Peering Inward for Ethnic Identity: Consumer Interpretation of DNA Test Results

Abstract

During the past decade, commercial DNA testing has been made available to the public. Tens of thousands of persons in the United States and additional tens of thousands worldwide have purchased DNA tests to identify their paternal, maternal, and biogeographic ancestries. These tests promise to link persons to ancestors and locales in their distant past, but the tests can also have a profound impact on personal conceptions of identity and ethnicity. We address two types of identity issues: (a) how the social mythologies surrounding a given ethnic heritage may be used to construct a desired identity grounded in DNA test results, and (b) the identity disjunctures that occur when persons learn through autosomal DNA testing that they do not have the ethnic ancestry that they had believed. As social theorists become increasingly cognizant of the continuing nature of identity construction throughout the life course and the importance of accounting for the ethnic aspects of identity, personal DNA testing promises to provide a fertile site for inquiry.

I'm relatively new at this, but I am learning a lot from this list. We used Oxford Ancestors [OA] for a test of my father's mtDNA and received some very nice “frameable” certificates and notification of which of the seven daughters of Eve he descends from. All quite exciting. From the articles people have mentioned, … I have learned about a much bigger picture of the clan mothers between mtEve and Sykes' seven daughters and of many other clan mothers worldwide. I have learned how they use the [genetic] region from 16001 to 16400 on the OA test to determine one's clan.

OA also offers a Y-chromosome service. … They will interpret the results and place my dad into one of the y-chromosome clans they have named. I am also interested in their “Are you an Anglo-Saxon/Danish Viking, a Celt or a Norwegian Viking” service which you can get for an additional 25 pounds. All of these things I can add to my family history. (Entry on the DNA-List@Rootsweb WebBoard)

Notes

¹Actually, current DNA data indicate that African Americans have approximately 20% European ancestry, on average; likely a lasting legacy of slavery (Shriver et al., 1997).