Does your family history include undocumented stories that you are of Native American descent (Native American heritage is usually hard to prove by traditional documentation, but is usually true)? Are you or one of your ancestors adopted and curious about your heritage?  Are you predominantly of African descent and curious about other ancestry you may have?   Do you want to expand and confirm your family’s heritage beyond the traditional time frame of a few hundred years?

If your answer to any one of these questions is YES, you may want to consider an additional DNA test to uncover your personal anthropology.  The AncestrybyDNA test available from DNAPrint Genomcis, Inc (this test is no longer available from FTDNA) will provide you with a simple and objective description of your ancestral origins.  The AncestrybyDNA test provides you with an estimated percentage of ancestry from the four major population groups:

Native American  -  Those people who migrated from Asia to inhabit North, South and Central America approximately 12,000 years ago.

European  -  This category of people includes those people who settled in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia from the Indian subcontinent, including India, Pakistan and Sir Lanka starting approximately 35,000 years ago.

East Asian  -  This category includes Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Koreans, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islanders including peoples native to the Philippines.

African  -  Peoples from Sub-Saharan Africa such as Nigeria and the Congo region.

The main difference between the AncestrybyDNA test, which is an autosomal test, and the basic genetic genealogy tests such as the Y-chromosome used for the Surname Projects or the mitochondrial (mtDNA) tests used for the direct female descent, is that it surveys across all 23 chromosome pairs, not just one of them as is the case of the Y-DNA test.

The ANCESTRYbyDNA test will measures a person's Personal Anthropology and their corresponding ancestral ethnic proportions. The result of the test is a report showing your percentages of each ethnic ancestry or major human population group. For example, your result could be 18% Native American, 70% European, and 12% African.

The AncestrybyDNA test looks at SNP's that are diagnostic of a person's continent of origin. SNP's are deep ancestral locations along the human genome. Therefore, the results of this test tells you about your ancestors far before the advent of genealogical records or surnames.  Therefore, if you receive a result that shows 85% European and 15% Asian, most likely you will not find genealogical records to support this mixture, since the events occurred before written records.

Most people of European ancestry are a mixture of two or more of the major population groups: European, Native American, East Asian and sub-Saharan African.  The AncestrybyDNA test results report your mix.  If you get a result such as 85% European and 15% Asian, this does not mean that you had an ancestor that was 100% Chinese.  What it means is that you had several ancestors who had some component or percentage of Asian ancestry.

The AncestrybyDNA test is a great opportunity to explore your heritage beyond the time of written records.  To order the test, use the following URL:

http://www.AncestrybyDNA.com

When you obtain this anthropology test from DNAPrint, you will receive a CD-ROM with your raw genetic data, a bar graph showing the percentages of each group and a specialized representation of your data called a triangular plot, along with a users manual. Ancestry cannot yet be determined by any genetics test in a black and white litmus test fashion.  Instead, the results are reported as statistical estimates, and are qualified with confidence intervals.  DNAPrint estimates these tests are accurate to 4 - 8% and sensitive enough to detect, for many a single African or European 2nd great grandparent, or a single Native American or East Asian great grandparent.

The AncestrybyDNA test should primarily be used as an attempt to confirm recent admixture events, where your family tree is primarily European (for example), but one or more recent ancestors are of another ancestry, such as Native American.

How the AncestrybyDNA.Com Test Works

To determine your Ancestry, DNAPrint extracts DNA from your buccal sample (mouth swab). The AncestrybyDNA test then determines the sequence of your DNA at a large number of different positions (across all of your chromosomes).  The buccal sample that you return to the lab for testing contains thousands of cells, and each of your cells contains your DNA. Though we (humans) are all 99.9% identical at the level of our DNA sequence, there are certain regions of each chromosome that are different from person to person.  These regions are called genetic markers or Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), and it so happens that some small fraction of these SNPs are also different among the world’s continental population groups.  These types of markers are best termed Ancestry Information Markers (AIMs) and they contain less than 5% of our genetic material, which is related to the very recent common origin of our species.

The positions in your DNA sequenced in the AncestrybyDNA test are those discovered by the genetic scientists have discovered that are different in this way, and they are spread across all of your chromosomes.  Therefore, this test is referred to as a ‘genomics’ test, because it is a survey of all of your genetic material, which is known as your ‘genome’.  In other words, this test sequences markers from chromosome 1, 2, 3 thru 22.  The Y-DNA tests discussed in other sections of DNA - 101 are concerned with a single chromosome (#23).

Your DNA was derived from your mother and father, and theirs was derived from their mothers and fathers, and theirs from their parents and so on.  You have 23 pairs of chromosomes.  Your maternal copy of chromosome #1 could have been passed through your mother from your maternal grandmother, or your maternal grandfather, but which one you received was randomly determined at conception (you could not have received both).  Most of the time this inherited chromosome #1 copy that you receive from your mother is actually a chimeric chromosome that includes parts from your grandfather and your grandmother, a process known as recombination.

Recombination is the process by which these chimeric chromosomes are created and occurs at least once on each chromosome every time a new sperm or egg cell is made.  As such, although blending does not occur at the level of the gene (the unit of trait expression) our chromosomes are mixed together and so our genomes contain segments of DNA from ALL of our ancestors (think about the significance of that for a minute).  In contrast, the mitochondrial DNA or Y-chromosome tests provide data on only a single lineage of ancestors.  For example, a baby born today would have 1,024 potential ancestors 10 generations ago or about the year 1700.  By measuring your ancestral proportions using a genomics method, the AncestrybyDNA test is actually measuring ancestors.  By measuring your ancestral proportions using a genomics method, the test is actually measuring the average population affiliations of all of these 1,024 ancestors.

Since random processes (recombinations and independent assortment) at inception determines the mixings and pairings you harbor, two offspring from a set of parents may have different sets of chromosome pairs, and therefore different ancestral proportions even though they were the product of the same male-female union.  For example, a European male who married an Hispanic woman had three children of mixed descent.  Each of the children exhibits their own unique proportionality, which you can see by visiting:

http://www.ancestrybydna.com/casestudy.pdf

If these two had an infinite number of children.  The average would correspond to that proportionality exactly between the mother and father, but each child would deviate from this average by a unique and random amount.

Caution:  Autosomal DNA tests, including the DNAPrint test are report results in percentages (the admixture from all of your ancestors);  therefore, they are generally not helpful for genealogical research.

Also see:  DNA TESTING for AMERICAN INDIAN HERITAGE