the raw url, or otherwise broken:

https://web.archive.org/web/20211122220759/https://www.weyanoke.org/historyculture/hc-DNAandNativeAmericanAncestry.html

Anyone got a replacement citation that says something similar? Hunan201p (talk) 21:28, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Tallbear pages
Tallbear, Kim (2013) pp.132-136 is cited in the lede, as a result of using the ref name cite from the main.

Pp.132-136 are an accurate range for the content about those with Native American ancestry in their test results still identifying as white, but these pages do not substantiate the lede claim. The content about Native American DNA geneaology starts from pp.142-xx (Chapter 4: The Genographic Project, concerning Spencer Wells's commentary). I am noting this here as a reminder to work it out with a harvnb cite using specific page numbers when I get the precious time, any help from CorbieV or others is greatly appreciated. Have a good one. - Hunan201p (talk) 19:18, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Calling a spade a spade
This easily digestible and straightforward first sentence:

In human population genetics Native American ancestry has been detected in non-Indigenous populations.

Has been changed to this really monstrous heap of words:

In human population genetics, genetic indicators assigned by most researchers to Indigenous Peoples of the Americas have been detected in non-Indigenous populations; these indicators have come to be known in most studies, and marketed by DNA companies as, Native American ancestry.

The former accurately reflects the pull quote in the citation given, which boldy states that "Native American" ancestry is found in European and African Americans, and can be reliably detected at low proportions in genotype studies.

The latter is CorbieVreccan's over-reaching POV.

Policies and an essay against this kind of poor penmanship are linked below.

MOS:REFERS ... Avoid constructions like "[Subject] refers to..." or "...is a word for..." – the article is about the subject, not a term for the subject.

WP:ISAWORDFOR ... sometimes articles (particularly stubs) have poorly written dictionary-style introductory sentences, such as "Dog is a term for an animal with the binomial name Canis lupus.", or "Dog is a word that refers to a domesticated canine."

WP:SPADE ... For example, POV pushers often like to create obfuscated prose which disguises the majority view.

The obvious best course of action here is to just keep the first sentence the way it had been for roughly half a year. - - Hunan201p (talk) 06:53, 2 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm fine on finding a more concise way to phrase it, but you edit-warred over the older sentence that called this a theory. Then you were piping Native American to Indigenous peoples of the Americas, which are not equivalent terms, or equivalent databases. We can't swap one for the other.
 * This is the problem with the DNA results, as laid out in the sources that were here before you began changing things - the DNA the commercial companies use is not from North American Indigenous people, aka Native Americans. It is from what you piped it to: people from South and Central America, along with some Asian data. This is why Ancestry.com has given people whose families have never left Romania, "25% Native American" - they were mismarked Central Asian and maybe Saami results. This is also what happened with the miscommunications around Elizabeth Warren's test: she matched with someone in Central or South America, and the press mistakenly announced this as Native American (she was claiming Cherokee and Delaware) until it was clarified. Some still get this wrong. Hence, the sources clarifying it.
 * Here's a proposal. Maybe this article shouldn't be at this name at all. I'm not sure how it turned into a genetics article in the first place. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 18:17, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe:
 * In human population genetics, what is defined as Native American ancestry is based on genetic indicators from Indigenous Peoples of the Americas in general, and not on data isolated to Native Americans in the United States. (ref Carey)(ref Garrison) These indicators have also been detected in non-Indigenous populations.(ref Bryc)
 * Less wordy. Addresses concern about population being tested. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 18:31, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Regarding "Native American ancestry": this term is used broadly in most genetics sources cited to define Indigenous ancestry from North and South America. This is part of the normal parlance of our time.
 * Regarding your proposed alternative: it is no less wordy than the one before it, and still attempts to define words rather than relay what Bryc et al. says, which is plainly: Native American ancestry is detected in non-Indigenous populations. The issue of where Native American reference panels come from (in this case, South and Central America) are ideally talked about in the main body, you can use this snippet from Bryc et al. as a pull quote, if you like:
 * In addition to clearing up the lede, this would also be more accurate, since it is only Bryc et al. who we can definitively say are doing this (we don't know what reference samples the other studies use). - Hunan201p (talk) 00:00, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Lastly, with regards to changing the title of the article, I think that is a great idea, and would float the idea of something like "United States Indigenous DNA controversy" or something like that. We might want to ping relevant contributors to the article. Have a nice evening, Corbie, - Hunan201p (talk) 00:04, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * There is no way that this can be construed as a "simplification", though.
 * Your thoughts on this matter are appreciated. - Hunan201p (talk) 01:55, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Well then it's good that I kept editing it down after the mid-stream version you linked to. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 21:50, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Well then it's good that I kept editing it down after the mid-stream version you linked to. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 21:50, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Legitimate non-enrolled Native descendants / vague Native ancestry claims
@User:CorbieVreccan, @User:Yuchitown, @User:Vizjim, @User:Indigenous girl, @User:TulsaPoliticsFan

