Genetics · Jenétika
The African ancestry of the Badiu
“Nos raís — di undi ki nu ben.” · Our roots — where we come from.
The DNA of the Badiu is, first and above all, African. We read it through the peoples of Senegambia and Upper Guinea and the lineages they carried.
Badiu Nation original research
Our Y-chromosome analysis
This project analysed an island-stratified Y-chromosome dataset of 1,257 Cape Verdean men. The work does not begin from a European account of Badiu ancestry: it reads the paternal lines directly, island by island, and shows how Santiago changes the national picture.
- 1,257
- men across all nine inhabited islands
- 58.55%
- West African-associated lines in the pooled cohort
- 65.82%
- West African-associated after island weighting
- 79.86%
- West African-associated among the Santiago sample
Nos antepasadus · Ancestral peoples
Where the lines lead
Each people carried in the Badiu record, with the paternal (Y-DNA) and maternal (mtDNA) lineages found among them.
Mandé people of the upper Senegal and Gambia rivers; heirs of the Mali Empire.
People of the Cap-Vert peninsula whose language shaped Kriolu grammar.
Rice cultivators; among the peoples most resistant to enslavement.
Pastoralists and traders dispersed across the Sahel and West Africa.
Founders of Wagadou — the Ghana Empire — and trans-Saharan traders.
Coastal people of the Sierra Leone estuary; present in the Upper Guinea trade.
Linhagens · Lineages
Two unbroken lines
Both descend overwhelmingly from West and West-Central Africa. Paternal lines are predominantly E-M2 (E1b1a) — the signature Y-chromosome of Niger-Congo Africa — with the separate West-African branch E1a (E-M33) and the deep-rooting haplogroup A (A1a-M31, A-M32), the oldest branch of the human paternal tree, documented in Santiago and across Senegambia. Maternal lines belong to the L1·L2·L3 macro-haplogroups.
Paternal · Y-DNA
E1b1a · E1a · AFather to son. These branches recur across the Mandinka, Wolof, Fula, Balanta and Temne records.
- E-V38
- E-M2
- E-M180
- E-P252
- E-M54
- E-L485
- E-CTS9883
- E-Z6019
- E-CTS3274
- E-CTS12004
- E-CTS736
- E-M263.2
- E-M4254
- E-U290
- E-U175
- E-Z1902
- E-Z5994
- E-Z6003
- E-Z6005
- E-CTS6143
- E-M132
- E-M44
- E-L94
- A1a-M31
- A-M32
Lineages recorded to date. Frequencies are deliberately not given — see Methodology.
Maternal · mtDNA
L1 · L2 · L3Mother to child, unbroken — reflecting the African women who founded the interior.
- L1b
- L1b1a
- L2a-d
- L2a1
- L2a1c
- L2b'c
- L2c
- L3b
- L3b1b
- L3e2b
- L3h1b
- L3d3a
- L2a1c3
- R0a
- L3b1a
- V
- U6a5
- U6a3
Lineages recorded to date. Frequencies are deliberately not given — see Methodology.
Reading the lineages
What DNA can—and cannot—show
DNA can show population patterns, one paternal or maternal line, relationships among sampled lineages, and movements shared across families and places.
DNA does not define a person’s complete identity, culture, or belonging. Badiu identity is lived and carried; a genetic result is one line within that larger inheritance.
Population estimates still need their island, cohort, recruitment method, marker resolution, and uncertainty to be understood properly.
Trabadju ki ta ben · Future research
Deliberately open
The project’s first-party testing, family matches, and oral history will continue to deepen this work.
In progress
Full Y-STR panel
Deeper paternal resolution across Badiu surname lines.
In progress
mtDNA full sequence
Complete maternal coding-region results, not just HVR.
Planned
Community DNA project
Pooled, consented results from Badiu families.
Planned
Oral history × DNA
Cross-referencing family memory with lineage evidence.
Leituras · Further reading and comparison
- †Gonçalves et al., Y-chromosome lineages in Cabo Verde (2003).
- †Brehm et al., mtDNA portrait of the Cape Verde archipelago (2002).
- †Beleza et al., The admixture structure and genetic variation of Cape Verde (2012).
- †Verdu et al., Parallel trajectories of genetic and linguistic admixture (2017).
- †Laurent, Fortes-Lima et al., Cabo Verde genome-wide studies (2023, eLife).
- †23andMe & FamilyTreeDNA Genetic Group / haplogroup reports for Senegambian and Upper Guinean peoples.