The Changing Face of “Misidentified Paternity”

Abstract

Advances in genetic research and technology can have a profound impact on identity and family dynamics when genetic findings disrupt deeply held assumptions about the nuclear family. Ancestry tracing and paternity testing present parallel risks and opportunities. As these latter uses are now available over the internet directly to the consumer, bypassing the genetic counselor, consumers need adequate warning when making use of these new modalities.

Keywords:

• paternity
• genetic anthropology
• ancestry tracing

I. INTRODUCTION

The ultimate point is that none of us really know who we are, ancestrally speaking. All we ever really know is what our parents and grandparents have told us.

(Staples, 2005)

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, the New York Times carried the story that the English and Irish, historic enemies who were always considered to have separate origins, are actually genetically indistinguishable (Wade, 2007). Students of Irish culture and other commentators greeted the news with great interest, but no one is willing to speculate on whether the genetic discovery will have any implications for English/Irish relations. Given the famous Irish penchant for literary soul-searching, will this discovery have any effect on Irish literature? Is the metaphor of two warring peoples suddenly discovering that they are “really brothers” at all apt? Is there any parallel between discovering an uncomfortable truth about one's nuclear family and an uncomfortable truth about one's ethnic heritage?

A fascination with one's parentage is probably a stable element of human psychology since prehistoric times. Increasingly sophisticated genetic technologies raise new issues about how people discover their parentage and ancestry, and how they cope with sometimes unexpected results. This essay considers three different phases of the problem of “misidentified paternity.” These phases all raise important issues of autonomy, beneficence, and informed consent to genetic testing.

II. THE PROBLEM OF “INCIDENTAL” INFORMATION

An early and ongoing challenge of genetic counseling is how counselors should handle unexpected collateral or “incidental” information. Of these challenges, perhaps the most disturbing is presented by an individual or family who come for counseling in order to discover their risk for a genetic disease, but where testing also reveals that their beliefs about their biological connections are not grounded in fact. The scenario of “misattributed” or “misidentified” paternity has variously been estimated to be true of anywhere from one to thirty percent of families (Lucassen and Parker, 2001, p. 1034), with the true number probably under ten percent (Bakalar, 2006, F7).

In one of many examples, a couple attended a genetic clinic to discover whether the severe disorder recently diagnosed in their baby was likely to recur in future children. Testing of the couple and of the baby revealed that the husband, who had assumed he was the father of the child, actually was not the biological father (Lucassen et al., 2001, p. 1034).

Cases of this sort raise a host of ethical problems for geneticists. The threshold question is, “Who is the client?” The best answer might be “the entire family,” but in this case different family members have different needs. Respect for persons includes the duty of truth-telling, but the couple only asked if this condition was likely to recur in future children. A simple “No” would be the correct answer to that question, and perhaps no more is needed. However, a richer understanding of “respect” might include the notion that one does not withhold this sort of information, that it would be wrong for the counselor to know something about the client that she fails to share with the client himself.

Nonmaleficence (the duty to avoid harm) might suggest that only by telling the husband the whole truth will he and his siblings be safeguarded from the diffuse genetic anxiety people often feel when there is a serious genetic condition in their family. However, concern for the mother (who might be the object of abuse if the truth came out) pushes some counselors to argue that she should be told privately, and that she should have the final say over whether the information is shared. Nonmaleficence may argue for telling no one; the information has little medical significance and the whole family could be torn apart by the news.

The responsibilities of counselors faced with this type of scenario have occasioned a great deal of discussion. Surveys of genetic counselors and medical geneticists conducted in the 1980s discovered that nearly all the respondents believed that protecting the mother's privacy was paramount, and that they would either lie, fudge the truth, or report the results only to the woman (Ross, 1996). The 1994 report of the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Assessing Genetic Risks, also recommended telling the woman only (Ross, 1996). Lainie Friedman Ross, however, as well as the 1983 President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, has recommended telling both parties. Ross argues that nondisclosure is “deceptive and immoral” (Ross, 1996, p. 120) and leaves both the child and the couple “at risk for future decisions based on false information” (Ross, 1996, p. 124). Ross claims that full disclosure is the only way to respect and empower clients. However, Ross acknowledges the potential downsides to such a policy, for example that it might provoke spousal violence.