The article on Cherokee descent addresses both legitimate Cherokee descendants who aren't enrolled (who are usually UKB or Eastern Band, since those nations use BQ and the Cherokee Nation doesn't) AND the idea of self-identified/DNA-test-identified "Cherokee" ancestry. This article mostly addresses self-identified ancestry, DNA, etc. but doesn't really mention legitimate non-enrolled descendants (Examples: Paula Gunn Allen, Andrea Carlson, Van T. Barfoot). Should that be mentioned in the article? Should that be a separate article? I have little interest in adding this content, but I thought I'd bring up the issue. Thanks.

I would also ask...is there even one person in the American people of Cherokee descent category who is a legitimate Cherokee descendant? I don't think there is, but open to correction. Should we move self-identified but unverified "Cherokee descent" (and "Ojibwe descent", "Muscogee descent" etc.) people to the American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent category? Should there be sub-cats like Category:American people who self-identify as being of Cherokee descent? I think only a few groups like Cherokee or Muscogee would be big enough to populate. Note: If we moved all the unverified "of descent" people into the broad category for self-identified Native ancestry, some or maybe even most of these "of descent" categories would be deleted for being unpopulated. Most of these people claiming Cherokee descent or some vague distant ancestry are simply white Pretendians with a family lore, but I'd also add that N. Scott Momaday's white mother claimed Cherokee descent through a great-grandmother...so we should be aware that even Native people (and Native descendants) may have a white parent or white grandparent with Pretendian lore. Leslie Marmon Silko had a white grandparent with "part Cherokee" claims, as another example. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 23:51, 9 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I am in the process of cleaning up Native American identity in the United States, which apparently started as an article about self-identified/unenrolled Cherokee: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Native_American_identity_in_the_United_States&oldid=141099665. It's needed a lot of work. I'm about halfway through now. I suggest we merge and redirect this article to a section in that article, and title the section something like DNA and Native American identity. Or simply, DNA tests.
 * As for the cats: If there are enough people for self-identified Cherokee, etc, why not? Legit descendants should be distinguished from those who self-identify despite a total lack of proof or community acceptance. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 00:01, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine with the creation of Category:American people who self-identify as being of Cherokee descent since we can verify claims, but as far as verifying legitimacy, that's a whole different story. Where are the secondary, published sources discussing all of these people's ancestry? There's no room for WP:OR; that goes for others; that goes for us. We can verify with published references when someone makes a claim; then it's fairly easy to substantiate it when a tribal community claims an individual, but finding ancestral information that is published and not a blog, a Tweet, a personal conversation, or primary documents (i.e. original research genealogy) is a massive challenge. In response to Corbie, Eddie Chuculate (Muscogee/Cherokee) just popped up on my watchlist. I believe that's what you will find a lot of; people who are documented descendants who have enrolled in other tribes. Yuchitown (talk) 14:46, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Yuchitown


