The ABCs of Receiving results that are not African - Part 4

Skin color is a phenotypic trait. Phenotypic traits are observable characteristics about a person like height, weight, hair, texture, skin color, hair color, and curl pattern. Phenotypic traits don't determine your genetic ancestry. They may be closely linked, but they don't determine your genetic ancestry in some ways.

For example, when you think about your family tree, you could have 99 African ancestors from various countries and groups who all have darker complexions but, if you have one European ancestor on the line that you tested, then that result, is still going to come back European, regardless of how many African ancestors you have in your family tree.

And so if you test any other line, it's going to come back African, but that one line will always come back European.