The obvious solution to the problem is to alert clients at the outset of counseling that misidentified paternity is one possible outcome of testing. Both Ross and the President's Commission recommend that clients be informed at the onset of a counseling relationship that discovery of misattributed paternity is one possible result of genetic testing (United States President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1983, p. 63). In other words, part of the informed consent process should be to warn clients contemplating genetic testing that the process has the potential to disrupt their family relationships and to explode important beliefs about lineage and paternity.

Mahowald claims that parents who are “presumed to be carriers for an autosomal recessive disorder are usually warned in advance that genetic testing may disclose unexpected information regarding paternity” (Mahowald, 2000, p. 167). Mahowald bases her statement on “many years of interactions with genetic counselors at different institutions, and participating in their training programs” (Personal communication, August 2, 2006).

Another scenario involves adults who come for testing and discover incidentally that they are not the biological sons and daughters of the men they think of as their fathers. Bonnie S. LeRoy describes such a case. Four adult siblings, one of whom was affected by Huntington's Disease, contacted a testing center in order to discover whether the siblings also carried the HD gene. Their parents, of whom the father was affected and the mother unaffected, were both alive and willing to give blood samples. When analysis of all six samples was completed, it was clear to the testing team that two of the three unaffected siblings were not the biological children of the man they knew as their father. Although the counseling team struggled with a number of possible options, they eventually elected to tell these two people directly, even though the team did not have the opportunity to discuss this decision first with the mother (LeRoy, 1993).

A third situation in which the discovery of misattributed paternity is a concern is in testing living related donors for possible organ donation. In a case described by Soderdahl et al., a 20-year-old man was tested to see if he was a suitable match to give a kidney to his dialysis-dependent father; testing revealed nonpaternity. Interestingly, the authors report that consultation with ethicists and transplant experts at a variety of institutions yielded conflicting opinions on whether and to whom the information about nonpaternity should be disclosed. “After much deliberation,” the team elected to inform both parties. The two men were still a good, if not ideal, match, and the young man decided to go ahead with his plans and donate a kidney to his father nonetheless (Soderdahl et al., 2004, p. 590). Wright et al., describing a similar case, recommend informing patients at the outset “that unsought information may be found inadvertently,” echoing the point made by Ross (Wright et al., 2002, p. 205).

There are many ways in which people may be startled by the discovery that their social and legal fathers are not their genetic fathers. Children of couples who employed donor insemination to create a child and who tried to keep that fact secret, may find out accidentally through other family members or when their parents blurt it out in an argument or divulge the fact after a divorce (Orenstein, 1995).

As laws regarding donor gametes change, children conceived under one set of rules may be in for a surprise. In Australia, for example, a law that came into effect on July 1, 2006, allows a sperm donor to apply for identifying information on adult children conceived from his sperm. A news report comments that “some Queenslanders may be contacted by parents they didn't know about,” and quotes legal expert Derek Morgan's estimate that as many as seventy per cent of parents who procreate through assisted conception do not tell their children (Metcalfe, 2006, p. 52). (Although egg donation will probably never approach the frequency of sperm donation, it has become common enough that perhaps we should speak of “misattributed parenthood.”)

Barbara Bowles Biesecker writes that:

The individual's sense of identity and continuity is formed not only by the significant attachments in his [or] her intimate environment but also is deeply rooted in the biological family—in the genetic link that reaches into the past and ahead into the future. (Biesecker, 1997, p. 108)

Adults who discover that their genetic identity is not what they thought it to be are often extremely disrupted (Orenstein, 1995). Clinical psychologist Sharon Pettle notes the strong emphasis in our culture about parent-child similarities, which are used to “confirm the child's place” within the family and the world. “Having that place swept aside can be a hugely powerful experience and I've known some adults to be severely affected psychologically, and experience a period where their emotional stability was severely compromised. They are left with a gaping hole”(Hilpern, 2007, p. 1). For these reasons, genetic counselors and bioethicists are right to be concerned about the ethical and psychological challenges that arise out of cases of misattributed parenthood.

III. DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER PATERNITY TESTING

The first phase of concern over issues of misattributed paternity focused on inadvertent discovery in the context of a genetic counseling team that had a professional relationship with at least one of the parties. Thus, the geneticists were those who faced the ethical dilemmas. They controlled the information and they had to decide whether and how to divulge it. In the second phase, paternity testing has burst the bounds of the sober and responsible environment of clinical testing and counseling centers.

A survey conducted by the American Association of Blood Banks revealed that the number of paternity tests had more than doubled between 1995 and 2003; the cost of testing had dropped from $1,000 to $500 (Navarro, 2005, p. 9). In the United Kingdom, the demand for tests has grown by a factor of ten in the last decade (BBC News, 2005). All Tests International is currently offering paternity testing over the Internet for $100. For $145, AllTests will determine if two or more siblings are biologically linked and if they share the same parents (http://www.alltestsonline.com/index.php).

Surely Lori Andrews exaggerates when she describes Chicago as a place where divorced men “take their children to Lincoln Park to play, then … ‘pop’ into a nearby hospital to determine whether the child is really ‘theirs’” (Andrews, 2005, p. 187). And yet, the media are replete with accounts of men (and women) initiating paternity testing on impulse or for purely legal reasons, with little thought given to the devastating consequences to the children involved.

In Germany, a laboratory that specializes in DNA testing offered a “Father's Day Discount,” and producers of German talk shows have been scouring the country for people willing to have the results of their tests unveiled on TV. Over 100 results have been announced on the German show, “Vera at Noon” (Hundley, 2005, p. 26). In the United States, the “paternity show” is Maury Povitch's “signature format.” “Maury” is the fourth highest-rated talk show in America, and contested paternity is its most popular topic. The plot usually involves either a mother trying to “pin” paternity on a lover, or an alleged father trying to disprove paternity to get out of support payments, or to corroborate his suspicions about his partner's sexual fidelity (Crews, 2006). So far, the children all seem to have been babies; Povitch has never discussed whether he would decline to feature a couple because their child might be old enough to understand and be devastated at having his or her paternity disclosed from a TV stage.

In Europe, legislation is being crafted to address some of these issues. Much of the legislation, as in the U.K., grapples primarily with clandestine testing (as when someone steals DNA by secretly taking a piece of hair and sending it to a lab for paternity testing). In Belgium, proposed legislation requires that all paternity testing be performed on blood samples, thus attempting to ensure that medical personnel retain a gatekeeper function. Before samples are taken, the genetics center is required to interview the adults involved and test results must be personally communicated to the persons involved by a center physician, accompanied if desired by a psychologist (Mertens 2006). Given the potential psychological disruption of paternity testing, such paternalism might seem warranted.

In the United States, however, it is simply not a solution. The expense involved would put testing outside the reach of many families. A paternalism that requires that information be accompanied by counseling seems reasonable, but a paternalism that essentially bars access to information about oneself, cannot be defended.

IV. ANCESTRY TRACING

Although it may seem like sacrilege to mention Maury Povitch and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in the same breath, much less daytime talk shows and PBS, Gates's recent four-part series African-American Lives, which aired on PBS in February 2006, would have seemed familiar to Povitch's audience. Gates invited eight African-American celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg, to embark on a genealogical journey to try to recapture some of what had been lost when slave traders and owners deliberately obliterated Black people's tribal and familial identities. In the first three programs, Gates enlisted a number of experts to use sophisticated genealogical techniques to trace his subjects as far back in the New World as possible.

In the final segment, the program employed DNA technology to inform people of their African ancestry. As the camera watched, Gates asked his subjects what they believed about their ancestry, what their family story was. Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot, the eminent sociologist, had always believed that she was part Native American. However, as Gates “opened the envelope” and read out the results of the test, Lightfoot was startled to discover that she had no Native American ancestry. Oprah was let down by the discovery that she was not descended from Zulus, which she had always believed, but recovered later on when found out that she was related to the Kpelle people.

Gates, ironically, was the subject most continually shaken. In the first part of the show, he had to face the fact that the white ancestor, Samuel Brady, from whom his family had always thought to be partly descended, and who would have been Gates's great-great-grandfather, was in fact not biologically connected to them at all. Later, he “almost had a heart attack” and described himself as “heartbroken” when he discovered he was 50% European. “Nothing,” said Gates, “could have prepared me for what I was about to discover. . . . I'll never see my family tree or myself in quite the same way.” “I have the blues,” he nervously joked. “Can I still have the blues?” He shared with his Harvard students his profound shock at the results, calling it “the irony of my life” (All Things Considered, 2006). Gates persisted, using increasingly sophisticated tests, until he could document a slim connection with the Mende tribe. Visibly relieved, he announced that finally he knew what to tell people: I am Mende.

