Puerto Rican Y DNA

Fire Haired14

Fire Haired14

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Y-DNA haplogroup
R1b DF27*
mtDNA haplogroup
U5b2a2b1
I collected 194 Y DNA samples from Puerto Ricans at 23andme. I'm pretty sure all are Puerto Rican, if not Puerto Rican they are almost certainly Latino.

Here are the results. Puerto Rican Y DNA.
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About 90% of Puerto Rican Y DNA is Spanish. It also looks like something around 70-90% of their mtDNA is Native American. It makes sense because 90% of Spanish colonist were male, so their only option was to marry Native women. African input on mtDNA and Y DNA looks equal, which would make sense if a similar amount of African men and women slaves were brought to Puerto Rico.

23andme nomenclature is out of date, so I don't know what deep subclade labels mean. I think I'll email some of the individuals and ask for their Y DNA file, so I can figure out what subclade according to ISOGG they belong to. Getting Y DNA files from Puerto Rico will help learn about Spanish Y DNA, and their mtDNA will help learn about the mtDNA of Native Caribbeans. It looks like about 100% Native Caribbeans belonged to C1b and A2.

Most Puerto Rican autosomal results I've seen look 70-80%+ Spanish, 10-20% Native American, and 5-10% West African.
 
That's a rather high proportion of I1, especially if we consider that only about 90% of the Y-DNA in this study is of European origin (which means I1 makes up for about 7-8% of the European male lineages in Puerto Rico). Spain has only 1.5% I1 on average.

The 16.5% of R-L21 stands out as well. Did Puerto Rico receive a significant amount of immigrants from the British Isles/Northern Europe? Or does much of this I1 and L21 come from American men?
 
Degredado said:
That's a rather high proportion of I1, especially if we consider that only about 90% of the Y-DNA in this study is of European origin (which means I1 makes up for about 7-8% of the European male lineages in Puerto Rico). Spain has only 1.5% I1 on average.

The 16.5% of R-L21 stands out as well. Did Puerto Rico receive a significant amount of immigrants from the British Isles/Northern Europe? Or does much of this I1 and L21 come from American men?
Click to expand...

It is strange. I don't know anything about Puerto Rican history. Maybe some are part White-American. 7% have R1b-L21, and 16% of R1b1a2a1-L151 is R1b-L21. Combined R1b-L21, R1b-U106, and I1, are 16% of Puerto Rican Y DNA. R1b-L21 isn't very rare in Spain, but I think U106 is. Overall though Puerto Ricans Y DNA looks almost identical to Spain, which is expected.
 
Degredado said:
That's a rather high proportion of I1, especially if we consider that only about 90% of the Y-DNA in this study is of European origin (which means I1 makes up for about 7-8% of the European male lineages in Puerto Rico). Spain has only 1.5% I1 on average.

The 16.5% of R-L21 stands out as well. Did Puerto Rico receive a significant amount of immigrants from the British Isles/Northern Europe? Or does much of this I1 and L21 come from American men?
Click to expand...

I went on a tour of the Castle of Saint Christopher and the guide mentioned that one of the architects was Irish. Wikipedia gives his name as Tomás O’Daly. It looks like there was a fairly significant migration of Irishmen to Spain who were seeking a country that was more tolerant of Catholicism. Some of them ended up in Puerto Rico. Some L21 might have also come through French Catholics in the Caribbean or Louisiana, as France has a significant minority of L21 in the northwest. It's also quite possible that some of that L21 came later with Americans, since L21 is common in the mainland USA.

The I1 factor is quite interesting. It could be American in origin, but I1 is common in historically Germanic-speaking populations and could represent Germans in PR. Considering that a large percentage of the population of the USA is descended from German, Scandinavian, and Anglo-Saxon populations that have high levels of I1, it would seem to be difficult to distinguish which is which without either adding STR or autosomal data to the analysis. While many of the Germans that moved to PR were probably Catholics who were drawn to the idea of immigration to a pro-Catholic country (as opposed to some place further north where they might have to deal with the KKK and other non-Catholic friendly organizations), it looks like some were not. I did some driving around rural Puerto Rico a few years ago and came upon a small shore town that had a Mennonite church. I suspected at the time that it was probably a mission that had been founded relatively recently by German-Americans, but it might represent a presence going back a lot further.

It's quite interesting to discover how diverse Latin America really is. There is a real stereotype in the USA that "Latinos" mostly have the same heritage that is about a third Spanish, a third Native, and a third West African that has been mixed in a big bowl, shaken, and stirred. That's not true at all - it's an incredibly diverse area, often times as diverse as, if not more diverse, than much of the USA. There are large numbers of Germans, Italians, and even Japanese in South America. One of the presidents of Peru was Japanese. There is even a Welsh community in Argentina.
 
Fire Haired14 said:
It is strange. I don't know anything about Puerto Rican history. Maybe some are part White-American. 7% have R1b-L21, and 16% of R1b1a2a1-L151 is R1b-L21. Combined R1b-L21, R1b-U106, and I1, are 16% of Puerto Rican Y DNA. R1b-L21 isn't very rare in Spain, but I think U106 is. Overall though Puerto Ricans Y DNA looks almost identical to Spain, which is expected.
Click to expand...

Germanic populations typically have an interesting trio of I1, R1a, and R1b (with much of that R1b being U106) that is consistent with the hypothesized hybrid nature of the Germanic languages, which may have been formed via the collision and eventual merger of two or three different languages. If the Germanic migrations to Puerto Rico were large enough to form a well-rounded and statistically-significant population, one would expect to see all three haplogroups existing in a relatively similar proportion to other Germanic populations. Your data only shows about 1.5% R1a, which is similar to what you see in Spain today and not at all close to what you see in the British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia. Could the Germanic migration to PR have been small enough to deliver a significant founder effect, or might something else be going on here?
 
My Y DNA is i1.

I'm 100% Puerto Rican; my mother and father were both born on the island and all my relatives going back at least 3 generations to the 1800's. Could you look at my 23&me data to help me understand & learn more about the data.
 
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