I gave one link previously that contains much of the information you seek. Exactly how reliable the ancestry results are depends on which markers are present in an individual. If an individual contains only markers that are unique to a certain region, it can be fairly certain that individual's linage can be traced back to that region although they may have been born in any country. Here is a link from the site I referenced earlier with an explaination as to how their system works, plus an ancestry profile of a person most likely to be from the Hutu tribe of Rwanda. Notice page 10 of the profile as to give an indication of the likelyhoods of the sampled person's ancestry. http://www.dnatribes.com/sample-results/dnatribes-sample-hutu-rwanda.pdf
They aren't usually ethnic markers, but geographical origin markers. The probable ethnicity is inferred, and the probable "race" etc, by statistical likelihood given the geographical origin and present situation. In the US, for example, most people with 40% Cameroonian origin and 60% Scottish origin will be of the "black race" and southeastern migrant inner city ethnicity. That is because of hypodescent, in the US sociology of "race". In Brazil, the racial and ethnic inferences would probably be different.
Why do you find that so surprising, S.A.M? You don't think that geographical descent won't be apparent in the genome?
Unless you're Brazilian. If you're Brazilian you get fooled all the time - can't tell one race from another, properly. Or if you were Egyptian, Turkish, Arabic, etc, back in the days of European slavery, when the revealed qualities of the "white" race were not apparent, and you found members of that race invariably lazier and stupider than average. Or if you were European in the late 1400s, and found the Mongolian and Indian races indistinguishable. But if you are US American born and raised, and possessed of the appropriate cultural conditioning, you are infallible in the matter of ascertaining the implications of even the most minor details of appearance. edit in: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9798791?dopt=Abstract http://www.jstor.org/pss/2580461 http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/7/6/4/5/p176458_index.html And of course the odd possibility that the white "race" seems to have been invented, sometime in the early 1700s in the British Empire (especially in North America), and that originally the Irish (for example) did not belong to it, while the advanced Mediterranean ancients did regardless of physical appearances. http://books.google.ca/books?id=G4e...nt&ct=result&cd=3&cad=bottom-3results#PPP1,M1
If I had never heard of Barack Obama, and only had this picture to go on, my guess would be he is an Egyptian or Lybian Arab.
I agree. He doesn't have the typical black look at all, and since he is fully half white, what is this talk about him being black??
I had a mate in the 70s who is totally Caucasian, but with an olive complexion which made him look somewhat Middle-Eastern. Actually this guy was a dead-ringer for JC (but didn't have a beard, just a big 'tash, long hair. He would've been a shoo-in for the lead in that play). Both his younger brothers were lily-white, typical pasty-skinned Euro types - the big bro looked Euro except for the colour of his skin.
Wow. Then do white people look like they fell in bleach? But let's leave aside what you probably think wasn't racist. Racial charactoristics do not just come down to which crayon looks most like your skin. Shapes and sizes of features, for example, have a strong effect on one's racial looks.
