DNA Ethnicities

Mary(Polly) Sollis Reasons

Mary Ann Sollis Dickerson

As some of you know Jim and I have had our DNA sliced and diced several different ways. We have achieved our goals for the most part---we know where our Long family is from in Virginia (Culpeper), we located Grandma Vennie Wicker's mother's family (Sollis not Silas), we matched with the Wicker family I always felt we were related to  (There was a political writer Tom Wicker that I thought looked like Grandpa Wes).

My latest quest was to find out if we were part Indian which is what my grandmother and mother always said.  At first we didn't find anything (but we did find 1% African---definitely slave from 1700's---so I thought, "someone was dark, didn't want to admit African so called it Indian"?) 

I had received a photo of the SISTER of one of our ancestors (see photo) Mary Ann Sollis (b. 1834). Her descendants have no African but when examined on GEDmatch, they did show American Indian.   

I also saw a note someone left on Ancestry.com

 "I have been looking into the link that my father maintains is fact, that we have Cherokee blood in our family line. I found that Mary (Polly) Sollis,wife of John Rhodes Reasons (see photo ablove) was half Cherokee, her father, Abraham Sollis married into the Cherokee tribe and renamed his Indian wife Martha. This backs up my father's claim and puts the Indian question to rest. 

So, I put Jim's DNA and mine on GEDmatch to see if we could find that American Indian DNA.  On the Eurogenes K-13 test, we found it.  Jim has 1.1% and I have .51%.  Yes that is a very small amount.  Click here if you want to find out more about American Indian DNA and why Jim and I have differing amounts.

So, yes, we probably do have American Indian in addition to the African, but both are probably back in the 1700's.  We are primarily  North Atlantic (English, Scottish, French, Irish,  German) with around 50%.  Then, another 25% is Viking (they settled in Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Germany).  That leaves about 25% Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Red Seas, African, American Indian.  If you want to know more about the Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Red Seas, Click here to learn about our very unusual J2 on the Williams line. To get a refresher course on my DNA journey, click here.