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Who are you? Where are you from? How we identify ourselves is at the core of what it means to be human, and the chance to get easy, quick and affordable answers to these questions has prompted the genetic testing market to be worth almost a $1 billion a year.

The best DNA test kits give you detailed, personalised reports on what, exactly? Where your ancestors came from? Actually, no. They tell you where your DNA is from today, which can help you research your genetic ancestry and your ethnicity, but they certainly dont provide the quick-fix you might think. Heres how DNA tests work, their pros and cons, and how to choose the right one for you.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is two long molecules that carry genetic instructions for cells to work and reproduce. DNA is in all living things. Its arranged in a double helix of two strands that wind around each other. Sections of those strands are called genes, which determine particular characteristics. DNA exists in the nucleus of every cell as chromosomes. There are 46 chromosomes in each cell, 23 from each parent.

However, exactly how DNA is inherited is random. People in the same family even twin brothers can inherit different segments of DNA from their parents. Cousins share some DNA and if you sign-up to a DNA testing companys cousin-matching service you can see your genetic matches pop-up. Get to third cousins and DNA is not much use. Go back several generations and you may share zero DNA with some of your ancestors.

DNA test kits collect your saliva or cheek swabs, which you then post to a laboratory, which extracts your DNA. Essentially, you spit in a tube or swab each cheek twice with a cotton swab. What you get back either in the mail or more likely online is information that appears to show where your ancestors came from. In short, a breakdown of your genetic ancestry; your ethnicity.

But DNA test kits dont tell you where your ancestors are from. Human history is the history of migration so trying to place your genetic ancestors in a geographic location is inherently problematic.

So how does the process work? Segments of your genome are cross-referenced with others in a database, loosely assigning different bits of your DNA to geographic locations. Companies tend to use reference samples of people that have four grandparents in that region, too, and similar DNA samples from a particular location are clustered. This helps produce a likely connection to a place over long time periods, but a lot of assumptions are made. Your results may not be unique.

Nevertheless, youll be sent information and visuals on the general populations and regions your DNA contains links to. For example, you might learn that youre 81% European, 9% Asian, but within that data you might be told that youre 41% English and 40% Welsh, for example. These are estimates based on the size of the companys databases, and the algorithms and statistical techniques they use.

You might also be told that youre related to specific other people that have also done a DNA test with that company, with cousin-matching the most common product.

Leading genetic companies in the industry include AncestryDNA, LivingDNA, Family Tree, MyHeritage and 23andMe. Once youve done one test and got the results back you can generally upload your raw DNA data to another testing company to take advantage of their databases and algorithms.

Thats because the results youre going to get will vary. Over time the various companies databases are getting bigger and therefore better, with data from new locations added, while the reference populations used for particular regions also get larger and more reliable. Algorithms, software and AI are also improving. This is why the results you get from a DNA test kit today are much more detailed than they were when they first became available a decade ago and theyll be better in the future.

Its also worth knowing that until recently DNA testing companies have best served people with European ancestry, simply because theyre been most popular in North America and Europe.

There are three different tests for genetic genealogy, each of which will reveal different data about your ancestry:

Autosomal (atDNA): this is by far the most common and most useful DNA test for ancestry and is often just called family finder or simply your ancestry. It can give anyone their ancestors up to about seven generations back and is useful for cousin-matching. Its therefore used by all DNA testing companies as the default offering.

Chromosome (yDNA): this test uses the Y-chromosome, which is only found in men and passed down the paternal line. The mutations in a mans yDNA can link him to a genetic population with whom he shares a common ancestor.

Mitochondrial (mtDNA): this one traces your maternal ancestors. It can be taken by anyone. The mutations in your mtDNA can link you to a genetic population with whom you share a common ancestor.

Many DNA testing kits offer genetic readouts on your ancestry as an entry-level product within a wider offering designed to help you investigate your individual family history. It also matches your DNA to new customers, so it can give you new information years after that initial cheek swab you did.

Here are the basic differences between the most popular services all of which offer autosomal testing as a default but head over to our best DNA test kits article for full details:

AncestryDNA: Uses a saliva test and has a database of 20 million the largest of all and gives access to 30 billion genealogy records for family tree research.

