Month: February 2019

Changing Ethnicity

Changing Ethnicity

by Justin Durand

Both 23andme and Ancestry have recently made adjustments to their ethnicity calculations. Before I go on I have to say it makes me nuts to have everyone babbling about “ethnicity” when they really mean “ancestry.” I’m an ethnic American. More specifically an ethnic Mormon. I can be chill about it as long as I get a chance once in a while to be pedantic. Ethnicity is culture, not biology. Gedmatch calls it “admixture“, so it seems they’re putting in a bit more effort to get it right.

All of the testing companies change their “ethnicity” estimates now and then, as new data emerges and modeling gets better. And you won’t get the same estimate at two different companies. It’s not an exact science, but it has gotten better—much better—over time.

I got a chuckle out of Roberta Estes’ comparison to the old weather joke. “If you don’t like the weather here, wait 5 minutes, it’ll change”. (Don’t Like Your Ethnicity? Wait 5 Minutes.) People in other cities say it, but being a loyal Denverite, I know in my heart it was originally said about Denver.

The picture above shows my current results at Ancestry. These are probably the closest I’ve ever had to results that match my expectations and what my genealogy paper trail shows. Except the Norwegian. That makes no sense. Has to be a mistake for Swedish. My grandfather’s parents came from Sweden, so my DNA ethnicity should be about 25 percent Swedish. Instead, as you can see, Ancestry has me 14 percent Swedish and 9 percent Norwegian.

I think more than anything what impresses me here about Ancestry is that they are able to tease out my connections to Mormon pioneers and Ohio River Valley settlers. They’re missing the strong New England component, though. When I compare my numbers in this table to the numbers in the map, I see that what Ancestry seems to be doing is accounting for my “non-American” ancestry in their estimates for German, Irish, and Scottish. And that reinforces my sense that I am actually old-time colonial American with a few bits of other stuff.

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Ethnic Mormons

Ethnic Mormons

by Justin Durand

I tell people I’m an “ethnic Mormon”. The label confuses almost everyone, and that’s why I do it. It gives me a chance to explain. My experience is that when you’re a Mormon you’re a Mormon whether you believe or not, and whether you belong to the Church or not.

I was excited to see Masaman’s newest YouTube video. I enjoy almost everything he does (although I’ll never live long enough to watch everything). His latest video is Masaman’s Ultimate 2019 Ethno-Racial Map of the World. Quite an accomplishment, so maybe it’s a little self-serving to say my favorite part is where he affirms Mormons are their own ethnicity:

“Now if you’re curious, I did indeed count Mormons as a separate ethno-religious categorization from Anglo-Americans or English, as the majority of the Mormon community of the western states are a tight-knit group that has somewhat become a homogenized, cohesive population with a separate identity, and hence many consider old stock, non-convert Mormons to functionally act as an ethnicity in their own right, as I discussed in the past.“

Okay. Not really a blunt “Mormons are their own ethnic group” but close enough for now.

As a Mormon / Non-Mormon / Ex-Mormon living in Colorado, as soon as someone finds out I’m from Utah the first thing they ask is whether I’m Mormon. I’ve had dozens of different answers to that over the years. Most often, I’ve often described my relationship to Mormonism as similar to the relationship a non-religious Jew has toward Judaism. You’re not ever going to get away, and what would be the point anyway?

This idea of ethnic Mormons is still an emerging idea, I think. That is, the idea is emerging. The reality has been around for a long time, with roots in the “jack Mormons” of my childhood.

The idea that Mormons are not just active church members only became possible over the last few decades as the Church has lost some of its stranglehold on Utah, leaving many ethnic Mormons with lives not oriented to the Church and its members. It’s possible to stay in Utah and not be a Church member anymore.

And the general consciousness of Mormons as a separate group, not just a quirky religion, really only dates back to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. And the cartoon South Park. Let’s not forget South Park. This would be 2012, which also happens to be when the term Ethnic Mormon was added to UrbanDictionary.com.

When I lived in Salt Lake City (1977-1986) some of us used to joke about being ethnic Mormons, and occasionally we’d swear off dating Mormon men (because of the many problems). I think my first encounter with the idea that ethnic Mormonism could really be a “thing” was David G. Pace’s article, “After the (Second) Fall: A Personal Journey Toward Ethnic Mormonism”. (I’m fairly certain he must be a relative, and maybe one of these days I’ll look it up.)

