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Two new genome studies of Jews worldwide prove that the Jewish people — long called the “People of the Book,” the “Chosen People” or, in unkind circles, “those people” — are, indeed, a people after all. The first study, by researchers at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, found that Jews across the globe share distinct genetic traits that are different from other groups and that trace back to the ancient Middle East. Researchers say the study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, puts to rest age-old questions about whether Jews are a group...

Now that so many ancestry records have been digitized, it's amazingly easy to start tracing your family tree. I'd never done it, but I watched this season's TV show, "Who Do You Think You Are?", and they kept referring to ancestry.com. So on a whim a few weeks ago I logged onto that site , and I've been amazed at what I've found. My mother's father's mother's family line goes back into the late 1400s in France, via many generations of French Canadians--who knew??? One of my dad's grandfathers came to the US to escape the Potato Famine in Ireland,...

The University of PennsylvaniaSarah Tishkoff, professor in the departments of genetics and biology at University of Pennsylvania, is collecting samples in Africa. Collaboration by University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University PHILADELPHIA –- People who identify as African-American may be as little as 1 percent West African or as much as 99 percent, just one finding of a large-scale, genome-wide study of African and African-American ancestry released today. An international research team led by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University has collected and analyzed genotype data from 365 African-Americans, 203 people from 12 West African populations and...

The mixing of two distinct lineages led to most modern-day Indians. The population of India was founded on two ancient groups that are as genetically distinct from each other as they are from other Asians, according to the largest DNA survey of Indian heritage to date. Nowadays, however, most Indians are a genetic hotchpotch of both ancestries, despite the populous nation's highly stratified social structure. "All Indians are pretty similar," says Chris Tyler-Smith, a genome researcher at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, UK, who was not involved in the study. "The population subdivision has not had a dominating...

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the black professor at the center of the racial story involving his arrest outside his Harvard University-owned house, has spoken proudly of his Irish roots. Strangely enough, he and the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, both trace their ancestry back to the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages. In a PBS series on African-American ancestry that he hosted in 2008, Gates discovered his Irish roots when he found he was descended from an Irish immigrant and a slave girl. He went to Trinity College in Dublin to have his DNA analyzed....

LONDON (AFP) - Some 77 million documents dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries and including the ancestors of David Beckham and Britney Spears are to go online, under a service launched Thursday. The archives from the London Historical Records feature details of around 165 million of the British capital's citizens over the centuries, including head of state Oliver Cromwell and poet William Blake. Around 250,000 records are currently available, with all 77 million uploaded by 2011. The final collection will include parish and workhouse records, electoral rolls, wills, land tax records and school reports. Tracing the family history...

In a search for their ancestors, more than 140 people with variations of the last name Kincaid have taken DNA tests and shared their results on the Internet. They have found war heroes, sailors and survivors of the Irish potato famine. They have also stumbled upon bastards, liars and two-timers. Much of it is ancient history, long-dead ancestors whose dalliances are part of the intrigue of amateur genealogy. But sometimes the findings strike closer to home.

I am researching Obama's family tree on http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=assuntac&id=I95248 and ancestry. I am trying to determine if an individual is a cousin of his. Does anyone know where I can get an accurate complete family tree on the mysterious one?

Adoptees use DNA to find surname By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News The tests read a number of genetic markers on the Y chromosome Male adoptees are using consumer DNA tests to predict the surnames carried by their biological fathers, the BBC has learned. They are using the fact that men who share a surname sometimes have genetic likenesses too. By searching DNA databases for other males with genetic markers matching their own, adoptees can check if these men also share a last name. This can provide the likely surname of an adoptee's biological father. The genetic similarities between...

Scientists Reshape Y Chromosome Haplogroup Tree Gaining New Insights Into Human Ancestry ScienceDaily (Apr. 3, 2008) — The Y chromosome retains a remarkable record of human ancestry, since it is passed directly from father to son. In an article published in Genome Research scientists have utilized recently described genetic variations on the part of the Y chromosome that does not undergo recombination to significantly update and refine the Y chromosome haplogroup tree. Human cells contain 23 pairs of chromosomes: 22 pairs of autosomes, and one pair of sex chromosomes. Females carry a pair of X chromosomes that can swap, or...

New Genomics Software Infers Ancestry With High Accuracy ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2008) — Some people may know where their ancestors lived 10 or 20 generations ago, but the rest of us can learn our distant biological heritage only from our DNA. New genomics analysis software developed by computer scientists at Stanford appears far more adept than prior methods at unraveling the ancestry of individuals. A new paper describes the HAPAA system, which takes its name from "hapa," the Hawaiian word for someone of mixed ancestry. Going back 20 generations the software can identify what continent or broad global region an...

