To explore some of the curiosity I've had about my deep ancestral origins, I began to explore my pesonal lineage by participating in National Geographic's Genographic Project.
The first step involved was to purchase a kit on the National Geographics Website. Once the kit arrived I took two painless cheek swabs to acquire a DNA sample. Then I secured the swabs inside a transport tube and mailed the tube off to the National Geographics lab using the supplied envelope. I was able to log into the Genographic Project Web site and track my test kit, step by step, through the various stages of DNA processing and analysis.
I am excited about the results because the connection to my ancestral origins were broken by slavery and now I have information about my earliest human relative, Mitochondrical Eve--an African born 150, 000 to 170, 0000 years ago and lived in West and Central Sub-Saharan Africa. My genetic journey has just begun, I entered the results in the Family Tree DNA Database so that when like results are entered I am notified of a possible match to a distant relative.
What are your thoughts about genetic tests that reveal family history?
I learned that I am 27% European, 1% East Asian and 72% Sub Saharan African. This made me wonder more about my parents and grandparents. I have so many work colleagues that mention their parent's heritage. They can tell you which generation of ancestors came to America and where they came from. African-Americans tend to not know their heritage mixture even without the percentages. Our history has not been passed down like it is in other cultures. I believe this is partly due to the ills of slavery. So I took a DNA test to share this information with my children. My family was amazed to learn about the results including my parents. My siblings are more interested in learning more than my parents.
Posted by: R Z Moon | September 17, 2006 at 09:59 AM