Read reviews of science articles, new research and news reports on ancestry testing, ancient DNA and popular genetics
The next time you experience déjà vu think about this. It might be more than a trick of the brain. Scientists have recently confirmed that genes can pass down the memories of our ancestors to us.
We don’t often write editorials in this space. Normally, you will see nothing but news in the DNA Consultants Blog. Some sparse marketing messages may appear whenever we have a new product or study. But the FDA’s “stop and desist” letter last Friday to personal genomics giant 23&me has sent shock waves through the industry. Although we are not in the business of providing medical information to customers, only ancestral background analyses, we feel compelled to weigh in on the FDA’s warning, which we think is overdue.
Where Do I Come From: James Shoemaker
Real People’s DNA Stories
Bible Studies, DNA Tests, Mother’s Nursing-Home Confessions Lead to New Life
NOVEMBER 16, 2013 — Until he took an autosomal ancestry test, James T. Shoemaker had little concept of his heritage. He assumed he was just an average white European American like his Appalachian neighbors.
By Donald N. Yates
The ecstatic waters . . .
Through their ancestral patterns dance.
—William Butler Yeats, “News for the Delphic Oracle”
Few people today actually claim to be Melungeons, rather perhaps Melungeon descendants. The reasons have more to do with the abortive Melungeon Movement and various dysfunctional online Melungeon discussion boards than with the fact that “Melungeon” is an ethnic or racial slur.
By Teresa A. Panther-Yates
Sam Kean author of the book, The Violinist’s Thumb & Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code,” says while DNA is a thing—a chemical that sticks to your fingers… genes are more conceptual in nature.” He says the genes are the story while the DNA are the words that make up the story.
It’s been exactly 10 years since this paper was first presented to a conference of Jewish genealogists and DNA experts, so we are posting it in this space on its anniversary. “DNA Testing of Southeastern American Indian Families to Confirm Jewish Ethnicity,” Paper Delivered by Donald Panther-Yates at the Society for Crypto Judaic Studies Conference, San Antonio, August 3, 2003
Real People’s DNA Stories
I Found My Grandmother’s People
By Teresa Panther-Yates
By Teresa Panther-Yates
How fast does the molecular clock tick? Americans, especially, like most everything fast. We don’t think too much about the word slow. But two scientists have changed our minds about that. As often happens in science, two research teams independently reached the same groundbreaking results.
While it is probably true that we all came out of Africa some 200,000 years ago, some of these first ancestors of ours also returned before Europeans were Europeans. The migration path went both ways. This is a resounding discovery. Erika Chek Hayden in her recent Naturearticle, “African Genes Tracked Back” says this “reversal” or two-step migration meant that these ancestors reimported “…genes from the rest of the world [which] were carried back to southern Africa, long before European colonizers arrived.”
