October 29th, 2009

DNA Genealogy: The Fascinating Link to Our Origins

DNA Genealogy has become a hot topic in the news and with genealogy professionals and hobbyists alike. The reason is simple, people want to know, “where did I come from?”

Let’s face it, even the most skilled genealogist is going to come to the end of the line in terms of documentation, records, images and evidence of ancestors. When you compare the length of time humans have been inhabiting this planet to the length of time humans have been keeping records, there is a huge disparity. Then factor in natural disasters and unruly political and religious leaders who destroyed valuable documents either intentionally or inadvertently through poor storage methods and other circumstances. What we are left with is barely enough information to go more than a few hundred years back in our search for our ancestors.

That’s if you are one of the lucky genealogy researchers whose ancestors kept written records or had written records kept for them through the church or the government. Many of the world’s people are from an oral tradition, where the elders of the community kept the records in their memories. Those records were shared in the form of dance, songs and stories. Now much of that valuable information is gone because of unspeakable crimes committed on those communities or written records only go back a few decades or the facts are misrepresented.

So where do you turn when the end of your search looms ahead? Many genealogy researchers are turning to DNA genealogy to fill in the missing pieces of their ancestry. If they can’t know the names and important facts about their specific ancestors, then at least they can know about their specific group of ancestors through DNA Genealogy Testing.

This recently published article called, How We Lost Our Diversity explains how modern people came to have the DNA we have, and how modern people lost the diversity of early people through two major bottlenecks that happened about 60,000 years ago and another about 19,000 years ago. Now, it’s so much easier to discover who your ancient ancestors were. Now it’s much easier to answer the question, “where did I come from?” with DNA Genealogy.

If you go back far enough, we’re all related. We all share certain genetic markers that make us human. But it is the genetic markers that we don’t all share that can explain who we are, where we are from, and how we came to be where we are today.

For the past 2 decades, the scientific community has known that the most genetically diverse group of people are Africans. Out of all the nationalities and people of the world, Africans have the most number of unique genetic markers. What this tells us is that Africa is the origin of all people. Some people left and, of course, took with them their unique genetic markers and settled in the Middle East and India. Some people left and went on to Europe and still others continued the journey through the Bering Strait into North America.

The recent discovery that is really making DNA genealogy testing an important part of any genealogy research is the fact that on two separate occasions, the numbers of unique genetic markers were drastically reduced. Scientist have discovered that about 60,000 years ago, as early people were migrating out of Africa, over the Himalayas into the Middle East, there was a sharp drop in unique genetic markers. Then another drastic drop as people made their way over the Bering Strait into Yakut, about 19,000 years ago.

The implications to the world of genealogy is tremendous. Now every person can discover their DNA profile as it relates to ancient people. You can now discover exactly who you are descended from and research the journey your people might have taken. But the most exciting discovery you’ll make with your DNA profile is the connections between people alive today! You can collaborate with your DNA cousins, people who share your unique genetic markers, to find out if you have common ancestry.

More and more people are choosing to test their DNA with the hopes of finding a match with people alive today, but also so they can truly see who their ancient ancestors were. Now with this discovery the information you can get from a DNA test is even better and more refined.

You can order ancestral DNA genealogy testing kits online from GeneTree.com.

Would you take a DNA genealogy test?