DNA Consultants Home of the DNA Fingerprint

Did you know that Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, does not contain a single mention of the word "evolution"? I am reading it for the first time and was struck not only by the absence of that term in Darwin's first edition (it does begin to creep in after 20 years in later editions) but many other discrepancies between the historical Darwin and modern Darwinism.

For those inclined to believe conspiracy theories--for instance, that it was not Darwin, but Darwinists or even anti-Darwinists who invented the theory of evolution--here are some items to consider:

•  Darwin was a mediocre student at Cambridge, where he learned little science or mathematics and preferred theology. "He passed the final examination in January 1831 at an undistinguished position, tenth in the list of candidates who did not seek honours" (Richard Keynes, in the introduction to the first edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published by the Folio Society, 2006).
• Darwin's disordered notebooks and papers, in which he supposedly developed the theory of evolution, only to keep it "secret" for 20 years, were not transcribed and published until 2000.
• The modern reconstruction of Darwin's theory of evolution evolved itself. It began to take iconic form only after the 1960s, when historians of science began to "read between the lines" of Darwin's work. His career was divided into an initial period of 10 years when he was a biologist on the Beagle, then a "secret period" of 20 years until he and Alfred Russel Wallace "simultaneously" broke the theory in 1858, and finally another 20 year period until "evolution" began to appear in his writings by name shortly before his death. 
• Darwin's interests were erratic, not to say eccentric. He spent eight years studying the sex life of a Peruvian barnacle. He published four extensive monographs on the subject between 1851 and 1854. During this period he wrote nothing on "transmutation of species," the early term for "evolution." His young son asked a playmate, "Where does your father do his barnacles?" (Keynes, xxi.)
• After barnacles, Darwin turned his attention to fancy show pigeons. He joined the Philoperisteronic Society and added an aviary to his house.
• The scientific establishment at the time did not exactly acclaim Darwin's On the Origin of Species. The geologist Adam Sedgwick wrote Darwin a scalding letter. "Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved," Sedgwick said, accusing Darwin of "deserting the true method of induction." (xxiv). The astronomer Sir John Herschel called Darwin's work "the law of hiddeldy-pigglety."

Finally, no matter what you might decide about the "evolution of evolution," both Darwin and Darwinists reject the idea that Neanderthals might have been, in the words of the subtitle of On the Origin of Species, anything like a "Favoured Race." They died out, right?  This being so, it is interesting to me that a portrait of Charles Darwin (above) exhibits most if not all the characteristics of a Neanderthal:  sloping forehead, powerful jaws, craggy brow, occipital protuberance and large nose. We don't know quite what to make of it but wish Darwin had willed his skull as well as his thoughts to science.

Aboriginal Genome Shows Two-Wave Settlement of Asia

San Diego State University professor D. Emily Hicks has traced some common ancestry with President Barack Obama. According to the professor of Chicana/o Studies, she and the President share Melungeon roots. Obama is a descendant of Mary Collins of Orange County, Virginia as well as of Nathaniel Bunch of Louisa County and John Bunch of New Kent--well known "feeder" counties for what became the Melungeon settlement described in Brent Kennedy's book, The Melungeons, The Resurrection of a Proud People.

Obama's Bunch line was found to carry E1b1a haplogroup, a sub-Saharan African male lineage. He is also supposed to have Cherokee ancestry in his mother's colonial genealogies.

Read the whole story at PRLOG.

More information about Melungeons
Toward a Genetic Profile of Melungeons in Southern Appalachia
Melungeon Studies
Melungeon Match

For Bobbi Bacha of Blue Moon Investigations it was the chance of a lifetime. Attending a celebrity auction more than a decade ago, she put in the winning bid for some blood and semen stained sheets. Nearly 20 years old, but carefully preserved, they were reputed to come from the hotel room where Elvis Presley stayed on his Farewell Tour in 1977. She won't tell us how much she paid but says, "I could have bought a comfortable medium-sized home."

Bacha is no stranger to high-profile mysteries, crimes and misdemeanors. Part Cherokee, she is also of verifiable Melungeon descent. "As you know," she told us from her swanky glass headquarters building in Houston, "Nevil Wayland is my grandfather, and it was he who first coined the term Melungeon." We didn't know, but we soon got an earful. "We believe his wife was the daughter of Chief Red Bird as his son was the Scribe to Chief Red Bird.  Nevil built the first church in Arkansas after the family told of a great war against the Indians and he took them to Arkansas and built Stoney Creek Church. That's the name of it."

Bacha has also been in the movies, or at least her character has. The plucky Texas private eye is played by actress Sela Ward in “Suburban Madness.” This film is based on the real-life story of Clara Harris, convicted February 2003 of killing her cheating orthodontist husband by repeatedly running him over with the family Mercedes. Bacha was an eyewitness.

So what of Bacha's expensive sheet set? She tried for years to extract DNA, to no avail. The discipline had some growing up to do. Finally, she contacted DNA Consultants. Through the efforts of laboratory director Lars Mouritsen in Salt Lake City, we were able to succeed where others had failed. We obtained the first DNA profile, Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA results for what everyone believed was a thirty-year-old sample of the King.

The alleged Elvis sample turned out to have a Cherokee-specific form of mitochondrial haplogroup B on the mother's side and a Scottish Y chromosome on the father's. The autosomal profile confirmed these results with high matches for American Indian populations, Scotland and Spain.

There was not a high match for Melungeon, however, or Jewish . . . but wait! You'll have to read the whole story in Donald Yates' new book, where it is included in the DNA chapter, along with the results of our Cherokee DNA Studies.

The title of the book is The Cherokee Anomaly:  How DNA, Ancient Alphabets and Religion Explain America's Largest Indian Nation. It will be published by McFarland & Co. next year, with an introductory note by Cyclone Covey, foreword by Richard Mack Bettis, maps, figures and illustrations covering the entire history of the Cherokee from the third century BCE to the nineteenth century.


More information about Melungeons
Toward a Genetic Profile of Melungeons in Southern Appalachia
Melungeon Studies
Melungeon Match