u/AloneBoat714

For context I took a 23andme DNA test, and it said that my paternal haplogroup was R-L226 and it came from Ireland. My paper trail leads to Germany, which is why I believe there was an NPE event that occurred between me and my German immigrant ancestor. I'm able to confirm the connection between myself to my great-grandfather. With my 2x great grandfather, I believe I can confirm him based on my shared DNA matches from Ancestry. But with my 3x great grandfather George May (1826-1902) and my 4x great grandfather Jacob May (1768-1869) I'm not for sure if these are truly my genetic 3x and 4x great grandfather's.

With George May (my 3x great grandfather), I share DNA with a few matches through him and my 3x great grandmother. Though I sort of have a 70%-80% estimate that George is my biological 3x great grandfather. The only thing that I'm wondering is that in George's obituary it doesn't list my 2x great grandfather Landon Maye (1855-1932). Along with some matches sharing small amounts of DNA, this is the main reason as to why I sort of speculate as to whether or not George is Landon's biological father or not, but other than that I think I might be able to confirm my 3x great grandfather as my genetic ancestor.

But with my 4x great grandfather Jacob May it's a completely different story. With Jacob I suspect about a 10%-20% that he is my biological 4x great grandfather, because I heard from other branches of the family that my 4x great grandmother Elizabeth May, had 4 children all from different men. Elizabeth's maiden name was May, but a distant cousin told me that a family member of theirs said that Elizabeth never married. This distant cousin believed that she did marry Jacob, but people thought she never married due to both of their last names being the same. But there haven't been any marriage records found between them which speculates whether or not the rumor was true or if she got married and the record was just lost over time.

If either my 3x great grandfather or 4x great grandfather isn't my biological ancestor, how should I go about it to find who my real 4x great grandfather is and possibly 3x great grandfather if I'm not descended from him. Most of the distant cousins that have already tried to do research about this hasn't signed into Ancestry in over a year, and my family doesn't know much through my paternal line due to my great grandfather dying when my grandfather was 13 years old. I would greatly appreciate any assistance on this. Also, if there is anything that is vague or unclear in this post let me know and I'll clear it up.

For my 23andme results it gave me the paternal haplogroup of R-L226, I looked up where this haplogroup comes from and it says it comes from the United Kingdom and Ireland region. For my uploaded Ancestry Data to FamilyTreeDNA it says that my paternal haplogroup is R-Z2534, I looked this haplogroup up as well. And it says that this haplogroup also comes from the United Kingdom and Ireland region.

With my paper trail it should give me a German paternal haplogroup, because that's where my paper trail leads my family to, before we immigrated to America in 1743. I've done quite a bit of research about this to see if there could be any possibilities of why it wouldn't show up as a German paternal haplogroup. I found that someone was questioning about who the father is of the 4 children of my 4x great grandmother. The rumor was that my 4x great grandmother had 4 children all with different father's.

My questions:

1. If my 3x great grandfather (1 out of the 4 children) was fathered by a different man than whom I think it is, will the Big Y Test confirm this?

2. If my 3x great grandfather was fathered by a different person, than what's the best way to conduct research on this? Because I've heard that my 4x great grandmother never married, but her maiden name was the same as her husband's last name (no familial relationship between the two).

For context, I took 2 DNA tests, the first one I did was with Ancestry and the second one was with 23andme. With Ancestry no African percentages came up, but after I found my Ancestry hacked results, it showed that I had a total of 0.66% African DNA. I decided to take a 23andme later on (mainly due to them having reconstructed ancestors), my 23andme results gave me 0.6% Nigerian DNA. In the Ancestry test, it shows the segments that 23andme put as Nigeria, is unassigned in Ancestry. I thought this was completely odd, because most of my ancestors were white and no one has ever mentioned that me and my family are descended from someone who came from Africa.

I'm completely Old Stock American DNA, with the shortest generation from myself to an immigrant ancestor is 8 generations. I've researched the best I could from due to loss of records due to the civil war destroying a lot of records from the south (and yes, my family comes mostly from the south). Most / close to all of my ancestors, as far as I know didn't own slaves. I do have one ancestor, he's my 6x great grandfather named Henry Hardin 1765-1856. I know he owned a little less than 20 at a time in the 1820 and 1830 census' but that's the only ancestor that I know of, that owned slaves.

My questions are:

1. How likely is it that Henry Hardin's wife Catherine Cox isn't my actual 6x great grandmother, but it's a slave that Henry owned at the time?

2. I descend from Mary Hardin (daughter of Henry), on her records along with her son that I descend from, it says they're both white. So, would this confirm that they couldn't have given me this DNA, but another branch on my family tree possibly?

3. Through 23andme Advanced DNA Comparison, I found out that one out of the three segments that was designated for Nigeria in my results. Is that my 1st cousin twice removed, shares DNA with me on that segment. I managed to confirm that one of my 2x great grandparents passed this down to me, but I'm having some difficulty in finding out which one it is. My 2x great grandfather is descended from two Native Americans (supposedly, because with one of them there's quite a bit of speculation), while my 2x great grandmother is a 2x great granddaughter of Henry Hardin. Both of them look white, and on their records are white, but one of them is supposed to have about 6.125% African DNA on average (based on the 1st cousin twice removed percentage). Which one would it be more likely that there might be an African ancestor through one of their branches?

4. What are the best resources to use to find a possible ancestor that came from Africa, I'm new to researching about this so I would greatly appreciate any advice or helpful information on what is the best way to research this.

If there is anything in this post that is unclear or vague, please let me know and I will clear it up.