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Family Tree DNA Testing Progress
I'm currently having two male DNA samples tested to prove (or disprove) the Native American connections of my family. Learn more about how this works!
First off, the testing isn't being done to test "Indianness" of our DNA. Instead, we are unsure about a female parent (Naomi Oxendine) about 7 generations back in our line. We have tracked down a male who we know DOES relate to Naomi, through a line of mothers. We think WE are related to Naomi. So in essence both men are having their DNA tested to see if they are related to EACH OTHER. If they are, then we know that both did indeed come from that same Naomi line.
The key here is mtDNA testing. You can Learn More about mtDNA Testing but in brief, a mother gives her mitochondria to her children. A father does NOT impact this at all. So as long as you go mother-daughter down a line, that mitochondria stays 100% the same. The final child can be a son ... but that son then does not affect HIS children at all. So that would be the end of the line for mtDNA testing.
At this point, both men (my father and this other man) got the kits for $299 each. Both gently scraped the inside of their cheek with a plastic spoon - no blood or needles. Both put their plastic spoons in a bag and sent them back to Family Tree DNA. An online tracking system lets us see the status. For both men, the status currently reads:
Kit Received 7/1/2004
Batch 89 created 7/2/2004
DNA Isolation began 7/5/2004
DNA at Sequencing facility 7/15/2004
Quality Control began 7/19/2004
*Final Results expected 8/8/2004
So now what we do is wait! On August 8th, we will know for sure if the two men are related. If they are, then we have proven the Naomi connection. If they aren't, we in fact have other lines that are our "second guesses", and we do have mtDNA descendants we can test against there. We'll narrow it down quickly enough!
For situations where there simply are no reliable records to prove or disprove a connection, sometimes DNA testing steps in to help out. Note that we're not doing this to "be Native American", although it's been a childhood dream of mine. We're doing it to figure out a puzzle in our family tree, which has been a hobby of our family's for three generations now!
Update: Someone wrote me to complain "what if the testing company gets it wrong". OK, so if I want to be super sure, I sign up with 3 different companies, get 3 different results and compare them. Just like with a pregnancy test or anything else important. If I wasn't doing this DNA test I would have NO other way to prove the link. There are simply no records. So my choices are a) never, ever know how to proceed or 2) pay a few companies to do tests, and compare the results. Why would I ever choose #a if I could afford the tests?? :)
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