Word: dna
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Genetic testing has a special attraction for African Americans because most have no other way to trace their lineage; the slave trade did a thorough job of severing their African roots. Washington-based African Ancestry aims to re-establish these links by telling its customers whether their DNA matches that of any of hundreds of ethnic groups in Africa, from the Hausa in northern Nigeria to the Ashantis in Ghana. For Juanita Thompson, a real estate agent in Arlington, Va., the test had special significance because her mother had been adopted as an infant and her birth family was unknown...
Rick Kittles, African Ancestry's scientific director, defends his company's work, saying he compares customers' DNA with a database of more than 20,000 DNA samples from nearly 400 indigenous African groups. The company reports a match, he notes, only if the statistical probability is 90% or higher. "I'm doing the same thing everyone else is doing, but I am doing it on people of African descent, and I get criticized," says Kittles, who adds that some 3,000 people have taken his $349 test...
...precision that has critics fuming. "I think it is a disgraceful thing to try to tell an African American that you can match them to any group in Africa now," says Bruce Jackson, a geneticist at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and co-director of the African-American DNA Roots Project, a nonprofit research group that is digging into the genetic history of American blacks. Jackson says making such classifications is premature because not enough people have been tested to establish distinct markers for each group. "Every ethnic group in Africa is a mix that we don't understand...
...great-great-grandfather Thomas Little, who was born in Alabama in 1816. Then, he says, "I hit a brick wall. I knew my Littles were from the South, but there were a lot of Littles from the South, and it was impossible to sort out." After he took a DNA test from Family Tree DNA, he began leading one of the company's 1,900 surname projects, in this case checking test results on Littles. As a result, he has identified three distant cousins. By pooling their family records, the cousins have been able to trace their roots...
While members of the Little family were happy to share genetic information, some people worry about unauthorized sharing. DNA-test companies say they will keep results confidential, but at least one, DNAPrint, requires customers to sign a consent form acknowledging that results "may be subpoenaed by court order." Another complaint is that some of the most common tests reveal only a sliver of ancestry. The Y-chromosome test, for example, traces only the patrilineal line (your father's father's father and so on, but not your father's mother). Similarly, the mitochondrial-DNA test, which looks at DNA passed...