Some countries, especially those
with more homogeneous populations, find Americans’ tendency to describe their
heritage using percentage points to be rather silly. In a place as diverse as
America, however, I think it makes perfect sense.
My grandmother and aunt happen to be
very interested in genealogy, the study of family history. I stumbled upon it
on my own when I was pretty young and immediately began working online to create
my family tree. Admittedly, I did not get very far at first. Some of my family
members gave me paper records and family trees. I also worked hard and did
plenty of research to find information to break through genealogical brick
walls.
Over ten years later, I’ve learned
so much about my family. My family tree goes as far back as my 18th
great-grandfather, most likely born in the 12th century. I connected
with cousins that I didn’t even know I had. And this is all thanks to
collaboration with genealogists from all around the world. The power of
technology, right?
Though genealogical research may
sometimes result in the discovery of some unwanted information or unforeseen
secrets, there is substantially more upside than downside. Learning about your
family allows you to learn more about yourself. Maybe you’re related to a
celebrity or have royalty in your blood. Or maybe you want to learn where your
name came from, or if your heritage subjects you to certain health risks. Maybe
you’re just interested in learning about or preserving your family’s history.
All these things, and more, can be learned from just a little bit of genealogical
research.
The internet has forever changed the
study of family history. It almost makes it too
easy to start a family tree. For reasons that need not be explained, the Mormon
Church substantially contributed to technological advancements in genealogy.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds the world’s largest
collection of genealogical data in the world. It is available for free to the
public at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
For obvious reasons, it is not
exactly practical to fly to Utah every time you want to look up some records.
To solve this problem, over 100,000 volunteers are involved in the large-scale
conversion of the Family History Library’s microfilms to digitalized searchable
records. These records are available for free online at FamilySearch.org. Without
FamilySearch, my family tree would not be nearly as complete as it is now. The site
also has the world’s largest shared family tree with over 1.2 billion people.
The Mormon Church even went so far
as to develop the GEDCOM file format. The GEDCOM (.ged) is the most widely used
format for storing and sharing genealogical data. It is completely open source and
is used by a variety of programs and web applications. As far as I am aware, this
is the only file format created by a religious organization.
While FamilySearch is a great website
to learn more about your family, other sites are also extremely useful. Websites
like Geni (where my main tree is found), Ancestry.com, and others with large
membership bases allow for collaboration with others on the site. I have been
able to connect with family from New York City to Norway. Merging family trees
is as simple as clicking a button.
Consumer DNA testing is something
that genealogists have been interested in for a while now, but in the past few
years these products have become more and more popular. Many companies, like
23andMe, Family Tree DNA, AncestryDNA, and MyHeritage DNA now provide this sort
of testing. I think DNA testing is a great idea. However, at this point I am
not so sold on the technology.
There are three types of DNA tests
typically offered to consumers: autosomal, mtDNA, and Y-DNA. Out of all three
tests, autosomal testing is the most popular, most informative, and typically
the cheapest. This test looks at genetics provides a percentage breakdown of a
person’s ethnicity based on geography. mtDNA is passed down from your maternal
ancestors, and Y-DNA is passed down from your paternal ancestors. As Y-DNA is
only passed down to those with Y chromosomes, only men can take a Y-DNA test.
Both mtDNA and Y-DNA organize people into something called a haplogroup, which
allows people to see if they have a common maternal or paternal ancestor.
DNA testing is awesome, but I think it's a
scary thing to give to a company. Last year, DNA allowed for the capture of the
Golden State Killer, a serial criminal who had evaded justice in California for
nearly 50 years. Joseph DeAngelo, the suspect, was arrested simply because a
distant relative uploaded their DNA to a service called GEDMatch. 23andMe
has stated that they will indefinitely store your DNA and have admitted to
allowing outside organizations access the information. 23andMe has also
received a lot of criticism for their DNA-based health testing. It has not been
approved by the FDA and it can be dangerously inaccurate. Also, imagine what
would happen if a database full of thousands of customers’ DNA was compromised.
At this point, I am not willing to provide my DNA to a company for testing. But
considering that others in my family have already done so, maybe my genetic
data is not so safe.
Has this post inspired you to create
a family tree of your own? Have you already done some genealogical research and
found anything interesting about your family? Would you be willing to provide
your DNA to a for-profit company for testing? I’d love to hear your thoughts on
this topic!
