Citizen Science Helps to Rewrite the Y Chromosome Tree..

 

Yesterday the first scientific paper was published by the American Journal of Human Genetics on a very interesting discovery that I previewed back in November on this blog: http://blog.ddowell.com/2012/11/your-paternal-line-just-got-much-longer.html. This was the discovery that an African-American in South Carolina had a Y-chromosome DNA sequence that is far older than any previously documented in fossils or in living individuals in Africa. This discovery was initially stumbled into in the course of a "routine" genetic genealogy project by citizen scientist, Bonnie Schrack. It has since been verified and documented by academic scientists from a variety of disciplines.

Today CeCe Moore explains this find in her usual complete and understandable way. Be sure to check out this story on her blog post linked below:

Citizen Science Helps to Rewrite the Y Chromosome Tree and Illuminate the Ancestral Roots of African American Project Members: 

The academic paper describing the discovery of a new root of the human Y chromosome tree, An African American Paternal Lineage Adds an Extr...

 

Your Genetic Genealogist: "Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr." - DNA in The First Two Episodes

CeCe Moore blogged in depth about the first two episodes Henry Louis Gates' new series about finding roots which appeared last night on public television. I saw the first episode last night and will watch the second today. If you share my interest in genealogy and the application of DNA findings to amplify family history research, you should enjoy this series on public television. 


Your Genetic Genealogist: "Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr." - DNA in The First Two Episodes:


You will also find the preview from The Genetic Genealogist to be both interesting and provocative. Blaine Bettinger's excellent blog is easily confused with CeCe's Your Genetic Genealogist. Both these blogs help us all try to keep up with new developments in the rapidly developing expanding field of genetic genealogy.