Conversely, Gates's guests were buoyed by what they learned about their ancestors' remarkable vision and perseverance in the face of slavery and oppression. Many of these ancestors had striking commitments to community and to education. However, law professor Patricia Williams castigates Gates for a kind of genetic essentialism, when he tells Oprah that “You've got education in your genes,” or says that he is “50 percent white.” As Williams says, “there is no more an allele for ‘whiteness’ than there is for ‘education.’” Jews (including Gates's newfound Ashkenazi ancestor) were not considered ‘white’ a century ago, but became so through certain sociological shifts. (Williams, 2006, p. 14)

African-American Lives concluded with an inspirational trip taken by the comedian Chris Tucker, to his “homeland” in Africa. Tucker and Gates had moments of sadness as well as joy, as they relived the horrors of the Middle Passage, but there was no doubt but that Tucker felt at home. The people they met in Africa assured Gates that the tribal members lost to slavery were not forgotten but were mourned and missed even today. “Welcome home” was on everyone's lips. Tucker said that this was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Rick Kittles, University of Chicago geneticist and Scientific Director of the African Ancestry project, notes that most people find their human identity in a mix of familial, cultural and genetic ancestry. New forms of ancestry tracing are critical for African-Americans because enslavement “obliterated” their familial and cultural history (Kittles, 2003 p. 219).

However, just as not all reunions with birth parents are joyous and uncomplicated, the relationship between Africans and African-Americans is also not simple. African-Americans, foregrounding the ancestral tie, may feel that they are coming “home,” but Africans may focus instead on national, cultural, and economic differences, and see the visitor as just another foreigner.

Seeing parallels with the Israeli experience, Ghana has recently begun a campaign to attract African-Americans to think of Africa as their homeland, as a place to invest money, build retirement homes, and educate their children. Emphasizing the “family” ties, Ghana has offered special visas and passports to descendents of slaves. But to many Ghanians, the tourists are “obruni,” or “white foreigners,” even if their skin is dark. “It is a shock for any black person to be called white,” said an African-American who had moved to Ghana. “But it is really tough to hear it when you come with your heart to seek your roots in Africa” (Polgreen, 2005, p. A1).

In a 2003 British Film, Motherland: A Genetic Journey, three “black Britons” of Caribbean origin, against theme music of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” are given the same opportunity as Gates' participants. The centrality of genetic relation is emphasized again and again. The narrator proclaims: “This is the story of a quest to recover a lost identity.” One of the three seekers, who has never been to Africa, explains: “They are family. They are blood. They are lineage.”

Like Gates, Motherland's Mark is in for an unpleasant surprise when he finds out that his Y chromosome is European in origin. “Wow. That is a shock. That is a deep shock. I'm totally flabbergasted, I must say.” When he finds out that his maternal ancestry is African, and that he is connected to the Kanuri tribe, he employs the same strategy as Gates. Choosing the genetic ancestry that best fits his existing social identity, he says of his Kanuri connection: “This is the true me.”

Many people have found that making an ancestral connection can offer comfort and perhaps compensate for broken nuclear connections. Mika Stump, an African-American woman who was abandoned by her birth mother in New York City's Pennsylvania Station, was elated to forge an ancestral connection to the people of Sierra Leone through DNA testing. “I have a place where I can go back and say, ‘This is who I am; this is my home’” (Willing, 2006, p. 4A).

A customer on the African Ancestry website writes:

It has only been a week since I received the letter from you indicating that my DNA was a match to the Mende people of Sierra Leone on my mother's matriclan. This week has fundamentally changed my life and view of myself and my family. This one piece of information has sent me on a journey of exploration . . . ‘Thank you’ is so very inadequate to express what I feel. Your vision, your research, and your efforts on behalf of the descendants of slaves is God ordained work. Today I am more at peace. I walk straighter with my head held higher because I know who I am.” (http://www.african.ancestry.com)

This idea of going “back” to a place where in fact one has never been is a thread that runs through people's stories of ancestor tracing. Others, however, have less happy experiences. One customer of African Ancestry was extremely upset to find out that his white paternal line came from a German (Willing, 2006, p. 4A).

