The Bahamas DNA Project was launched in June to support genealogy research. The administrator, Peter J. Roberts, a Bahamian and a professor at Georgia State University, invites others with Bahamian ancestry to join. Potential participants qualify for this project if they are male and their paternal grandfather's father's direct line is from The Bahamas, or if they are male or female and their maternal grandmother's mother's direct line is from The Bahamas.
Participation in this project offers many benefits. It can help identify an unknown ancestor, such as Wyannie Malone's husband. His male Malone descendants carry his Y-chromosome signature, which passes virtually unchanged from father to son. A match between two of his distant male Malone descendants will reveal his signature or haplotype. If his haplotype were a close match with other Malones with ancestry in South Carolina, then researchers would discover the family line that Wyannie married into.
Y-chromosome testing can also confirm traditional genealogy. This project can also identify or provide clues of early ancestral origin. To date, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon haplotypes have been identified for participants. A recent DNA study of black West Indians living in England found that 26 per cent of them had European ancestry on their direct paternal line.
When applicable, the project will also test a participant's direct female line through mtDNA, which passes virtually unchanged from a mother to her children. This test is less useful for genealogy purposes because mtDNA rarely changes. A perfect match with someone outside the project could indicate a common female ancestor within a couple hundred years or several thousand years ago. Because the match is with someone who shares a maternal ancestry in The Bahamas, however, there is a strong likelihood that the woman lived at some time since its settlement in the 1600s. The challenge lies in learning who that ancestor was because of the patrilineal changing of women's surnames with each generation.
Collecting a DNA sample requires only a simple mouth swab; no blood or pain is involved. The cost of the male-line Y-chromosome test is US$169 and the female-line mtDNA test is US$239. Since close relatives should receive the same test results, they may choose to share the cost to test one family member. This is a non-profit project and provides no financial benefit to anyone other than the testing company. The Bahamas DNA Project can be found online at http://home.comcast.net/~libpjr1/bahamasdna.html, and additional information is available from Peter J. Roberts at peterebay@yahoo.com. Bahamas DNA Project to Support Genealogy
The Bahamas DNA Project was launched in June to support genealogy research. The administrator, Peter J. Roberts, a Bahamian and a professor at Georgia State University, invites others with Bahamian ancestry to join. Potential participants qualify for this project if they are male and their paternal grandfather's father's direct line is from The Bahamas, or if they are male or female and their maternal grandmother's mother's direct line is from The Bahamas.
Participation in this project offers many benefits. It can help identify an unknown ancestor, such as Wyannie Malone's husband. His male Malone descendants carry his Y-chromosome signature, which passes virtually unchanged from father to son. A match between two of his distant male Malone descendants will reveal his signature or haplotype. If his haplotype were a close match with other Malones with ancestry in South Carolina, then researchers would discover the family line that Wyannie married into.
Y-chromosome testing can also confirm traditional genealogy. This project can also identify or provide clues of early ancestral origin. To date, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon haplotypes have been identified for participants. A recent DNA study of black West Indians living in England found that 26 per cent of them had European ancestry on their direct paternal line.
When applicable, the project will also test a participant's direct female line through mtDNA, which passes virtually unchanged from a mother to her children. This test is less useful for genealogy purposes because mtDNA rarely changes. A perfect match with someone outside the project could indicate a common female ancestor within a couple hundred years or several thousand years ago. Because the match is with someone who shares a maternal ancestry in The Bahamas, however, there is a strong likelihood that the woman lived at some time since its settlement in the 1600s. The challenge lies in learning who that ancestor was because of the patrilineal changing of women's surnames with each generation.
Collecting a DNA sample requires only a simple mouth swab; no blood or pain is involved. The cost of the male-line Y-chromosome test is US$169 and the female-line mtDNA test is US$239. Since close relatives should receive the same test results, they may choose to share the cost to test one family member. This is a non-profit project and provides no financial benefit to anyone other than the testing company. The Bahamas DNA Project can be found online at http://home.comcast.net/~libpjr1/bahamasdna.html, and additional information is available from Peter J. Roberts at peterebay@yahoo.com.
