My Ancestry

I finally got around to writing my first blog! I decided to start one since I'm getting really close to ordering my first DNA test kit. I have been wanting to do this for so long and have been researching my family since 2010.I'm really excited and I wanted to blog about it!

First things first, here's a little bit of background on my ancestry: My last name is Chambers and my mothers maiden name is Sandles. So far, I have gotten to one man on my mothers maternal line who was from the Isle of Wight, England, United Kingdom. He was the slave owner of my great-great-great grandfathers mother Alpha. I have heard stories from family members that she was actually from Madagascar, and from other family members, Hawaii. I highly doubt Hawaii, but who knows!

Also, from my mothers maternal line is my family from Louisiana. They are the Broussards and Cratchans of Creole ancestry. These are my great grandmother Inez's people from her fathers side. Her mother's side are the Scotts. I still know little about them. She told me stories about how her grandparents raised her and her older sister. While she was living, she would tell me stories about how her and her sister would braid her grandfathers long black hair and how stern her grandmother was. My great grandmother passed two years ago and I miss her very much!


On my mother's paternal line I only have a picture and family stories to go off of. I have heard that my grandfather's maternal grandfather's mother was part Congolese and half Indian and his wife was a quadroon*. My great uncle, the family historian, and I have no clue where the paternal side originates from. Someone told me that the surname Sandles is Swedish. Interesting!

My father's side is quite the same except for the fact that my paternal great grandfather is unknown. This makes my research that much more exciting for me. I already took a paternal Y-DNA test via my brother. Those of you that aren't familiar with maternal and paternal DNA tests, we inherit 23 chromosomes from both of our parents. Two of them are sex chromosomes. You inherit a X from your mom and a X or Y from your father.Only males can take Y-DNA tests because only males inherit Y-DNA from their father, thus making them male. Make sense? I took a Y-12 marker test  from Family Tree DNA and got a ton of matches. This is a test you take if you want to know your paternal origin and/or find relatives through your direct paternal line. My paternal genetic marker, or haplogroup*, is r1b1a2 which is the most common among Western European males(again, interesting). I still have to upgrade to Y-111 to narrow the results even further to find relatives through the fifth and third cousin range.  This is so interesting to me because my paternal grandfather is a black man, but someone in his direct paternal line is European. Who knows how far back that extends. Those of you that are scratching your heads like "huh?"I'll explain how African American's have considerable amounts of European blood in another post later.

I'll be taking an autosomal dna test and upgrading my Y-DNA kit.Questions I'm hoping to answer are where does my family originate( especially in Africa) and who are my paternal grandfather's fathers people? Anything will be a surprise!
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*Quadroon- A mixed raced woman of  3/4 white blood 1/4 black blood
*Haplogroup- a genetic population group that share a common ancestor on a patrilinal or matrilineal line.