Tellingly, a Wall Street Journal columnist reporting on the Wells Family Research Association, in which 70-year-old Jim Wells had been searching fruitlessly for his fifth great-grandfather, described Wells metaphorically as an “orphan” (Wells, 2003, p. A1). If we continue our analogy between genetic discoveries in nuclear families and discoveries in population research, we see that not all people seeking to find their “true home” have an unalloyed positive experience. In this, they are like many adoptive children or children conceived through donor gametes, who may find that the experience of reconnecting with their biological parents falls short of the ideal. Gates, Lightfoot and others were able to recover from their initial surprise and (in Gates's case) chagrin, by identifying with a strand of ancestry that fit what they were looking for. Gates might be disturbed to discover that he is half European, but he was reassured when he was able to connect genetically with the Mende people of Africa. Or, as the PBS website has it: “[Dr. Shriver] found a close match for Dr. Gates among the Mende people—introducing him to his distant relatives and revealing, at last, his roots in Africa” (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aalives/science_dna2.html).

For Gates and his seven fellow subjects, however, only the purely personal is at stake. Oprah's celebrity standing is not likely to be affected by whether or not she is truly descended from Zulu warriors. Even Gates, self-professed “Captain BlackMan,” whose profession is most closely tied to his identification as an African-American, is only joking when he asks whether he must give up chairing Harvard's Afro-American Studies Program. In contrast, for some people, important political, economic and ethnic identity issues are implicated when groups decide to become involved in migration research or other types of genetic anthropological research.

Many Native Americans strenuously resist migration theories that place their origin in Asia, with a subsequent trek across the Bering Strait. Not only does that theory contradict Indians' own origin stories, but it has the possible political consequence of vitiating their special political status as Native Americans and turning them into just another group of immigrants. As Vine Deloria, Jr. writes,

If Indians had arrived only a few centuries [before Columbus], they had no real claim to land that could not be swept away by European discovery. . . By making us immigrants to North America [non-Indians] are able to deny the fact that we were the full, complete, and total owners of this continent. They are able to see us simply as earlier interlopers and therefore throw back at us the accusation that we had simply found North America a little earlier than they had. (Deloria, 1995, p. 82)

African Ancestry is only one of many centers which is engaged in what has variously been called “genetic anthropology,” “molecular anthropology,” or “archaeogenetics.”

Genetic Anthropology is the study of genetic ancestry of humans using modern forensic techniques to collect and blueprint ancient human remains. The purpose is to determine genetic lineages by analyzing unique DNA markers found only in the specific groups, and tracking those markers forward to present day. This allows the archaeologist, and often times anthropologists, to find the current living descendants of our long dead ancestors.” (http://www.geneticanthropology.com/)

In other words, paternity testing writ large. Is that really my (great-great-grand) father? Who are my siblings? Are the Kpelle my cousins? Is my grandmother's story about our family true? The Center for Genetic Anthropology, in the U.K., describes its work as follows:

TCGA was established in September 1996 to pursue research on the evolution and migrations of human populations in north Africa, east Africa, the Near East, Asia and Europe. Research is undertaken on modern populations and, by the analysis of ancient DNA, their precursors. The Centre uses some of the latest advances in molecular genetics to study questions in human history and pre-history that cannot be addressed by other means. The human genome contains an enormous amount of information on the movements and relationships of past populations and on the biological adaptations of those populations to a changing environment. Non-recombining genetic systems, principally the mitochondrial genome and the Y-chromosome, contain detailed information on female and male specific genealogies respectively. Using modern molecular techniques this information can be accessed with increasing speed and in recent years it has been used to address a range of historical and demographic questions. Currently, the relationships between and among populations from Africa, Europe, Asia and The Middle East, with a particular focus on Jewish and Judaic groups, are being investigated using both ancient and modern DNA as source material. (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/)

In what follows, I offer instances of this new kind of “paternity testing,” and the challenges it presents.