Britain may abolish ancestry visa By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 7:59pm GMT 21/02/2008 Britain is proposing to sever its historic ties to tens of thousands of Commonwealth nationals who have an automatic right through descent to live and work here. The small print of this week’s Home Office green paper charting new pathways to citizenship suggests the ancestry visa might be abolished. The visa enables people aged 17 or over whose grandparents were born in the UK to come for four years and eventually apply to stay. It is used mainly by young Australians, New Zealanders and...

Myths of British ancestry October 2006Stephen Oppenheimer Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons, in fact neither had much impact on the genetic stock of these islands The fact that the British and the Irish both live on islands gives them a misleading sense of security about their unique historical identities. But do we really know who we are, where we come from and what defines the nature of our genetic and cultural heritage? Who are and were the Scots, the Welsh,...

John Hurt admits sadness at his faked Irish ancestry By Tom Peterkin, Ireland Correspondent Last Updated: 2:56am BST 12/09/2007 For years the actor John Hurt took great pride in his Irish aristocratic ancestry, believing that his great-grandmother was the illegitimate child of the Marquis of Sligo. Actor John Hurt admitted that his lack of Irish blood was a great disappointment Much to his disappointment, genealogists have discovered that his Irishness was nothing more than a family myth, perhaps created to give the family tree a spurious link to the upper class. Instead it appears that his family hails from Croydon,...

Source: Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Date: September 11, 2007 New Method Can Reveal Ancestry Of All Genes Across Many Different Genomes Science Daily — The wheels of evolution turn on genetic innovation -- new genes with new functions appear, allowing organisms to grow and adapt in new ways. But deciphering the history of how and when various genes appeared, for any organism, has been a difficult and largely intractable task. A scanning electron micrograph of one of the seventeen fungal species analyzed in the study. (Credit: Image courtesy / Janice Carr, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Now a team...

Surnames that reveal Pirate ancestry By Nick Britten Last Updated: 1:34am BST 17/08/2007 With all that pillaging and looting, it could be one of the bloodiest reunions in history when descendants of six of Britain's famous pirates are invited to a get-together. People with the surnames Morgan, Rackham, Bonny, Read, Kidd or Teach, are being invited to discover possible connections with the likes of Blackbeard and Calico Jack, in a series of events by English Heritage. Dressing as a sea dog is optional. Proving your lineage with a real-life buccaneer, however, may prove difficult. Abigail Baker, of the genealogy research...

Lithuanian and Latvian languages are not Slavic and not Balto-Slavic. I made a deep esearch and I can say that both Baltic languages are definitely not Slavic, not even close, and neither Balto-Slavic. They should be separated into a very early separation branch similar to Armenian. There are very few Slavic-sounding words in both Baltic languages and those words were borrowed in near modern times. All other words (99,999999%) in both Baltic languages don't even remind of any Slavic language. There are words that sound Arabic, Franco, Latin, Greek, even English and Italiamn and even Pacific, but very few Slavic...

Geneticists re-examining the first settlement of Australia and Papua-New Guinea by modern humans have concluded that the two islands were reached some 50,000 years ago by a single group of people who remained in substantial or total isolation until recent times. The finding, if upheld, would undermine assumptions that there have been subsequent waves of migration into Australia. Analyzing old and new samples of Aborigine DNA, which are hard to obtain because of governmental restrictions, the geneticists developed a detailed picture of the aborigines’ ancestry, as reflected in their Y chromosomes, found just in men, and their mitochondrial DNA, a...

Balthazar Napolean de Bourbon, a jovial Indian lawyer and part-time farmer settled in Bhopal, has been told that he is the first in line to the lost French throne. According to media reports, "Bourbon may soon make his first trip to Paris, after he was visited by a relative of Prince Philip, who told him that he is the first in line to the lost French throne." This Indian father of three is being feted as the long-lost descendant of the Bourbon kings who ruled France from the 16th century to the French revolution. A distant cousin of Louis XVI...

Descendancy stems from the 19th Century Dawes Commission lists Members of the Cherokee Nation of native Americans have voted to revoke tribal citizenship for descendants of black slaves the Cherokees once owned.A total of 76.6% voted to amend the tribal constitution to limit citizenship to "blood" tribe members. Supporters said only the Cherokees had the right to determine tribal members. Opponents said the amendment was racist and aimed at preventing those with African-American heritage from gaining tribal revenue and government funding. The Cherokee Nation has 250,000 to 270,000 members, second only to the Navajo. 'Right to vote' The list...