GenealogyDNA.com

Posts Tagged ‘family tree’

The last names and DNA are two paths a person can take to search their ancestral past. In most cases, these two pieces of information can work hand in hand. This is because the last name is the surname of a family, which is passed down from father to son, generation to generation.

In the past, most genealogists used the surname of the family to trace out the historical roots of their family tree. This was the only means available to them. Interviews were conducted where the eldest members of the family would enlighten those that were interested on their family lineage that had already passed away.

In many cases, there were old diaries and bibles that were passed down from generation to generation, chronicling the history of a family. In such diaries would be examples or references to official documents like land grants, obituaries, births, weddings, and news items that were reported in local newspapers about past family members.

Today, there is another tool available to the modern genealogist. This is with DNA testing and their results. This makes the job of tracing a family’s roots much easier. No longer does a lead have to be physically traced out by a person traveling to a region and searching for a person or family with the same last name. The records in old newspapers from these regions can now be found online that also makes it more accessible to a greater number of people.

With more amateur genealogists registering their findings online, complete family trees are being developed. DNA results are easy to compare and a greater number of relationships are being discovered.

Today, the use of last names and DNA results are making the task of finding one’s past easier. This is more than just a hobby, but part of history.  By taking a Y-DNA test and registering your line in the database you will have a good chance of locating other relatives with the same name.

The Genealogical DNA test has taken the field of DNA testing to a new height. Gathering information and tracing one’s family tree through DNA testing has given a new edge to genealogy. In finding out one’s ethnic and genetic make up, once the individual has exhausted all sources in gathering information, the last and probably the best resort lies in Genealogical DNA Test.

It helps to confirm whether the individual is able to incorporate the right people in his or her family tree. These Genealogy DNA tests do not ascertain paternity. These tests inform you about genealogical information.

This type of testing examines the specific location of nucleotides within a person’s DNA in order to fulfill genetic genealogical purposes. The test results are not enriched with informative clinical value; these only provide genealogical readings and information.

The popularly known Y chromosome (Y-DNA) test and mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA testing examine the direct-line paternal and maternal ancestry, respectively. A DNA test for ascertaining ancestry is not exactly a new practice. Lately it has reached heightened popularity because of cost factors and public awareness.

Being affordable, such tests are very much within the financial reach of common people.  The kits for testing ancestry are available in many places in the market nowadays, including right here on this website.

A Genealogy DNA Test can easily be done sitting at home. It is a very simple and painless process. You just need to collect buccal swab, more commonly called cheek-scraping from the interior walls of your cheek and send the sample to a genealogical lab. Later you can collect your report from the lab.

Genealogical DNA Tests have opened new interest areas in people. There are innumerable people who barely know about their family backgrounds beyond one or two generations. These tests often reveal results from a different angle; in the case of people having a migratory clan as their ancestors can know about their ancient homeland from such tests.

You may check out our advertiser, Family Tree DNA, by clicking on the banner to the right. or by CLICKING HERE.

Simply put, genetic genealogy is the use of DNA to ascertain a genetic relationship between individuals.  The Father of Evolution, Charles Darwin, is also credited with the early study of genetics, before the discovery of microscopic cell part deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.

Darwin’s son George was able to study surnames in Britain and determine the rate of incidence of marriage among people with the same last name.  Interestingly, upper-class families were more likely to marry a cousin than the lower classes.  In fact, Charles Darwin himself was married to his first cousin Emma Wedgwood.

It wasn’t for another 100 years that major advances would be made along Darwin’s theory and it took an unlikely American running for U.S President to thrust the issue in the public eye.

Barack Obama is reported to have German roots that go back to the 1700s.  According to a popular ancestry website, Obama’s great, g, g, g, g, grandfather Johann Conrad Woelflin was born in Besigheim, Germany in January, 1729.  He emigrated to America in 1750 and settled in Pennsylvannia under the name of Wolfley.

This is intriguing because the findings follow another report that Obama bears some Irish ancestry.  No one who looks at Barack Obama would doubt he is anything but the product of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father, but Obama’s family tree is a common one.  Many Americans believe they have only a few national strains in their DNA when in fact they have the influence of several countries in their family tree.

When told the charismatic American President was a descendant of Germany, the country responded with cheers.  This isn’t the first U.S. President to be so named.  Dwight Eisenhower also had German roots.

Dive into your genetic genealogy and prepare yourself for wondrous information about your family you never believed possible.