DNA tests of black families promise ancestry answers

Washington Post ^ | Thursday, October 19, 2006 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

When DNA testing was offered as a way to trace black family heritage three years ago, it seemed, at long last, that African Americans whose histories were lost in the trans-Atlantic slave trade had found a way home... But ever since the tests began in 2003, questions have been raised about their accuracy: specifically whether tracing mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from the mother's side of the family, can reliably pinpoint tribal origins... [A]n article in a British peer review journal... said ... that fewer than 10 percent of black Americans whose mitochondrial DNA was identified matched perfectly with a single African ethnic group, and 40 percent had no match. The authors relied on a study that compared DNA sequences from 170 African Americans with DNA sequences from 3,700 Africans who live below the Sahara. "The finding ... suggests that few African Americans might be able to trace their ... lineages to a single ethnic group," the article said. At best, said the article's co-author, Bert Ely, a professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina, the test can give people only a probability that they hail from a specific region on the African continent rather than a specific ethnic group... Some researchers, while having qualms with African Ancestry's claims, say DNA testing is useful when combined with other genealogical tracing tools, such as historical records, folklore and archaeology... Most black Americans descend from West Africa, where the vast majority of slaves were seized. After surviving the brutal trans-Atlantic voyage to the Americas, they were forbidden from speaking the tribal languages from regions that are now known as Angola, Senegal, Ghana, Liberia, the Ivory Coast and Nigeria.

[dsc]

"I didn't want to inconvenience you"

Thank you, but looking at the titles of those books, I don't know what they have to do with my comment.

[SunkenCiv]

Slavery was known in Africa long before Mohammed. But the slave trade in Africa as developed to service the western hemisphere colonies of various European countries was different than ancient slave trade in certain ways (not least because of the sheer volume). Moslems colonized Africa and part of that was the enslaving of unknown 100s of 1000s from black Africa.