Testing on Blackfeet Man Reveals His Is the Oldest DNA in Americas With Ancestry Dating Back 55 Generations

DNA testing has become quite popular in recent times. Individuals have found many unknown connections regarding themselves through DNA results. This is what happened to a Montana man when he went through a test with CRI Genetics in 2019, stated Great Falls Tribune.

Alvin "Willy" Crawford, did the testing to fulfill the wish of his brother Darrell "Dusty" Crawford. "He's the one who encouraged me to do this, and he wanted to compare our results," Willy Crawford said. "I just wish I could have shown it to him. It would have blown him away." Darrell Crawford died before his brother could inform him about his results. CRI Genetics provides 'biogeographical ancestry.' This implies that the results indicate where the individual's genes fit into the narrative of human history in the world. The results indicated that the man's DNA was the oldest in all of the Americas.

Dusty Crawford who belongs to the Blackfeet tribe would have been elated to have such unique results in his hand, as his own were not satisfactory by his standards. Dusty Crawford's reason for testing was to know more about their Blackfeet heritage. "He was fascinated by our history, and it never dawned on me how much he knew until one night we were talking about land, and he knew so much history," Willy Crawford said.

The results shocked everyone, as scientists were able to track back his ancestry to 55 generations. Experts claimed that such a result is highly uncommon, and ancestry becomes clouded many generations before in tracking. The results indicate that Crawford's Blackfeet ancestors arrived from the Pacific. They traveled through the coast of South America and entered the New World. He appears to belong to MtDNA Haplogroup B2 which came into being in Arizona about 17,000 years ago. This group has been previously identified as one of the four major Native American groups present in Europe. The four major Native American groups or clans came from four female ancestors: Ai, Ina, Chie, and Sachi. The DNA suggests that Willy Crawford comes from Ina's line.

The MtDNA Haplogroup B2 has a low frequency in places like Alaska and Canada. This group's closest relatives are found in Southeast Asia outside of the Americas. Researchers are yet to understand where this group went after America. "Its path from the Americas is somewhat of a mystery as there are no frequencies of the haplogroup in either Alaska or Canada. Today this Native American line is found only in the Americas, with a strong frequency peak on the eastern coast of North America," the DNA testing company added. The results showcased that Willy Crawford had 83 percent Native American ancestry, which also set him apart. Seventy-three percent of this ancestry came from the same heritage while the remaining was a mix of several clans. In the remaining portion, 9.8 percent was European, 0.2 percent was African, 5.3 percent was East Asian and 2 percent was South Asian.

Willy Crawford is proud of his Native American heritage and hopes results like his continue to shed light on the legacy of his ancestors. Despite the attachment to his Blackfeet identity, some of his grandchildren have not been admitted to the group. The practice of 'blood quantum,' a series of methods used to determine whether a person belongs to a particular clan, has been called 'genocide' by Willy Crawford. "Every time I dated someone here, my grandmother would say I was related to them,” Willy Crawford said. "Sooner or later we would be marrying our cousin. So they stole women from other tribes. Otherwise, they'd be inbred."