We sent in our swab to the non-profit National Geographic Genome Project this morning. Apparently, there are other groups that are investigating DNA for profit.
WSJ.com - For Utah Billionaire, Search for Roots Is Blooming Field:....
... [James Sorenson] wants to dominate the fast-growing field of connecting people with their roots through genetic testing.
Sorenson scientists are popping up everywhere from California to Cameroon to build a database of human DNA. So far, they have convinced 50,000 people from nearly 100 ethnic groups to hand over DNA samples and family lineages.
The data belong to the nonprofit Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation. But the man who made a killing on Utah real estate and Abbott Laboratories stock also sees a glint of profit potential in his latest obsession. A Sorenson company called Relative Genetics Inc. is selling tests for $50 and up that help people figure out where they fit in the database -- and sometimes connect with specific ancestors who lived hundreds of years ago.
...New technology is setting off a genealogy gold rush inconceivable in an earlier era when people had to rely on old courthouse records and half-remembered family lore. Scientists now have several ways of using DNA to determine ancestry. The simplest involves the Y chromosome, which is found only in men and accumulates small changes over the centuries. If men have nearly identical Y chromosomes, it means they share a recent ancestor going up the male line. Another method uses mitochondrial DNA, which passes from a mother to her children. It can be used to determine ancestry through the female line.
Such tests used to cost thousands of dollars apiece. Now they're relatively cheap -- and some entrepreneurs see both scientific and commercial potential. This month, the National Geographic Society announced it was teaming up with International Business Machines Corp. and Family Tree DNA of Houston to build a database of 100,000 samples from ethnic groups around the world. National Geographic is selling a service -- for $99.95 plus shipping and handling -- in which people can send in their own DNA and find out where they fit on humanity's family tree. For example, it might show that a person's ancestors on the male line came out of Africa, through Central Asia and into a particular part of Europe.
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Customers who get their Y chromosome tested at Relative Genetics can log on to the Sorenson foundation's Web site and find out for no additional charge what other families have similar genetic markers. Disclosures are most extensive for likely matches with people born at least 100 years ago. For example, the database might show that a man is closely related to a man of the same surname born in England in 1860. Because of a rule barring release of detailed information for people born in the past 100 years, Web-site visitors can't get names and phone numbers of living people who might be distant cousins. Eventually, the foundation may set up ways for limited contacts to occur if all parties want them.Other research centers are growing fast, too. Family Tree DNA has gathered 31,000 samples so far, and it groups this data into 8,000 surname files so that amateur genealogists can figure out how they relate to people with the same or similar surnames. “If someone's last name is Mauch, they can look at Mock, Mok, Mauck and plenty of other variants in our database,” says Bennett Greenspan, chief executive of the Houston company. Sorenson site users are guided only toward the best genetic matches, without the same freedom to probe many surnames.
The new National Geographic-IBM venture has a more academic focus. It is led by Spencer Wells, a leading advocate of the theory that all modern humans descend from a small group that lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago. Dr. Wells hopes his data will fill in large blanks in the history of human migrations since then. People who send DNA samples to National Geographic won't be able to connect with specific relatives; they'll only get a general sense of the path their ancestors took in the last 60,000 years. (Separately from its regular business line, Family Tree will conduct the DNA tests on National Geographic's behalf.)