Perhaps the most obvious example of new uses of DNA to trace ancestry occurred in the 1990s, when DNA evidence convinced most American historians that Thomas Jefferson had indeed been the father of at least one of the children of Sally Hemings, his slave (Davis, 2004). In some of its manifestations, the spotlight on Jeffersonian paternity was not all that different from the Maury Povitch show, with one historian speaking of Jefferson almost as a defendant in a criminal case, whose relationship with Hemings was now proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” (Ellis, 2000, p. 126). Pathologist and amateur historian Eugene Foster convinced fourteen people, including male descendents of Jefferson's paternal uncle and descendents of Sally Hemings, to volunteer their DNA to attempt to nail down the truth of a story that had clung to Jefferson since his presidency (Foster et al., 1998). Although DNA evidence can never conclusively prove paternity, most people accepted the evidence (along with corroborating data that connected the dates of Hemings's children's birthdays with Jefferson's presence at Monticello nine months earlier).

Some of Jefferson's “official” descendents were delighted with their new cousins and welcomed them to the family. Others were much more negative. There is an unresolved conflict about whether Hemings descendents can join the Thomas Jefferson Family Association and whether they have the right to be buried in Monticello.

For the “unofficial” descendents, those who trace their ancestry from one or another of Hemings' sons, the results were decidedly mixed. The descendents of Thomas Woodson are the Hemings descendents with the strongest oral tradition of presidential paternity, but they were told that the DNA evidence conclusively rejects their connection to Jefferson. Like Gates' parents, who decided to stick with “the Brady story” despite the scientific evidence, some of Woodson's descendents rejected the genetic evidence in favor of their deeply rooted family narrative. Ironically, it is the descendents of Hemings' youngest son, Eston, who have the strongest genetic claim to Jeffersonian paternity, but that line had long passed out of the black community. Eston himself moved to Wisconsin and changed his race to white on the census.

Many of Hemings's descendents had complex families in which some members knew and hid their black ancestry. In a PBS reunion story more ambiguous than Chris Tucker's, we see Amalia Cooper, whose father had hidden his black connections all his life, connect for the first time with her black second cousins, part of the extended Hemings clan that settled in Ohio. Amalia and her sisters were made welcome, but there were obvious tensions in this new family grouping, which has both “black” and “white” members, depending on their chosen identity (Frontline, 1999).

My second example involves a whole group of people, many of them probably not even aware that their paternal ancestry has been redefined. Somerled, a Celtic hero who died in 1164 after ousting the hated Vikings from Celtic lands, is traditionally believed to have descended from an ancient line of Irish kings. Driving out the Vikings was Somerled's primary accomplishment and his cause celebre. (Another accomplishment was robust paternity; about half a million people today are thought to be descended from Somerled, a number second only to the descendents of Genghis Khan.) The MacDonald, MacDougall, and MacAllister clans all claim descent from Somerled.

However, Bryan Sykes of the company Oxford Ancestors has apparently discovered that Somerled himself is of Norse origin on his paternal side. In other words—a Viking! Maggie Macdonald, archivist of the Museum of the Isles on Skye, suggested a classic case of misidentified paternity. “[I]t could have been that his great-great-grandmother had relations with someone who wasn't her husband—it could be Somerled wouldn't have known and thought he was this great Celtic hero.” The newspaper account does not discuss whether the half million descendents are currently having an identity crisis (Johnston, 2005).

The remarkable story of the Lemba of South Africa highlights the ways in which genetic anthropology can influence a group's culture and self-identity, as well as shifting power relations within the group. The Lemba are a black African tribe with a strong tradition of Jewish identity. Their oral history begins with descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, followed by an epic pilgrimage to the southern part of Africa. The Lemba now live in South Africa and Zimbabwe and number about 50,000. They base their Jewish identity on their Solomon ancestry and also on a number of practices, including male circumcision, ritual slaughter, and so on. Their ethnic symbol is an elephant inside a six-pointed star (Parfitt, 2000).

Until recently, the Lemba's claim to Jewish ancestry made little impression on either white South African Jews or the Lemba's black African neighbors. However, in the 1980's the Lemba met Tudor Parfitt, who directs the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of London and is an enthusiastic traveller. Parfitt invited the Lemba to volunteer DNA samples to compare them with others of Semitic origin. The results were striking. The study showed a “significant similarity” between the Lemba and other people of Arabia, which seemed to confirm the Lemba account of their Middle East origin (Parfitt, 2002, p. 215).

