Posted on 02/24/2007 4:43:52 PM PST by Pokey78
LIKE many other black Americans, Whoopi Goldberg, the actress and comedian, recently embarked on a quest to trace her African roots. When the results of DNA testing indicated that she was descended from two tribes in the tiny African state of Guinea-Bissau, there was a flurry of excitement at the country’s modest diplomatic mission in Washington.
An official letter was swiftly drawn up by the Guinea-Bissau tourism ministry inviting Goldberg to visit the home of her ancestors. The letter took some time to reach her — perhaps because it was addressed to “Your excellency Hoppy Goldberg” — but prominent local officials proudly proclaimed the 51-year-old star to be “our daughter”.
Sadly there was to be no happy outcome for Guinea-Bissau’s unexpected brush with Hollywood celebrity. Goldberg is famously afraid of flying and has not been on a plane for more than 20 years. Her agent said this month she had no plans to board a boat to west Africa and would not be visiting Guinea-Bissau in the foreseeable future.
Goldberg’s experience symbolised both the rewards and the potential pitfalls of a vogue among black Americans to undergo DNA testing in the hope that their genetic codes can be matched to specific African tribes.
In a 21st-century twist on the epic feat of genealogical research described in Roots, Alex Haley’s worldwide 1976 bestseller, thousands of African Americans are paying up to £300 for DNA tests that claim to offer them the chance of identifying the tribes and nations from which their ancestors were sold into slavery.
The trend has provoked joy and controversy. Melvin Collier, a graduate student from Atlanta, was thrilled when DNA provided a link that none of his research into family trees and slavery documents had uncovered: his genetic profile matched the Mbundu people of Angola.
Yet critics have warned that private databases used to make the DNA matches are incomplete and potentially flawed. Some black Americans have received nasty shocks when it turned out that they were not African American at all: their ancestors came from Europe and in some cases were white.
“Before you go opening any genetic doors, you need to ask, am I really ready for what might be behind them?” said Melvyn Gillette, a member of the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California.
Among the pioneers in the flourishing online African genealogical industry is Rick Kittles, a professor of genetic medicine who studied the remains of about 400 former African slaves recovered from a 17th and 18th-century burial site in Manhattan in the early 1990s.
As Kittles attempted to match samples taken from the remains against the DNA of modern Africans, he discovered that there was no definitive African database to search. So he set out to create his own.
African Ancestry, the company he helped to found in 2003, now claims to control the world’s largest collection of African DNA with at least 25,000 samples from tribal groups.
Interest in Kittles’s techniques exploded when one of America’s foremost black academics recruited a team of celebrities — Goldberg among them — for African American Lives, a television series exploring their roots.
“We thought if we could get eight prominent African Americans from a variety of fields and trace their family trees back as far as the paper trail allows, back beyond slavery, and then when the paper trail disappears, do their DNA and tell them where their ancestors came from in Africa, what a great contribution that would be to education,” said Professor Henry Louis Gates.
One of the highlights of the four-hour series showed Chris Tucker, an actor and comedian, tracing his roots to Angola and visiting the tribe he was linked to. Tucker was stunned to find that many of the tribesmen looked like him.
Gates’s series inspired a flood of ordinary black Americans to send their DNA to African Ancestry, which has performed more than 10,000 tests.
Critics argue that the test results offer only a partial glimpse of a family tree that may extend to 1,000 ancestors from 300 years ago. Hank Greely, an ethicist at Stanford Law School, said that DNA matching was being “oversimplified and oversold”.
Yet the doubts have not stopped a parade of prominent African Americans from attempting to determine exactly which part of Africa they originate from. Goldberg learnt that at least some of her ancestors belonged to the Papel and Bayote tribes. The letter from the Guinea-Bissau government informed her that “we simply cannot remain indifferent to the news of your Guinean heritage”. They may be waiting some time.
HA HA HA, there's an element of truth there...LOL
Agreed. I teach a genealogy class at the library that focuses on the PROPER use of the internet. The web has been a double edged sword. It has saved alot of time for many, but on the otherhand, so many mistakes have been pepetuated, that I get more disgusted by the day.
I tell those people that it isn't too late to make up for it. They can donate everything they own to the local tribe, and perhaps they will feel better about themselves.
