Migration and European ancestry in African-Americans

Led by a team at McGill University in California, researchers looked at genetic data from 3,726 African Americans in three groups, representative of the population across the country and across social and economic groups. From their analysis, they were able to show that the genetic ancestry of these populations were on average 82.1% of African origin, 16.7% European and 1.2% from the Americas or Asia. Interestingly, samples from individuals in southern states tended to have a slightly higher percentage of African genetic ancestry than individuals living in the north. The researchers claim that increased European ancestry correlated with increased likelihood of migration.