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The Genetic Genealogist
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The Genetic Genealogist examines the intersection between modern genetic testing and traditional genealogical research.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'dna studies'
The Future of Genetic Genealogy – Tracing DNA To Individual Ancestors
I once told someone that in addition to learning about their ancient origins (such as Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups), many genetic genealogists would ideally like to match every portion of their DNA with the contributing ancestor. Although this might...
Australian Research Study on Consumer Genomics
As part of her doctoral research, Sudeepa Abeysinghe is asking people who have purchased genomic tests to complete the “User Experiences of Direct-to-Consumer Genomic Testing Survey”. According to Sudeepa, the survey focuses on the consumer exp...
Family Tree DNA Discovers Y-DNA Signature That Might Represent the Prophet Mohammed
An article in the United Arab Emirate newspaper The National (wikipedia) does a terrific job of highlighting recent research from Family Tree DNA. The story - “DNA could illuminate Islam’s lineage” – discusses research that has attempted to...
The Close Cousins DNA Project – A Request for Help
Image by Aaron Logan Roughly 6 million years ago, the Hominini subtribe of the Hominidae family tree (the so-called “great apes”) diverged into two known branches, with one branch (genus Pan ) resulting in modern-day Chimpanzees and Bonobos, and...
Interviews with 23andMe Customers
Image via CrunchBase DAVIDE at the European Genetics and Anthropology Blog recently posted two interviews (here and here) with customers of 23andMe’s large-scale genome scanning service, one from Finland and one from the U.S. It’s very interesti...
80 Percent of Americans Favor Making Genetic Testing MORE Available
The Virginia Commonwealth University Life Science Center has released the results of the VCU Life Sciences Survey and I thought I’d share some of the interesting results. The most surprising result of the survey is that 80% of surveyed adults f...
A Lecture by Spencer Wells
Last week I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project from National Geographic and IBM. The talk was a Syracuse Symposium event, and the first big event ever to be held in Syracuse University’...
Personal Genome Project Begins Releasing Information
The Personal Genome Project (PGP) was established to analyze and publicly share the genomes and personal information of up to 100,000 volunteers in order to advance understanding of “genetic and environmental contributions to human traits and t...
Abstracts From the ASHG 2008 Meeting
The American Society of Human Genetics is having its 58th Annual Meeting in November. As I was looking through the meeting abstracts, I noticed that there were a number of abstracts that dealt with topics related to genetic genealogy. I thought s...
The $1,000 Genome by the End of 2009?
On December 30th, 2007, I blogged the following: “[A]ffordable whole-genome sequencing is getting closer and closer every day (my prediction - which is based solely on my own educated guess - is that I will be able to sequence my entire genome ...
Gene Genie #37: Human Genomes Are a Dime a Dozen
Welcome to the September 14, 2008 edition of Gene Genie! Bloggers have begun to pick up posting with the end of summer, and it seems like everyday there’s a bunch of new interesting posts about the human genome. 96well at Reportergene present...
Follow-Up to 23andMe’s Price Drop
Yesterday I wrote about 23andMe’s decision to lower their price to $399 (down from $999) while adding more genealogically-relevant SNPs and partnering with Ancestry.com. Although I don’t have any further information about the new SNPs, ...
The Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee Rejects DNA Testing
See the new article at Seed Magazine “Inheriting Confucius,” which discusses efforts to generate a family tree containing the 2 million+ descendants of Confucius. Kong De-Yong, a 77th(!) generation descendant of Confucius, has been compil...
The Tenth and Final PGP Volunteer is Revealed!
Thomas Goetz has written another terrific article about genetic testing and the Personal Genome Project. This article, entitled “The Gene Collector,” appears in Wired Magazine. The article provides some new information about the PGP, ...
In Memoriam - Leo William Little
Last week the genetic genealogy community lost one of its treasured members, Leo W. Little. Leo’s passing was announced on the GENEALOGY-DNA mailing list on Sunday evening. Since then, many members of that mailing list, the ISOGG Yahoo Group, ...
Accuracy of Large-Scale Genome Scanning Services
Although the genome scanning services offered by companies such as 23andMe, deCODEme, and SeqWright have been front and center in the press the last few weeks, I’m sure that the following information will not be included in any of the reports. ...
The New Y-Chromosome Tree to be Released Tomorrow
A long-anticipated new version of the Y-Chromosome Tree will be released in the journal Genome Research tomorrow (Wednesday, April 2nd). In the paper, scientists from the University of Arizona and Stanford University use recent SNP data and research...
Interesting DNA Links - March 26, 2008
Here are a few of the many interesting links from the DNA blogosphere: DNA Testing Firms Eye Consumers (BBC) - yet another article that looks at both sides of the “should you test” debate. Genetic Testing Gets Personal (Washington Post) ...
The Six Founding Native American Mothers
If you’re interested in DNA, Native American History, or genetic genealogy, then you’re undoubtedly heard of a new paper from PLoS ONE called “The Phylogeny of the Four Pan-American mtDNA Haplogroups: Implications for Evolutionary a...
More Interesting Links From The Genetic Genealogist
On the heels of my recent post discussing all the interesting information that’s recently entered the blogosphere about genetic genealogy and DNA studies, here are a few more: Misha Angrist, one of the Personal Genome Project’s “Fir...
Interesting Links From The Genetic Genealogist
There is so much to talk about, and so little time to write. So I thought I’d do a round-up post to bring these interesting stories to your attention. I hope you enjoy the following: Of great significance to genetic genealogists, the Wall Str...
Famous DNA Review, Part IV - Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James, born September 5, 1847 and died April 3, 1882, was an infamous American outlaw. Despite strong evidence that James was killed on April 3, 1882, some theorized that his death was staged and that he in fact survived to father addi...
Did Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak Marry Her Cousin?
What are the chances that Megan Smolenyak would meet and marry a man with the surname Smolenyak without being at least distantly related to him? What if the two surname lines came from the same area of the world? I’m sure that everyone who ha...
What is the Mutation Frequency Rate of mtDNA?
As I was reading through the GENEALOGY-DNA list from Rootsweb this morning, I came across a great question about the frequency of mutation of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The listmember asks “I am wondering if anyone would know the odds of having...
Personal Genomics in The New England Journal of Medicine
A report published in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Letting the Genome Out of the Bottle - Will We Get Our Wish?” is getting a lot of coverage elsewhere, but I thought I’d add my two cents. The report’s author...
A Single Colon Cancer Gene Traced to 1630 - The Future of Genetic Genealogy?
Scientists from the University of Utah have traced a mutation in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene to a Mr. and Mrs. George Fry, who arrived in the New World aboard the William & Mary around 1630. The mutation, c.426_427delAT, is believed...
The Personal Genome Project Has a New Website
As of the end of November, the Personal Genome Project has a newly-designed and user-friendly website. Compare the OLD site and the NEW site - what an improvement! Misha Angrist, aka genomeboy.com and one of the “First 10″ aptly called...
New DNA Analysis of Native Americans
PLoS Genetics has a new paper (PLoS Genet 3(11): e185. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0030185) that examines autosomal microsatellite markers (repeating units of base pairs) from Native American DNA: “We examined genetic diversity and population st...
Genetic Genealogy in the Classroom
Forty advanced placement science students at Soldan International High School in St. Louis have submitted their DNA for testing with the National Geographic Society’s Genographic project. An article in the St. Louis-Post Dispatch highlight...
Genetic Genealogy Eliminates Two As Descendants of Joseph Smith
Did Joseph Smith father children with any of his plural wives? The Deseret News has a lengthy article about recent efforts by a geneticist to answer the long-debated question about the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Ugo Perego, the dire...