Pace’s idea in short is: “I for one am not interested in changing the corporate church as I am in exploding the notion of what it means to be Mormon. There is a difference between being a Mormon and being a member of the LDS church; the former embraces the latter.“

Since Pace’s article, I’ve heard bits and pieces of chatter here and there, but nothing very weighty. Probably the best has been Mette Ivie Harrison, What is an Ethnic Mormon? but still I want more. My sense is that I’m going to have to wait. More people need to notice that ethnic Mormon is a thing, and more people need to join the conversation.

Update March 22, 2019

I finally checked our relationship to David Pace. He’s Dad’s 3rd cousin.

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Haplogroup Nations

Haplogroup Nations

by Justin Durand

My old haplogroup posts are so out of date I ought to hunt them down and delete them. I don’t do it because I (still) like the idea of coming across them them now and then and being reminded what the world was like.

This map is not the most rigorous replacement I could find for those old posts, but it shows something much more interesting than mere detail. It shows the approximate boundaries of the male mega lineages of Europe. Or more strictly, where each of those lineages is the majority. Like nations but not. Or tribes but not.

I’m drawn to this map for the simple reason that this (in a way) is the most common question newbies have.

Everyone wants to know what their haplogroup tells them about their family history. That’s not an easy question to answer. For one thing, your haplogroup is not who you are. Everyone in Europe and in the European Diaspora is descended from men who belonged to all the different haplogroups. That’s just the way it works.

On top of that, no matter what your haplogroup, it is almost certainly spread throughout Europe by links that are tens of thousands of years old. Knowing where it originated or where it’s been for the past few thousand years tells you almost nothing meaningful about your personal history.

That doesn’t mean the big picture is meaningless. That’s what I like about this map. It gives the big picture. If you look at it, and remember what you see here, you’ll be able to get your bearings whenever anyone starts talking about haplogroups.

I encourage you to go read the original post If European Borders Were Drawn By DNA Instead Of Ethnicity at BrilliantMaps.com (June 25, 2017). There’s a short and very nifty piece about each of the haplogroups shown here. Then if you’re in love with the data, go explore the DNA pages at Eupedia.com, starting with Distribution of European Y-chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) haplogroups by country in percentage. Or, if you’re looking for something not quite as hardcore, European Prehistory, Anthropology & Genetics.

Good-bye, Mormons

Good-bye, Mormons

by Justin Durand

When my Mormon ancestors joined the church and moved west their neighbors weren’t sorry to see them go. It was even worth a poem to celebrate them leaving. 

good bye to Mr. Hale, Good by to Mr. Ball,
good bye to Mr. Woodruff, the greatest one of all.
good bye to all the Deacons good bye to all their Church
they Can not get their money, they’ve left them in the lurch
good bye their Book of mormon, good bye their Revelation,
good [bye] to all their fools, and all their Botheration—
good bye to Elder Luce, good bye to Deacon Thomas,
Look not to right or left, till you see the land of promise
good bye to all the Ladies that like this thievish Band
goe taste their milk and honey in the promise land
weil Eat our fish and taters, and tell the same old story
While you travel on, to the great Missouria
Remember old lots wife, was turned into Salt
for looking found Behind her, Commanded not to halt
To now you are pondering right between two Schools
good Bye to all your nonsense, for listening unto fools
Iv’e Bid you all good Bye, for forming Such a lie
the time is soon a Coming we surely all must Die
suppose I should die here and you die in Missouria
which do you Suppose, would be the nearest [to] Glory

A poem found in a Bible owned by a family living on the South Island represents perhaps the only surviving contemporary account of the anti-Mormon sentiments on the Fox Islands. Source: Religious Studies Center, BYU

Jason E. Thompson. “‘The Lord Told Me to Go and I Went’: Wilford Woodruff’s Missions to the Fox Islands, 1837–38”.” Banner of the Gospel: Wilford Woodruff, ed. Alexander L. Baugh and Susan Easton Black (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 97–148.

Cutter Races

Cutter Races

by Justin Durand
Cutter Races, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

When I was a kid we used to go to the cutter races in Tremonton, Utah. Like chariot races but with sleds on snow. It’s a Wyoming and Utah thing.

After we moved away they’ve been a fond memory, something from my childhood most of the people I know have never heard of, much less watched.

Apparently, they’ve been waning in popularity. (So they say. I find that hard to believe.) I find scattered references online that show they’re still being held in Utah but the Jackson Hole Shrine Club in Wyoming cancelled theirs last year. Their February 2018 race would have been the 47th annual. There is no February 2019 race. That makes me unbelievably sad, although it’s been years since I lived close enough to go.

The Jackson Hole Shrine Club had some videos on their website (gone now, 2021). These aren’t quite what I remember. When I was a kid they used actual cutters, which are a type of sled. These are technically chariots even though they’re calling them cutters.