No takers.
Oh you are right about that one! My hubby has an ancestor named Thomas McSwain. Thomas McSwain had a cousin born within about five years of him and who married a woman named Selena, and moved from the Carolinas to Tennesee. My hubby's Thomas stayed in the area, and married a woman named Frankie (Francis). We have a good paper trail on him and know where they were buried and all. But it's amazing how many times Frankie ends up in Tennessee in people's genealogies, and how one cousin claimes there was a Selena "Frankie", even though the records are pretty clear for those who are really looking.
And I won't talk about one of my family lines who tried to kidnap the line of one of the early Dutch families, but it turns out they are probably from the Orkneys instead. They don't match the Dutch family's dna...but the paper records told me they weren't connected years ago... But the same stuff gets repeated anyway.
"Her agent said this month she had no plans to board a boat to west Africa and would not be visiting Guinea-Bissau in the foreseeable future"
Why would one want to visit the descendants of the ones who sold your ancestors into slavery?
I know it. In my family somebody made a mistake years ago and traced our ancestry to a rich, aristocratic family in England, where the castle by the same name still stands. The error was perpetuated on the Internet. Now all the myriad American ancestors think they're descended from nobility and are entitled to display that English family's crest. However, more careful research has shown that we come from a line of horse thieves, whoremongers, and losers. But nobody wants to hear that. I think it's hilarious.
You beat me to it.
SO the next step for these people in tracing their roots, would logically be to find out which islamic peoples were wholly and directly responsible for their being sold into slavery.
Inquiring minds want to know. And when will the arabs publicly apologize for this grave injustice to all African Americans?
This looks like a job for Jesse Jackson.
During my volunteer work helping libary patrons, I have had at least 20-25 people who have gotten some embarrassing news with my help. It is really funny how the different people handle it.
We've all got Democrats in our backgrounds somewhere.
Sounds like my family. One of my more ambitious (and dumber) cousins found an English earl of the same name and adopted his arms... the problem being that the family name is Norwegian!
"Now all the myriad American ancestors think they're descended from nobility and are entitled to display that English family's crest."
In England, you're not talking about a "crest," you're talking about a coat of arms, which were awarded to specific individuals, not families. A firstborn son could apply to the College of Arms on the basis of his father having borne a coat of arms, but the coat of arms, if granted, would be "differenced" with the addition of some small detail, such as a stripe or a border. That's why very early coats of arms are exceedingly simple, and late ones are complicated. Very, very few US citizens are entitled to apply to the College of Arms for their own, differenced coat of arms, as a result. But, a very large majority of US citizens actually do have some relation to nobility, usually through second and younger sons striking out for the colonies, in hopes of making their fortune, since they were not entitled to inherit under primogeniture laws.
Any red headed wimmen here?
I misstated something: I should have said a a very large majority of US citizens with early colonial ancestors have some relation to English nobility, for the reasons mentioned.
That would certainly be news to the hundreds if not thousands of slaves who escaped the USA via the underground railroad to come to Canada, which was a British colony at the time. England was YEARS ahead of the US in abolition of the slave trade.
Just like a liberal to have irrational fears.
I agree, DNA testing is very exciting and fascinating!
I saw a piece on dateline or some show similar where a black man had his DNA tested. It showed that he was (dot) Indian. His family lived in New Orleans, and at that time all of the darker-skinned people lived together.
He was a professor, and his grown children were amazed! Quite interesting.
I believe (although I am not vouching for the accuracy of the intent) that the poster was trying to say that the slave issue was dealt with faster than the European counterparts in terms of time with slaves. How many slave years in the Americas vs. total slave years in the other countries?
OF course, that might not pan out either...
Uh, gee, Don, America became sovereign in 1789 and abolished slavery in 1862(?). That'd mean that we, as Americans, did away with it as a lawful act in 73 years. Before then, we were a c-o-l-o-n-y of England. Notice that I didn't say anything about a concurrent timeline. I only pointed out the certain destination of American exceptionalism.
How long were the Brits in the slave trade, Don? Did Britain nearly commit national suicide to bring it to an end? Was the recognition of the equality of all humanity codified in British law?
Seems to me you need to review some of your history...or re-evaluate your cultural brainwashing.
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