The history of the human race is recorded in each person’s genome. While genetic genealogy goes back hundreds or thousands of years, deep ancestry goes back farther, to the dawn of humanity and through the peopling of the earth.
Here’s how it works. Men and women each have a type of DNA that is passed down from one parent virtually unchanged. For men, the genetic information on the Y chromosome is passed down from father to son. Women pass their mitochondrial DNA to their daughters. The mutations on these bits of DNA are so rare that only a few have occurred in hundreds of thousands of years.
Whenever a mutation appears in the Y chromosome or the mtDNA, the person who carries that mutation passes it to their sons (for men) or their daughters (for women) and all their sons or daughters. Each person carries a particular set of these mutations, which gives them membership in a sort of “clan,” along with all the other people, living and dead, who also share the same ancestry.
Scientists have sampled DNA from thousands of people around the world, and mapped the patterns of mutations found in the Y-DNA and mtDNA. From these maps, they have constructed a picture of how and when mankind spread out of Africa, across the rest of the globe. Combined with linguistic and archeological data, this DNA map has become very detailed.
Now you can join in this process, by having your own DNA added to the findings already known. You will discover how you were descended from our earliest forefathers, and how the DNA patterns in your body travelled the earth in our deep history.
