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.

[visualops]

A hundred dollars! crap that's way to expensive for me.
bummer :(

[Recall]

Is there a cure?

[martin_fierro]

Is there a cure?

Only one cure:

[I'm ALL Right!]

We must look exactly alike! Ha! I like to just consider myself the ultimate American.

[SunkenCiv]

I believe this is an mtDNA study though. The researcher mentioned is the current big gun of Replacement / Eve / OOA / Clovis First and Only.

[kitkat]

I notice that there are a lot of N.G.'s on sale at garage sales, often for ten cents each. If there are maps or pix you need, only the homeowner would make the money, not the liberal N.G. people.

But perhaps you already knew that.

[fanfan]

Thanks for the ping.

Very interesting, and I just may do it.

As long as they don't clone me...One of me is bad enough!

[xenophiles]

The consent form doesn't even allow your signature, you just black in a dot. It really is anonymous.

Except that they can, if they wish, identify a DNA sample with an address to which they sent that kit.

Whether or not you consider your genome private, the point is that these people have set up a privacy-protection mechanism that is flawed, which suggests to me that they are simply paying lip service to privacy.

As for how this information could be used to hurt people, suppose your genome revealed a predisposition to, say, alcoholism. Do you think that nobody would want to restrict your rights to drive a car, own a gun, have custody of a child? Have you never seen a law so oppressive?

[SunkenCiv]

And if we all did it, FreeRepublic would be using twice the bandwidth, at least. ;')

[CobaltBlue]

The test results are no more capable of revealing that you have a tendency to alcoholism than blood group typing (ABO).

But hey, if you're paranoid, don't do it.

[fanfan]

LOL. And Jim Rob would get twice the donations. ;-)

[Recall]

I told my husband I'm getting one to make sure he's my husband! Hmmm, sounds like a "blond" idea..lol

[Recall]

Does it distinguish between Jewish groups, like German Jews from Russian Jews from Polish Jews?

[Recall]

Most scientists think the first Indians came to the Americas from Asia at least 15,000 years ago.

Source:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/6524/americanindians.htm

[T Minus Four]

I can't believe no one has asked this yet, but what are the "dozen phenotyping questions" one must answer?

[hlmencken3]

Such groups would not be very gentically distinct, although I'm sure distant relatives could be found.

Family Roots

...while genealogy tests such as those offered by Family Tree DNA are "valid," the companies "should give explanations of what the results mean. You have the same lineage as 10 million other people." In other words, the tests are not that meaningful by themselves. For example, all persons of Eastern European Jewish descent share many markers because they are descended from a rather small number of individuals, perhaps 50,000, who were alive in the year 1500.

[xenophiles]

The test results are no more capable of revealing that you have a tendency to alcoholism than blood group typing (ABO).

You are assuming that no analysis will be performed on the samples other than the coarse grouping reported on the web site. If that's the case, then I agree, I don't see any danger in it. At least not until racial cleansing comes back into vogue, which is far enough away (in the First World) that it will be impossible to keep genomes secret that long anyhow.

But hey, if you're paranoid, don't do it.

If you're schizophrenic, study Dali. If you're a sniveling coward, wear a seatbelt. And if you don't want to discuss genetic privacy, then don't.

[Recall]

LOL

Seriously tho, I was born with six fingers and understand
Giants (Goliath) had extra digits. I wonder if this test would reflect that. Sorry, if this is a dumb question.

[Recall]

CORRECTION HERE

I was born with 6 fingers on one hand, 5 on the other. I ad no extra toes but my middle toe is longer than my big toe.

[JudyB1938]

No wonder you're so good-looking. I've always thought Eurasians were the world's most handsome people.

Another thing about this ... Asians have the highest IQ's, so that explains how come you're so smart, too. :^)

Luv ya,
Judy