The Genographic Project is probably the largest genetic genealogy project in the world. For $99, the project will sequence seqments of either your mtDNA or your Y chromosome for addition into their publicly available database. The goal of the project, with ten research centers around the world, is to “map humanity’s genetic [...]
I am a genetic genealogist because I thought it would be a fun and interesting thing to do. Some people, however, are genetic genealogists because it is a matter of life and death.
The Amish/Mennonites and Genetic Disorders
The Amish migrated from Europe (Germany/Switzerland) to the United States in the 1700s. One such group, [...]
An article in yesterday’s Mount Vernon News highlighted the use of genetic genealogy to identify POW’s from the Korean War who had died in North Korean detention facilities.
The Korean War [...]
James Stuart, known as King James VI in Scotland and King James the I in England and Ireland, issued an edict in 1603 that abolished the surname MacGregor and declared that everyone named MacGregor or Gregor must renounce the name or suffer death, all in response to the murder of the King’s Forester, who [...]
A study conducted by researchers at the Institute of Human Genetics at the Center for Life in Newcastle, England discovered that only 50% of males with the last name Robson can be traced back to a recent single ancestor. The research, commissioned to create a new exhibit called “The Robson Encyclopedia,” compared 12 markers [...]
Yesterday The Jewish Press announced the “Kohen and Levi Conference: A Gathering of the Tribe.” The conference, to be held on July 15-19, 2007, is hosted in Jerusalem by The Center for Kohanim. The Center was founded in 1985 to “promote identity and knowledge among Kohanim the world over, and increase their feelings [...]
In case my readers were not aware, the Spring 2007 issue of the Journal of Genetic Genealogy is now available. This free, open-access peer-reviewed journal has been around in the Spring of 2005 and offers recent news and analysis in the field of genetic genealogy. The current issue has the following articles:
A [...]
In 2003, researchers from around the world released a paper that suggested that 8% of all Mongolian males have a common Y chromosome because they are the descendants of Genghis Khan (See “The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols,” 2003, Zerjal, et. al., American Journal of Human Genetics, 72: 717-721). The researchers examined the Y [...]
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States, has been at the center of a DNA controversy for over 200 years. In September 1802 journalist James T. Callender wrote in Richmond Reporter that Jefferson had for many years “kept, as his concubine, one of his slaves. Her name is Sally [Hemmings]. The [...]
Some scientists have hypothesized that Australian aboriginals received a portion of their DNA from an ancient hominid species called Homo erectus, which for a short time was contemporaneous with modern man. A recent study published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences) set out to answer this question by analyzing [...]
Yesterday Science published a report from deCODE genetics in Iceland and a second report from academic colleagues in the United States and Canada that announced the discovery of a gene variant (a SNP) on chromosome 9p21 that results in an increased risk of heart attack (the abstracts are available online here and here). [...]
In 2005 the Wellcome Trust established a £2.3 million project (roughly 4.5 million USD) at the University Oxford to examine the genetic makeup of the United Kingdom. The project would be led by the renowned geneticist and Oxford Professor Sir Walter Bodmer, joined by Oxford Professor Peter Donnelly (a population genetics [...]
Here are some recent news articles that mention the use of genetics in traditional genealogy:
Internet databases, DNA testing make genealogy an easy pursuit - but only for some – An Associated Press story about the use of DNA testing for people [...]
How many founding Asian groups braved their way across the Bering land bridge during those frigid Pleistocene ice ages? Was it a single wave of people who later developed into the three distinct linguistic and cultural groups that populated the Americas, or were there multiple waves of people each with their own language and [...]
MITOMAP, the human mitochondrial genome database, has recently published a paper in Nucleic Acids Research (Free Full Text Here) announcing the completion of a full human mtDNA phylogenetic tree.
This tree, available here(pdf) was constructed from 2959 mtDNA coding region sequences (using the rCRS as the reference). In addition to listing mutations and the study [...]
Scientists have analyzed the mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA from a 10,300-year-old human remains found in On Your Knees Cave on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. These remains, the oldest human remains known from Alaska or Canada are from a young man in his early twenties.
DNA sequencing showed that the individual’s mitochondrial DNA belongs [...]
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