The Genographic Project (Have Your DNA Checked, Find Your Roots)

National Geographic - IBM ^ | 6-15-2005

[blam]

The Genographic Project

Public participation, including yours, is critical to the Genographic Project's success.

Here's how you can get involved:

Purchasing a Public Participation Kit will fund important research around the world—and open the door to the ancient past of your own genetic background.

With a simple and painless cheek swab you can sample your own DNA. You'll submit the sample through our secure, private, and completely anonymous system, then log on to the project Web site to track your personal results online.

This is not a genealogy test and you won't learn about your great grandparents. You will learn, however, of your deep ancestry, the ancient genetic journeys and physical travels of your distant relatives.

To insure total anonymity you will be identified at all times only by your kit number, not by your name. There is no record, no database that links test results with the names of their contributors. If you lose the kit number there will be no way to access your genetic results.

As your own genetic ancestry is revealed you'll also see worldwide samples map humankind's shared genetic background around the world and through the ages.

If you'd like to contribute your own results to the project's global database you'll be asked to answer a dozen "phenotyping" questions that will help place your DNA in cultural context.

This process is optional and completely anonymous, but it's also important. Each of us has a part in the ancient story of humankind's genetic journey. Together we can tell the whole story before it's too late.

Order a Kit The Participation Kit costs U.S. $99.95 (plus shipping and handling and tax if applicable). The kit includes:

1. DVD with a Genographic Project overview hosted by Dr. Spencer Wells, visual instructions on how to collect a DNA sample using a cheek scraper, and a bonus feature program: the National Geographic Channel/PBS production The Journey of Man. 2. Exclusive National Geographic map illustrating human migratory history and created especially for the launch of the Genographic Project. 3. Buccal swab kit, instructions, and a self-addressed envelope in which to return your cheek swab sample. (You can download a pdf of instructions or the consent form. You will need Acrobat Reader.) 4. Detailed brochure about the Genographic Project, featuring stunning National Geographic photography 5. Confidential Genographic Project ID # (GPID) to anonymously access your results at this Web site

The purchase price also includes the cost of the testing and analysis—an expensive process—that will take place once your sample is sent in.

Return Your Kit Once you have completed the cheek scraping process, you will secure the scrapers inside the transport tubes, sign the informed consent form and mail the tubes and form off to the lab.

That's it! In about 4 to 6 weeks—the time necessary for the laboratory to correctly analyze your DNA—your results will be ready. In the meantime, visit the Web site to see where your sample is in the analysis process.

Get Your Results Samples will be analyzed for genetic "markers" found in mitochondrial DNA and on the Y chromosome. We will be performing two tests for the public participants:

Males: Y-DNA test. This test allows you to identify your deep ancestral geographic origins on your direct paternal line.

Females: Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). This tests the mtDNA of females to identify the ancestral migratory origins of your direct maternal line.

To be clear—these tests are not conventional genealogy. Your results will not provide names for your personal family tree or tell you where your great grandparents lived. Rather, they will indicate the maternal or paternal genetic markers your deep ancestors passed on to you and the story that goes with those markers.

Once your results are posted, you will be able to learn something about that story and the journey of your ancestors. The genetic profile you receive is more than a static set of data. It is like an ongoing subscription to your genetic history. Your profile might become more detailed as the Genographic Project amasses more data from around the world, so be sure to return to the Genographic Project Web site for project updates.

Public participation is critical to the Project's success. By purchasing a Genographic Project Public Participation Kit, you will not only contribute to the impact of this great endeavor, but you may discover something about your own genetic past as well.

A Note on Privacy To ensure the privacy of participants, we have built an anonymous analysis process. Your Participation Kit will be mailed with a randomly-generated, non-sequential Genographic Participant ID number (GPID). Although we will have mailed a Participation Kit to your address, we do not know the random code included in the Kit. When you send in your DNA sample with your consent form, they will only be identified by your GPID. Therefore, your cheek cells will be analyzed completely anonymously.

In order to access your test results, you will need to access the Genographic Project Web site and enter your GPID, so it is very important that you do not lose your GPID. See the Genographic Project Terms and Conditions for more information. Also, be sure to visit our FAQs.

