Ancestry Dna

Ancestry

How to Interpret Family History and Ancestry DNA Test Results for Beginners

How many DNA testing companies will show you how to interpret DNA test results for family history or direct you to instructional materials after you have had your DNA tested? Choose a company based on previous customer satisfaction, and whether the company gives you choices of how many markers you want, various ethnic and geographic databases, and surname projects based on DNA-driven genealogy. Before you select a company to test your DNA, find out how many genetic markers will be tested. For the maternal line, 400 base pairs of sequences are the minimum. For the paternal line (men only) 37 markers are great, but 25 markers also should be useful. Some companies offer a 12-marker test for surname genealogy groups at a special price. Find out how long the turnaround time is for waiting to receive your results. What is the reputation of the company? Do they have a contract with a university lab or a private lab? Who does the testing and who is the chief geneticist at their laboratory? What research articles, if any, has that scientist written or what research studies on DNA have been performed by the person in charge of the DNA testing at the laboratory? Who owns the DNA business that contracts with the lab? How involved in genealogy-related DNA projects and databases or services is the owner?

Native American DNA

"Native American DNA" intrigues scientists and non-scientists alike from the high-tech anthropology lab, to the genetic genealogist's treasured personal archive, to the glossy world of corporate or made-for-television science. But what is "Native American DNA"? In technical language, it is a set of genetic markers (nucleotides) that appear at different frequencies among different populations: the highest frequencies of so-called Native American markers have been observed by scientists in "unadmixed" native populations in North and South America. But "Native American DNA" should not be understood simply as an objective molecular "thing." It is simultaneously a conceptual apparatus through which humans constitute and deploy life-organizing narratives: historical and national narratives, narratives about race and ethnicity, family and tribe. Sometimes genetic narratives border on the religious, exploring the "origins" of peoples or explaining who individuals "really are." I provide a condensed history of the science of race, tracing a genealogy of "Native American DNA" as a research object and a tool for categorizing both molecules and human beings. I then turn ethnographer to study an on-line community of "genetic genealogists" who use DNA to help trace family histories. From there, I cross into a strange hybrid world where science meets corporate marketing. I mine rich language and imagery--narratives of origins, race, and tribe--woven into the World Wide Web by several DNA testing companies and by the Genographic Project. Mostly, I do not study Native American or tribal perspectives on DNA. I study those who are under-studied, yet culturally influential: scientists and financially-able lovers of science, who incorporate knowledge of particular molecular sequences into their understandings of "Native American." Crucially, such extra-tribal understandings do not require any reference to the historical-regulatory paradigm of US tribal governance. While I do not study tribes, I address them. "Native American DNA" testing embeds non-tribal philosophical assumptions that may undermine tribal governance and identities. I close with suggestions for how indigenous methodologies offer a way to challenge genetics as the ultimate way of knowing about race, tribe, kinship, and individual identity.