Living DNA: uses a cheek swab and has a database of one million. It claims to have data from across Africa so promises better results for African Americans and European Africans. It also specialises in British ancestry.

Family Tree DNA: uses a cheek swab and has a database of 1.4 million so its not the best for cousin-matching. For an additional fee, you can have your DNA cross-referenced with its yDNA and mtDNA databases, too.

MyHeritage DNA: uses a cheek swab and has a database of 4.5 million. It also offers access to 12 billion historical records and syncs everything with your family tree research.

23andMe: costs $99, uses a saliva test and has a database of 12 million the second-largest. Its thus good for cousin-matching, 23andMe also offers health results.

DNA test kits aren't a scam, but you need to know their limitations and realise that theyre actually a spin-off of much broader ambitions. For example, researchers are using anonymised DNA test results to create maps of human migration patterns, but also to develop personalized and population-based healthcare, partly by identifying people at risk from genetic conditions. For population-genetic modelling the growth of DNA test kits is great news.

However, what DNA test kits dont do is give simple, quick and 100% reliable information about where a specific individuals ancestors came from. So if youre researching your family tree, by all means get a DNA test kit and feed the results into your own research. But if youre only after a quick DNA-based sense of identity confirmation of your own unique heritage and ancestral roots DNA test kits are not going to give you enough accuracy for that.

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DNA test kits for ancestry: how they work and how to choose the right one for you - TechRadar

His DNA did not match that from the hair on the glasses.

In 1998, a new sheriffs deputy took over the investigation into the killings and turned his attention to Mr. Perry, prompted in part by a woman who said she had heard Mr. Perry say that he was going to kill Harold Swain.

Mr. Perry was arrested in 2000. At his trial, prosecutors relied in part on the womans testimony, and also on statements that investigators said Mr. Perry had made during unrecorded interviews. According to his lawyers, the jury did not learn that the woman who had testified against him had received $12,000 in reward money.

Mr. Perry was convicted in 2003 of two counts of homicide, and prosecutors agreed not to request the death penalty if Mr. Perry gave up his right to appeal. He did, and was sentenced instead to two consecutive life terms.

The fact that they sought the death penalty on a case with incredibly weak evidence, and involving extensive misconduct, is an indictment on the death penalty, said Clare Gilbert, the executive director of the Georgia Innocence Project, which worked on the case for years. Thank God Dennis Perry wasnt executed before anybody found this out.

After Mr. Perrys conviction, the case continued to draw outside attention. It had been featured on the television show Unsolved Mysteries in 1988, and was highlighted on the program again in 2010. In 2018, the case was covered and investigated on the third season of Undisclosed, a podcast about wrongful convictions, and the law firm King & Spalding began representing Mr. Perry.

In 2020, the case was the subject of an award-winning investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That article cast doubt on an alibi that had been used by Erik Sparre, another man who had been investigated in connection with the killings.

The reporting spurred the Georgia Innocence Project to get a hair sample from Mr. Sparres mother, to see whether it matched the DNA from the glasses closely enough to suggest that a relative of hers had been at the church on the night of the killings.

Originally posted here:
After Two Decades and a DNA Test, Charges Are Dropped in Georgia Killings - The New York Times

Changes in policy would help broaden work that DNA labs are doing to identify the remains of missing service members, said a Lawton native who has been involved in DNA identification projects across the globe for decades.

What DNA labs can do is being hindered by policy, said Ed Huffine, one of the leaders in DNA technology that is greatly speeding the identification of remains in locations ranging from the World Trade Center in the aftermath of 9-11, to mass grave sites in Bosnia.

The sites share a common thread: the use of nuclear DNA to identify remains, rather than the less specific and more costly mitochondrial DNA. But, the nuclear DNA testing in common use in other countries isnt in common use by the U.S. military because of policy, Huffine said, adding while the military is directed to provide the fullest possible accounting in remains, their own policies violate that. That must be changed.

Huffine said the two types of DNA mitochondrial and nuclear are important in identifying human remains because of their characteristics. When a dead person begins to decay, DNA begins to slowly fall apart. Mitochondrial DNA is more likely to be present after the nuclear DNA has decayed. But, because it is not unique to a person, it cannot stand alone in the identification process.