For International Participants (outside the United States and Canada) Public participation may be restricted in some countries where the export of genetic material requires government approval. China is one country that has such restrictions in place. The Genographic Project will work with the relevant authorities to achieve the broadest level of public participation possible.

[LibWhacker]

This atlas is a very interesting thing to play with over at the National Geographic website. Just click on the time scale at the top of the page to study the routes of that time period, then on the routes themselves to learn about them . . . A good way to waste an afternoon. :-)

[martin_fierro]

But what's that little wiggly thing beneath the mouth?

That would be the more offensive of:

• a goatee; or
• spittle.

< |:P~

[LibWhacker]

Cool, thanks! I'm going to agree.

[martin_fierro]

particilants = participants

I also have th mispelng jean.

[Pharmboy]

Wow!! Did you know you had some east Asian roots? Or did this come as a total surprise?

[martin_fierro]

Oh, I defintely knew ... but was surprised to see the migration route my ancestors took.

Did you opt for sharing your DNA information with FamilyTreeDNA? I did, and am seeing some results for genetically-related people mostly in Japan and Korea.

[blam]

That probably was Stepehen Oppenheimer. See post #51.

[Pharmboy]

No...I had not opted for that but I think I will. This stuff is fascinating.

[blam]

"Did you opt for sharing your DNA information with FamilyTreeDNA? I did, and am seeing some results for genetically-related people mostly in Japan and Korea."

I just tried to overlay your map to the map I linked in post #51. You must have been in a group that filled the void left by Toba 74,000 years ago. Take a look...what do you think?

[blam]

"No...I had not opted for that but I think I will. This stuff is fascinating."

I just decided. I'm gonna do it.

[Mo1]

You'll submit the sample through our secure, private, and completely anonymous system, then log on to the project Web site to track your personal results online,/i>

Yea right .... / sarcasm >

[antceecee]

LOL!

[M. Dodge Thomas]

"It seems he feels we are all African and these Africans traveled to different parts of the world to become different ethnic groups."

I haven’t read about this stuff for a while, but ten years or so back the then current theory based on evidence from mitochondrial DNA was that homo sapiens at one time passed though a genetic “choke point” where out ancestral population had been reduced to a very small group, almost certainly located in Africa.

If so at least in that sense, we are all “African-Americans”.

[TX Bluebonnet]

READ LATER

[Eva]

This got me started doing some genealogic research on my family, looking for a Scandanavian link. I didn't find one so far, but I did find out that my relative who crossed the Delaware with Washington, was also part of Hartley's Raiders, the expedition through western PA and New York against the Indians, in retaliation for the massacre at Fort Wyoming. It's fascinating stuff. I have a very interesting family history, including William Moore, the pirate who led the mutiny on Captain Kidd's ship and was killed by Kidd, resulting in Kidd being hung.

[I'm ALL Right!]

Irish, Black Dutch, French, Norwegian, and Cherokee. I'm a mutt.

[blam]

"I haven’t read about this stuff for a while, but ten years or so back the then current theory based on evidence from mitochondrial DNA was that homo sapiens at one time passed though a genetic “choke point” where out ancestral population had been reduced to a very small group, almost certainly located in Africa."

The 'bottleneck' was caused by the Volcano Toba explosion 74,000 years ago that sent the earth into a 'hard' Ice Age environment. Only 2-10,000 humans survived worldwide...the deaths were worldwide and not linked to just the site of the eruption. There was a tremendous amount of 'branching' just after this incident and another 23-18,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum(LGM).

[martin_fierro]

I'm sure that as more results come in, more similar genetic links will turn up.

[martin_fierro]

You must have been in a group that filled the void left by Toba 74,000 years ago. Take a look...what do you think?

Either that, or I'm part of the group who passed through the area before Toba, and on to the Korean peninsula.

I'll have to really ask some hard questions at the next family reunion. < |:)~

[CobaltBlue]

My husband has sent in his test but no results back yet. I just nagged my mother, she promises she'll do hers "tomorrow."