A Puerto Rican Look at: 23andMe European Ancestry Reports

Ancestry Composition Reports [Personal Photo – 23andMe]

Below, you can see what my personal results look like, as you can read this isn’t a perfected science… yet. The results will change since it’s currently based on what people have reported their ancestry to be from. It states that “in the last 200 years, your ancestors may have lived in the following locations”. 200 years ago was 1819, and a great majority of my ancestors were already living in Puerto Rico, besides my Mallorcan line which was introduced later in mid-1800s. However, you can see here that three regions are highlighted for me, these being: Andalucía, Canary Islands, and Cataluña. At first glance, my reaction was “this isn’t surprising”, knowing Caribbean/Puerto Rican history you know that most of the peoples that came to populate this region were from the southern parts of Spain and the Canary Islands. The pull to Cataluña I imagine is from my Mallorcan ancestor, especially since I imagine the people that went into the Balearic Islands were probably mostly from the regions of Valencia and Cataluña. My strongest region based off the colors seems to be Andalucía – again not too surprising. I’ve also traced some family lines to this region so my paper trail helps to confirm that as well. 

Spanish & Portuguese Report [Personal Photo – 23andMe]

European Reports Analysis

Taking these reports of Spanish & Portuguese I was able to compile the different regions my family are related to based off these ancestry reports. It’s interesting seeing the similarities and differences between my family members, also seeing that some of my family members got results for Portugal was interesting as well. I compiled them into a chart showing the different family members, their percentages, the Spanish regions, Portuguese regions, and for one family member Italian regions.

You can see that I start with myself, move into my parents’ generations, and later the generation of my grandparents/great-aunts & one great-grandfather. I’ve placed their last names next to their generational name mostly for my sake to remember who exactly it was that showed these results. As you can see there are a lot of overlaps between regions mainly Andalucía and the Canary Islands. You can also see Galicia, Extremadura, Cataluña, Valencia, Madrid, and the Basque country amongst other regions in my family. Cataluña and Valencia as I theorize are regions that pull towards the Balearic Islands due to my ancestor in Sóller, Mallorca. Looking at the regions of one of my uncle’s they hit the nail on the head with actually mentioning “Balearic Islands” as one of his region. Some of the regions mentioned, I have been able to find genealogical and paper trail evidence of family presence there. However, I don’t have all of my lines traced back to Europe so I’m not sure where else my Spanish ancestors are from and this could definitely take time. 

With the Portuguese ancestry, only three family members show Portugal: two of my great-aunts and my maternal grandfather. My Rivera great-aunt shows Azores and Madeira which are regions I have found before amongst my matches in 23andMe, as does my Vélez great-aunt and Correa great-grandfather. Interestingly though, my Vélez great-aunt also shows Braga while my Correa grandfather shows Setubal and Brangança district. 

Braga is towards the north of Portugal which could be connected to Galicia and ancestors that lived in that area. 

Braga, Portugal [23andMe]

This next town (Setúbal) is closer to the south of Portugal and even had a Al-Andalusian Arabic name earlier on in its history. Could be tied to southern Spanish ancestors though this town is closer to the ocean on the left than closer to the Spanish border on the right.

Setubal, Portugal [23andMe]

This last region is more northern than Braga and closer to the Spanish border. Just like Braga, it could be tied to Galician ancestors. There’s definitely more research I would have to do into these Portuguese regions!

Bragança, Portugal [23andMe]

Interestingly, my Vélez great-aunt shows two Italian regions, though she only has 2.5% of Italian DNA. It shows her tied to the regions of Lazio and Calabria in Italy which is interesting to see since I have no known Italian genealogy so far. Her Italian ancestry says to have been introduced into the family around 1710 and 1800 and anywhere from her 3rd to 6th great-grandparents. 

There is still much to learn from these new ancestry reports, some of them make a lot of sense like the various regions in Spain but I’m not sure how Portugal and Italy fall into play with my ancestry yet. My hope is that in a near future the regions will be more informative as well as the African regions being added to better distinguish the different tribes and countries. This is especially important for those of us with slave ancestry who might have no idea where in West Africa their ancestry is tied to. My goal is to analyze the recent updates for my African results as well… stay tuned!