It needs other forms of identification to collaborate, he said, of things such as forensic evidence found with the body.

For example: human remains are found at the site of a plane crash in Vietnam and if you identify the type of plane and who was flying on it, that narrows down the identity of remains. Using nuclear DNA at the same crash site would allow you to compare it to the relatives of a missing person, providing an identity.

Huffine, who worked for the Armed Forces DNA Laboratory in the mid-1990s, said skeletal remains tested by that lab relied on mitochondrial DNA, the same technique still being used today.

Huffines views on DNA testing were shaped by the years he spent in Bosnia, beginning in 1999, to help identify the estimated 8,000 victims of 1995s Srebrenica massacre.

They had tens of thousands of missing and mitochondrial simply would not work, he said, of the number of unidentified remains and the relations of families of missing people. Mitochondrial would not be able to assist that much. And, mitochondrial takes far more time to get results and is far more expensive.

Instead, scientists there refined the process of obtaining nuclear DNA from skeletal remains, then began mass testing. At the same time, the group went through the country to retrieve DNA samples from living relatives. They created a data base and created a computer program to match living relatives with DNA found in remains. It was a powerful new tool: testers matched seven identifications over seven years with the old system, while they were able to do hundreds of matches a month with nuclear DNA.

That was the first example of large-scale, Huffine said, of a DNA technique used to identify thousands of remains. That has since become the template, except for the U.S. military, which still relies on mitochondrial DNA.

Huffine said its a realization that frustrates him and the families of missing service members. He said hes certain of the viability of nuclear DNA because he saw it work in Bosnia, and the testing he used there is primitive compared to what can be done today.

DNA technology is rapidly advancing. Military rules are not, he said, of the unwillingness to adopt a testing technique so successful, it is even accepted as court evidence. They (scientists) are handicapped.

Huffine cited a specific incident: the accidental bombing of a U.S. POW camp in Tokyo toward the end of World War II. Seventy prisoners died and today, about half the remains have been identified through mitochondrial testing that relies on matches to immediate relatives (parents, siblings, children). Nuclear DNA testing could use relatives of second or third degree to help identify the remain. Huffine said the system is set up for failure.

If you were to completely disregard that, do the system the rest of the world is using, you could identify these individuals very quickly, he said.

Finally identifying remains decades after a loved one has gone missing in war is crucial for families, Huffine said, adding closure comes from knowing the remains are family, and knowing what happened.

They have a greater peace, a greater understanding of the last few days a loved ones been through, he said.

And, thats why Huffine continues along with family organizations to push the U.S. military to adopt the nuclear DNA testing system.

Weve begun to see incremental changes, he said, of a bureaucracy that is sometimes difficult to move. One way to do it is more publicity, more getting the points out there, the points of the success of nuclear-led system that is identifying people. The needle can be moved.

Thats important when you realize 78,000 to 80,000 World War II service members still are listed as missing.

For Huffine, the process of identifying long-missing family members is important on multiple levels, built from personal experience and his early career.

His first DNA-related job was with the Federal Aviation Administration in its national site in Oklahoma City after he graduated from the University of Oklahoma. His four years there focused primarily on the remains from airplane crashes, explaining that testing a pilots DNA could help prove the cause of a crash (ensuring substance abuse was not a factor).

Then, he left the FAA to work with the Armed Forces lab in Washington, D.C. It was there he received a call from home that his father was missing.

He went out driving and never came home, Huffine said. They didnt find his body for a few days. It gave me, somewhat, a feeling for having a missing person in the family. That became imbedded in me, the impact of a missing soldier, the impact on the family. Oftentimes, Id go to their funeral services, just to see the impact on the families.

He also saw the weight DNA could have on the judicial system. He was part of the project that identified the remains of the victims of Argentinas Dirty War, when death squads killed thousands in the mid-1970s to early 1980s.

Because we knew who these people (victims) had been seen in the presence of, there were thousands of charges of crimes against humanity, he said. It shows power of DNA testing, finding the truth decades after it happened.

Giving the family news, their loved one is found and they are dead, is some of the worst news you can give a family. But, it does release them. You have a body and a site they can go to and remember, and go on with their lives.

Link:
Lawton native argues that military has to change DNA testing policy for service remains - The Lawton Constitution