Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jun;181(2):163-165.
doi: 10.1002/ajpa.24705. Epub 2023 Feb 2.

Addressing the feasibility of people of African descent finding living African relatives using direct-to-consumer genetic testing

LaKisha T David  1
Affiliations

Addressing the feasibility of people of African descent finding living African relatives using direct-to-consumer genetic testing

LaKisha T David. Am J Biol Anthropol. 2023 Jun.

Abstract

People of African descent use direct-to-consumer genomics services such as 23andMe and AncestryDNA for various family histories and health reasons, including identifying and interacting with the previously unknown living African genetic relatives. In this commentary, I argue that it is reasonable to consider that cousin pairs consisting of an African person and a descendant of an African person enslaved in the Americans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade (i.e., a person of African descent) have genealogical ancestors recent enough to be detected using autosomal DNA testing where the pair has shared ancestors in the range of 20-6 generations ago from the present.

Keywords: genetic family tree inference; genetic genealogy; genetic relatedness.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. African Ancestry, Inc. (2018). African ancestry: Trace your DNA. Find Your Roots. http://www.africanancestry.com/home/
    1. Baharian S, Barakatt M, Gignoux CR, Shringarpure S, Errington J, Blot WJ, Bustamante CD, Kenny EE, Williams SM, & Aldrich MC (2016). The great migration and African-American genomic diversity. PLoS Genetics, 12(5), e1006059. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Browning BL, & Browning SR (2013). Improving the accuracy and efficiency of identity-by-descent detection in population data. Genetics, 194(2), 459–471. 10.1534/genetics.113.150029 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Browning SR, & Browning BL (2012). Identity by descent between distant relatives: Detection and applications. Annual Review of Genetics, 46, 617–633. 10.1146/annurev-genet-110711-155534 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Butler KD (2001). Defining diaspora, refining a discourse. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 10(2), 189–219. 10.1353/dsp.2011.0014 - DOI

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources