Tutsis are genetically very similar to Masai


Many years ago, before I used ggplot, I did a little analysis of the genetics of the Tutsi. Actually, it was the genetics of a single Tutsi, or more precisely, someone who was 75% Tutsi ancestry (3 out of 4 grandparents).

I found that the Tutsi individual seemed quite distinct from the Bantu peoples in nearby Kenya. I suggested that it was likely that the Tutsi were then genetically distinct from the Hutu people amongst whom they lived. For many years this was part of the genetics section of the Wikipedia entry on the Tutsi, but recently the reference was removed and the page seems to have been re-edited.

That’s fine. I’m just a random blogger who had one sample. But as it happened recently about a dozen Diasporic Tutsis reached out to me. Over the last decade, the number of people who have been genotyped has increased greatly. So it wasn’t that difficult for interested parties to find these genotypes.

The mission they put before me is simple: “tell us about our genetics”. Over the next few weeks, I’ll do that. As there is no IRB, this won’t be published in a peer-reviewed journal (I am open to putting any researcher in contact with these Tutsis who reached out to me). I’m just going to put what I find out there so that Tutsis who do personalized genetic testing can make sense of what they’re finding out.

I received these genotypes today. A quick merge of samples I have reduced it down to 50,000 markers. I will work on creating a merge with a larger number of markers. But, I’ll report what I have found out so far as a first pass.

As you can see on the PCA plot above the Tutsi overlap almost perfectly with the Masai. Not with the Kenyan Bantu, or the Luo, who are more “African” shifted. But with the Masai. But, they are not as “Eurasian shifted” as the Somali.

Treemix confirms this:

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