A Story about Slaves and Ancestors
Origins of the Schonken Family at the Cape of Good Hope Allan Heaton Anderson Introduction: DNA analyses My paternal grandparents William and Sheila Anderson, missionaries with the London Missionary Society (LMS), had four sons (Ralph, Keith, Alexander [Alec] & Ian) and four daughters (Sheila, Noreen, Marjorie & Jean). We were surprised by the ethnic composition of the DNA results of seven members of the extended Anderson family, including two sisters and my aunts (Marjorie Connor, born in 1929, and Jean Forrest, born in 1932) and five first cousins. The youngest of these cousins, Noreen Forrest Cattle, is the daughter of Jean; Michael and Edward are sons of Ralph Anderson; and Allan and Carol are the children of Keith Anderson. The surprising evidence was of African and Asian DNA in the results. We were curious about where that came from, which initiated this research. In all seven cases more than 90% of the DNA was from western Europe, which is in keeping with the known...