GENEALOGY AND DNA
MAPPING THE NEW FRONTIER IN SELF REALISATION
WHAT IS genealogy? In a nutshell, it's the retelling of one’s ancestral past either orally or by documenting the deeds of those who have gone before us. Most people who have read the Bible first became aware of the practice while reading the Old Testament, where there are passages that recount the lineage of one biblical figure or the other; or in the New Testament when Jesus was linked to King David as a descendant through his mother’s line. However, Jews were not the only culture or people to practise the art of lineage recounting. Many other societies did this, for example, the Europeans, the Maori, the Melanesians, the Polynesians and the Asians, to name only a few. Africans, for millennia, were divided into tribes that were divided further into clans, and each clan had its own individual common ancestor from whom each member had to be descended to be regarded a member of that clan. As a result, each village or community in Africa employed the services of a village elder whose only role was to record the clan’s lineage and transmit this information accurately from one generation to another, making additions along the way. Human beings became obsessed with the preservation and transmitting of communal genealogies.
The ‘superancestor’
IN THE Jamaican context, almost every family had that elderly aunt, uncle, or grandparent who would tell stories from the past, recounting the deeds of their own parents and grandparents either when asked or voluntarily offering the information, which the younger generation needed to know. In my own family, the practice was more deliberate. My grandfather passed to my father, whether he was willing to listen or not, the story of our family for over 300 years, which he, in turn, passed to me when I was but 12 years old. This retelling often comes in the form of history compression, where several ancestors and their lives and major achievements are encapsulated in the deeds of one primary ‘superancestor’.
From the early days of genetic research, researchers studied the occurrence of eye colour, hair tones and textures, and the complexion changes that happened within a generation of a family where persons of different hair colour and eye colour united to have children, and further into the complexities associated with the complexion changes that exist among offspring of different racial mixes. This early science has always been intimately conjoined with genealogy. Thus its evolution into accepting DNA research was inevitable.
What exactly is DNA? It’s a series of chemical markers that are bonded together in a spiral helix of nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and complex carbohydrates called polysaccharides. These molecules are existent in all life on Earth. However, in humans, they have identified markers that are associated with racial, regional, and subregional groupings called Haplogroups. Because of major projects like the Genome project of the ’80s and ’90s, we can now define a person’s lineage to specific regions, peoples, and tribes. But what particularly concerns the genealogist is how to best use this information to assist us in deciphering the ancestry of a person.
Commercial companies like 23andme, Ancestry.com, and several others, now offer quick and easy DNA kits from which the individual can be provided a simple pie chart of the percentages of individual racial admixture and the regions of origin that constitute that individuals ancestry. This pie chart is used by most genealogists to confirm their paper trail of documents, though it can also be used in the reverse. Each percentage represents the time the ancestor existed in your lineage as most DNA markers cannot trace individual contributions from ancestors beyond a 500-year timeline, after which the DNA markers combine into an undistinguishable mass where all ancestral contributions merge into combined markers spanning hundreds or thousands of
years back in time.
1,024 ancestors
IT MUST be remembered that each individual has two parents, and unless those parents, are brother and sister, those two parents have two more parents each, which means that the average person has approximately 1,024 ancestors in 11 generations, or eight great-grandparents back, and approximately 16,384 ancestors in 15 generations, or your 12th greatgrandparents. However, because of numerous cousin unions and the occasional sibling unions along the way, this number is significantly less, though how much less is very dependent on that individual’s lineage versus population ratios for a particular locality, for example, Jamaica.
Remarkably, whether we know it or not, we are all related the further back we go. Through DNA, one can positively identify the direct male (paternal) line of origin for a man, and for a woman, her direct female (maternal) line of origin, with elements of the father’s side represented to a lesser extent in women and the reverse in men.
But the most important question of all is why someone would need to know their genetic make-up and their ancestors. Simply: because it makes you truly complete. A tree without roots may seem to be flourishing just fine until tested by strong winds. And that’s what knowing your past does for you. It provides a strong foundation from which to weather every storm.
Jamaicans live in a society that often has others telling you who you are and what you are. When you know the facts, that becomes less of a problem. You also now realise that history is not just some meaningless words recounting vague far-off events on a dusty shelf. Your ancestors lived those events as intimately as you are living through today’s life events. Your today will be your descendants’ tomorrows. And just as you would not wish to be long forgotten, then why should the people who were needed to bring you here be forgotten? It’s the duty of every person to learn more about their ancestors, so get started.