Note: this topic is from . Thanks blam.
Posted on 03/25/2002 5:34:27 PM PST by blam
26 March 2002 01:46 GMT
DNA traces roots back to Stone Age
By Paul Lashmar
24 March 2002
Are you a Viking, Saxon, Pict, Celt, or descendant of an ancient African tribe? New DNA testing methods will enable us to trace our family tree right back to the Stone Age.
Until recently, researching your ancestry meant hours of painstaking digging through fusty old files in public record offices or asking older relatives about their family memories. When the 1901 census was released online, demand was so great that the system crashed.
The new scientific technique for tracing relatives allows individuals to submit a DNA sample to a laboratory, to be matched with other, historic samples.
Genealogists Oxford Ancestors launched their "Viking" service this week. For £160 they will test your DNA sample. "We will be able to tell you if your ancestors were Norsemen who arrived here more than 1,000 years ago in a longboat," said chief executive David Ashworth.
The service follows the popularity of the BBC history series Blood of the Vikings. By matching their DNA with samples taken from modern day Danish descendents of the Vikings, a number of Britons were found to have Viking blood, especially in areas where Viking communities settled during the Dark Ages.
Discovering whether you are a Pict or Saxon will be more difficult. "But it will probably be possible in due course," said Mr Ashworth. "In some cases you can get your family tree back as far as 1400 or, exceptionally, 1200. But that is only really if you are related to a king or very prominent family."
Genetic fingerprinting promises to solve this problem, taking researchers as far back as 45,000 years although it does not identify individual ancestors.
Oxford Ancestors has two other DNA tests for avid genealogists. One has traced the maternal ancestry of almost all Europeans to just seven women who lived in different parts of the continent between 45,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The other enabled Oxford Ancestors' founder Professor Bryan Sykes to prove that he and 250 other men named Sykes shared a 14th-century founding father.
As far as I'm conscerned, stranger things have happened; personally, I would be delighted (I am of Hebrew ancestry and an Irishophile!
Wheeew... They had me worried there for a minute. Who knows how many outstanding warrants for my ancestors could be floating around out there!
As someone with a strong technical and scientific background I could also be convinced (one way or the other), or at least influenced by good solid non-agenda driven genetic evidence. Problem is, any organization funding such a genetic study has, by definition, an agenda, or it would not allocate the funds. I have been too close to "scientific research" data in the past to not be very cautious.
Since such evidence is not at hand, a historical approach has to be taken. I am fascinated by the population data, which appears sound. That a population that large should be "assimilated" into neighboring tribes seem more like an excuse for not knowing precisely what happened than a historical fact. That the previously unknown Celts should suddenly burst onto the scene and appear in history en masse, at the same time and same place that the Northern Israelites disappear is just too coincidenal.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks blam.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
