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The Genographic Project (Have Your DNA Checked, Find Your Roots)
National Geographic - IBM ^ | 6-15-2005

Posted on 06/15/2005 11:34:14 AM PDT by 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.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: archaeology; checked; dna; genealogy; genetics; genographic; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; history; project; roots; youdna
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To: GladesGuru

>>>>The present crowd running that operation are a far cry from the Grosvenors. From Global Warming to "The Rain forest Is Dying", the journalists are firmly committed to activist journalism.

NO MONEY FOR SOCIALISTS! !>>>>

I'm in total agreement with your statement. We dropped our subscription to National Geographic about 25 years ago when we got tired of the lefist propaganda on its pages. What a shame! It used to be a beautiful magazine and then it turned into a depressing and untruthful collection of articles and pix.




41 posted on 06/15/2005 12:01:01 PM PDT by kitkat
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To: blam

Did you participate? It is very tempting to me. I don't really see anything controversial in Oprah's statement of being descended from the Zulus.


42 posted on 06/15/2005 12:01:55 PM PDT by Eva
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To: 68skylark

I may not have understood your question, either. ;)


43 posted on 06/15/2005 12:01:56 PM PDT by DGray (http://nicanfhilidh.blogspot.com)
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To: reagandemocrat
Uhhh....is anyone here even the slightest concerned that this could be used for nefarious purposes?

Yes, if they learn of my genetic background they're going to try and breed me constantly.

44 posted on 06/15/2005 12:02:51 PM PDT by xJones
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To: blam

My children accuse me of harboring Neanderthal DNA.


45 posted on 06/15/2005 12:02:53 PM PDT by ConorMacNessa
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To: 68skylark
I'm no expert here, but you direct paternal line can only come from one ethnic group, right? And your direct maternal line can also come from only one group too, right?

Right! But if you only go back ten generations, you have 512 ancestors. Direct paternal and direct maternal only takes care of two of them. How about the other 510? And ten generations is not "deep ancestry." In short order you get into the millions of ancestors, more, in fact, than the total population of the earth. Oops! Do I smell an incest scandal here?

46 posted on 06/15/2005 12:03:45 PM PDT by night reader
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To: blam
DNA Immortality Kit
47 posted on 06/15/2005 12:06:34 PM PDT by Heartlander
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To: HitmanNY
"How many Father's Days are going to be spoiled when the adult Flannery O'Flanagan calls up the homes of his senior citizen parents, Conan & Margaret O'Flanagan, and says 'hey, my DNA test shows I'm 1/2 Mexican! How the heck did that happen, Mom?" ;-)"

40 years ago, in a college genetics class, the instructor mentioned that - even given the relativly primitive non-DNA testing available at the time - a study he participated in a hospital in Madison, WI in the early 1960s indicated that 4-5% of births were children that could not have resulted from impregnation by the father of record. (The blood was collected as part of a sturdy of a different question. And no, they didn't tell either parent.)
48 posted on 06/15/2005 12:07:52 PM PDT by M. Dodge Thomas (More of the same, only with more zeros on the end.)
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To: night reader
Yeah, I think I understand your comment and it makes sense.

The way I read this article, they don't claim they're going to give you information on all of the 512 ancestors you've mentioned in your example -- they'll just give general information on one or two ancestors.

So someone can argue that the test won't provide all the information they might like to have. But they can't argue that someone with a mixed-race background is going to get results that are distorted or imprecise. Do I have that right?

49 posted on 06/15/2005 12:09:26 PM PDT by 68skylark
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To: LIConFem
My roots are black. Don't need DNA testing to tell me that. A quick glance in the nearest mirror will suffice ;o)

You might be surprised. (I was, anyway, to discover that a blacker-than-her-shadow friend had a Irish grandfather).
50 posted on 06/15/2005 12:10:49 PM PDT by M. Dodge Thomas (More of the same, only with more zeros on the end.)
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To: night reader
(For those who haven't already see this map)

This is an excellent map drawn from the DNA studies of professor Stephen Oppenheimer, It was privately funded by The Bradshaw Foundation.

The Journey Of Mankind (The Peopleing Of The World)

Note the first humans out of Africa failed...and, he places the first Americans at Meadowcroft 25,000 years ago. (Etc)

51 posted on 06/15/2005 12:11:30 PM PDT by blam
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To: M. Dodge Thomas

Well to be fair, I'm sure a similar percentage of men were out there having an extramarital fling - it's just that they don't leave evidence the same way a mom does, that's all. ;-)


52 posted on 06/15/2005 12:11:57 PM PDT by HitmanLV
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To: Warthogtjm
"My children accuse me of harboring Neanderthal DNA."

Do You have red hair?

Redheads 'Are Neanderthals'

53 posted on 06/15/2005 12:14:59 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

Sounds fascinating!


54 posted on 06/15/2005 12:16:00 PM PDT by silverleaf (Fasten your seat belts- it's going to be a BUMPY ride.)
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To: Eva
"Did you participate?"

Not yet...still thinking about it.

" I don't really see anything controversial in Oprah's statement of being descended from the Zulus."

It does not matter to me that Oprah is a Zulu.

55 posted on 06/15/2005 12:17:05 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

***"Scientists have found an ancient strand of hair in Woodburn's Front Street Park - a human hair that may have been left behind before modern American Indians settled in North America a few thousand years ago."***

Was it red? If it was, I'm sure I know who the hussy was.


56 posted on 06/15/2005 12:18:48 PM PDT by kitkat
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To: LIConFem

LOL!


57 posted on 06/15/2005 12:19:03 PM PDT by MissEdie
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To: blam

bump for later ponder


58 posted on 06/15/2005 12:19:54 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: Constitution Day

Seems everyone is Zulu. Zulu's were the most powerful tribe in Africa. It was the Zulu leaders that traded with the dutch and exchanged ther slaves for goods and those slaves were sent to the Americas.

No Zulu was ever a slave. Also today in Africa, no Zulu's will work for any other tribe - if you look at the mines, stores, etc, Zulu's do not work for anyone other then a Zulu in any organization.


59 posted on 06/15/2005 12:20:03 PM PDT by edcoil (Reality doesn't say much - doesn't need too)
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To: blam

No, but thanks for the link.


60 posted on 06/15/2005 12:20:38 PM PDT by ConorMacNessa
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