September/October 2006 Edition
By Chris Rabb
Contributor
ColorLines Magazine
Republished online via Afro-Netizen
My genealogical quest to untangle ancestry and heritage.
IN JUST OVER TWO YEARS OF DNA TESTING, I may have become the most genetically well-documented Black person to date.
I have cajoled and convinced relatives to assist me in this quest by swabbing the inside of their cheeks in furtherance of the family good. After more than a decade of intensive research in the tradition of our family's elder genealogists going back three generations, I've been able to identify 10 distinct African lineages coursing through my body. I've been able to uncover what for so many descendants of enslaved Africans is a tragically elusive piece of our family history. What I initially thought was a potential means by which government agencies and eugenicists could harvest and misuse people's genetic code, I eventually saw as a powerful tool to delve deeper into the cultural diversity of my African ancestry.