 * I think legitimate descendants are already enrolled in the Cherokee Nation, as it has no BQ requirement, or, as you say, in the other parent or grandparents' tribe. Looking at the "Cherokee descent" category right now, I think almost all of them belong in self-identified. I think we're all in agreement it's time to proceed with that.
 * What do you think about merging this article into the identity one once Native American identity in the United States is fully cleaned up? I think I can get there in another day or two. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 20:42, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm beyond confused by this article since it isn't "ancestry" (which I would understand to be ancestors, as in departed relatives such as grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.) but instead is all about DNA, which seems like that should be under Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. So I would support efforts to align this article with its title. Yuchitown (talk) 21:06, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Yuchitown
 * Eddie Chuculate and Jeffrey Gibson are both documented descendants of people in the Cherokee Nation, but they are both enrolled in other tribes since most tribes don't allow dual enrollment. Yuchitown (talk) 21:07, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Yuchitown
 * So maybe we put what of this that's usable in the Identity article with a header to see the main article at Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas? I just think we need to merge this somewhere, and since it's all about perceptions, that seems the best place for what can be salvaged that's not already duplicated at "Genetic history". - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 22:43, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Could there simply be an article on Native American ancestry myths or would that be deemed POV? Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 22:45, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * That's what I've been wading through in the cleanup both here and at the weird "Identity" article. I'm thinking we can consolidate all that at "Identity", since it's practically a WP:TNT project, and link to the more substantial articles from there. Then maybe make that redirect go there, too? Let me go take another pass at it. It's baffling to me that it lasted this long, with all those essay-like sections on personal experiences of pretendians, even if many of them were just confused and well-meaning. Why do we need to hear all of that at length from nn people? Weird... - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 23:03, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The article for Native American recognition in the United States needs to be gone over. The section on BQ is particularly bad. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 23:55, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, that was largely built by the same person who did the Identity article. Same issues. Same cleanup needed. Not sure we need two articles full of the same problems. I think I'm done with the most-needed cleanup on Identity, fwiw. I'll go over "recognition" tomorrow, but feel free to overhaul and, if needed, consider more merges. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 00:59, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Haven't gotten to it yet. Turns out Native Americans in the United States ALSO had/has some of the same problems, namely advocating for self-identified people with no proof of heritage as "Native Americans", misrepresentation of sources, and out of date sourcing to anthros with a certain POV. I'm still doing cleanup there. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 00:22, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll take a quick pass at it now, but I'm still not done with the others. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 00:24, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Still working on it but in the home stretch. I think. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 23:49, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The Cherokee Nation also allows dual enrollment. I guess a person could relinquish CN citizenship to become naturalized in another nation that doesn't allow dual enrollment? But I can't think of anyone on Wiki that such less common circumstances would apply to. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 15:52, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Merge and Redirect
If you haven't, please look over the two discussions above about renaming and the various articles we could possibly merge this into. Bohemian Baltimore has been doing a heroic job of cat sorting, and along with Yuchitown we've done some page sorting, as well. Cleanup is ongoing, but I think we can now assess:

Native Americans in the United States already has a DNA section. Native American identity in the United States, does not have a section on DNA, but does discuss some of the same issues as this one, and uses some of the same sources. Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas is the main article, and has a subsection I'm cleaning up that actually links here. While we could just move this to that section: Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, I'm thinking this article would probably work best moved to be a section in Native American identity in the United States, titled "DNA" or "DNA tests", with the "main" link section header to the Genetic history article. Any overlapping content could then be trimmed. If there are no objections or better suggestions, I'll proceed. Or another option would be to swap the content at Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas into the Identity article, and merge this section over to Genetic history. If you have a preference, please let us know. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 00:41, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Support merging this article in to Native American identity in the United States. To me this makes perfect sense, as this article has clearly taken the directon of focusing on that issue, despite starting off as a technical genetics article that was already made redundant by the much more detailed Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. This article likely would have been deleted if not for developing in to the identity issue.
 * Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas is already very dense ane convoluted, introducing this article to it would be perpetuating the byte size problem that plagues articles of that sort. - Hunan201p (talk) 02:23, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Support the merging and think y'all have done wonderful work! While folks are looking at identity articles, would someone mind looking at Cherokee cultural citizenship. I stumbled upon the article a while ago and it caught my eye, but I haven't had time to do a good review.
 * TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 17:43, 15 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Support merge of DNA discussion into Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. This topic doesn't need to overwhelm multiple articles about Native Americans and other Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Yuchitown (talk) 19:37, 15 August 2023 (UTC)Yuchitown