Even more dramatic was a comparison between Lemba Y chromosomes and those of Cohanim (Jewish male descendents of the original Temple priesthood). Just as the Cohanim are traditionally an elevated group within the Jewish people, the Buba clan are an elevated group within the Lemba. The Buba has certain ritual responsibilities, and are thought to have led the people on their original southern journey. Men of both the Buba and the Cohanim show a 50% instance of the Cohen Modal Haplotype. Among the general Jewish population, the population at large, and the non-Buba/Lemba, the percentage of the Cohen Modal Haplotype is only 10%. Although this is certainly not “proof,” it does suggest a close connection at some point in the past between the Lemba and Semitic peoples.

These findings, made into (yet another!) PBS program, described in Parfitt's books and discussed widely in the media, have had some interesting results. Like Gates, young Mark, and others, the Lemba reached out to embrace the genetic identity that best fit their cultural self-identity. The Lemba had comfortably accommodated a strong Jewish identity with a mix of Christian and Muslim religious practice. Some Jews outside of Africa, however, excited by this romantic story, were discomfited by the Lemba's cheerful syncretism. Jewish proselytizers have made the Lemba an object of missionary zeal, sending books, ritual objects, and educational missions, to bring the Lemba more in line with “normative Judaism.” Parfitt remarked:

[T]he Lemba today are completely different from the Lemba that I first met when I started on my journey several years ago. And as we speak, some North American Jews are arriving among the Lemba of South Africa on a two-year mission to bring them mainstream Judaism, complete with a library and with Torah scrolls and everything else. So as a result of my work, though it was in no sense intended, they have become, if you like, properly Jewish and recognized as such by quite a number of people, particularly in America. (Tudor Parfitt's Remarkable Journey http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/parfitt2.html)

So the Lemba began with a cultural identity, reached out for the genetic identity that corroborated it, and then began to change their cultural practice to better match what they or others felt was “proper” to that identity. It will be interesting to see how Gates's guests change in response to their newly discovered African ancestry. Will Quincy Jones's music take on a subtly different cast?

V. CONCLUSION

In the first phase of concern over “misidentified paternity,” geneticists were appropriately worried about the effects on identity and on family dynamics when genetic findings disrupt deeply held assumptions about the nuclear family. Although there is disagreement about the proper way to handle unanticipated information, there is agreement that it is important to warn people beforehand that the discovery of misattributed paternity is one risk of genetic testing.

Ancestry tracing presents parallel risks. True, the results will not throw people into divorce court, but they may profoundly change their sense of self. Amalia Cooper found a whole new set of relatives. Julia Jefferson Westerinen, a descendent of Sally Hemings, discovered her black ancestry for the first time, and chose to change her race on the next census (Staples, 2001). The Thomas Woodson family found that the DNA evidence contradicted their family story. People who avail themselves of ancestry tracing are navigating some of the same scary waters as the families who seek genetic testing, but in the former case they are navigating them alone, without whatever guidance geneticists might provide.

Internet providers of direct-to-consumer ancestry tracing services need to use the sophisticated technology available on the Net to provide at least some approximation of informed consent to their clients. Internet “chats,” sophisticated FAQ pages, videotaped interviews with people who were shaken by their discoveries, perhaps even mandatory waiting periods before purchasing ancestry tracing services, are all ways in which Internet providers of ancestry-oriented genetic testing can respond to some of the ethical issues raised by their products.

Notes

All Things Considered. (2006). ‘Series Looks at Notable African American Lives’ National Public Radio, February, 8.

BBC News. (2005). “One in 25 Fathers Not the Daddy,” October 8.

Frontline. (1999). Jefferson's Blood.

Hilpern, K. (2007). ‘Family: My father, Mr. X.’ The Guardian (London), January 20, Guardian Family Pages p. 1.

Hundley, T. (2005). ‘Father's day ‘gift’ in Germany: DNA test,’ Chicago Tribune (p. 6). Potsdam.

Metcalfe, F. (2006). ‘Where did I come from?’ Courier Mail (Australia), July 1.