by Peg Lewis

Created on: July 19, 2008

Throughout human history and prehistory, events have occurred that have wiped out all but the most hardy or most lucky. Some of these events were natural, such as glaciers, drought, or disease, while others were entirely manmade, such as the capture of black Africans and their transport to a new continent, where they were impressed into service under often extreme conditions.

Not everyone survived. Those who did were exceptional in some way, faster, stronger, more clever. Those of us alive today are descendants of the survivors. We have our own different challenges now which could cause our lineage not to survive, but our ancestors were the strong ones of their day, under their circumstances, and we can be proud of them. It was after all their survival that gave us our existence.

Various tools provide us with the means of knowing more about them. Understanding who they were and what they endured gives us insights into our own character and strengths. As Matt Ridley says in his well-researched and eye-opening book The Agile Gene, a great deal of who we are is in our genes. This is a book well worth reading for anyone interested in understanding just how much impact our ancestors have on us genetically.

The tools for knowing our forebears fall into two categories: research tools for uncovering our lineage, and DNA testing for tracing the pre-historical path.

Research tools include many services that provide raw data about our forebears over the past several hundred years. These include such excellent resources as Ancestry.com for internet searches, and Family History libraries, found in most cities and provided for general public use by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). The information from Family History libraries is now available online at http://familysearch.org.

DNA testing is currently limited to reporting your mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which shows your mother's mother's mother's mother's line back 200,000 years. If you are a man, it also shows your Y-chromosome lineage (father's father's father's father's line), over a shorter but more detailed path.

A software tool for recording your research discoveries can be found as a free download at http://familysearch.org.

Free DNA testing is available at http://smgf.org. This foundation will send you a test kit, which requires a cheek swab, and will do your mtDNA and Y-chromosome at no cost in exchange for basic information about 4 generations of your direct-line family members, or in other words

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