Can I trust DNA ancestry tests?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2020
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many of us are fascinated by our ancestry: knowing where our families came from can give us a sense of identity and roots. Tracing your family tree is a time-honoured tradition, but several companies now sell DNA tests that offer you insights into your heritage: so you might find out you’re 70% Nigerian, 39% Italian, or 11% South Asian, for example.
There’s no doubt that genes contain clues about your family history, but how reliable are these commercial tests? That’s what CrowdScience listener Karen wondered after an update of her test results showed her going from 39% Scandinavian to 2% Norwegian. How confident can she be in her results now? And what does it actually mean to be 2% Norwegian, in terms of your family tree?
Presenter Alex Lathbridge delves into his own African and European ancestry, talks to some of the companies offering these tests, and unpicks the complex relationship between genetic science and family trees. We meet a woman who found her long-lost uncle with a combination of a DNA test and old-fashioned archive research; and look to the Americas to ask whether genetic testing can restore ancestral ties erased by the inhumanity of the transatlantic slave trade. Presented by Alex Lathbridge Produced by Cathy Edwards for the BBC World Service
(Photo: Elderly hands looking at old photos of self and family. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.5 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. So, family tree time. |
| 0:33.0 | Family tree time. |
| 0:34.0 | So starting here with me, Alex, and then both my mom and my dad from Ghana, but like different |
| 0:41.0 | ethnicities from different parts of the country. |
| 0:43.0 | So my dad's side is Gar, so that's more from like the Accra area. |
| 0:47.0 | And then we look at my mom's side. |
| 0:49.0 | They're fainty, that's my mom. |
| 0:51.0 | My mom's mom, so my maternal grand. |
| 0:55.4 | She's from Britain, she's from Newcastle. |
| 0:58.4 | So looking at the Fannie line, we have to start with my granddad. |
| 1:02.1 | So he's from the west of Ghana. So he's from Cape Coast, he was Fanti. So what we sort of have to do here is work backwards. Just working out potential dates using like cultural knowledge and local knowledge, you know, |
| 1:15.3 | knowing that someone is a trader and they walked two days to get to the coast or going back even further |
| 1:20.9 | and knowing that based on someone's name they were a second-born twin. |
| 1:24.5 | Okay so kind of all like piecing together bits of a puzzle really. |
| 1:28.6 | I'm Alex Lathbridge, those were some of my ancestors and this is Crowd Science from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:35.0 | I was drawing my family tree there for my producer Kathy who started getting interested in it when we received this email in the Crowd Science inbox from listener Karen. |
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