For black Mormons, DNA testing a revelation of roots and faith – Salt Lake Tribune

Then, for Giddins' birthday, a friend gave him an AncestryDNA test kit. He put the $99 gift on the shelf and forgot about it.

"One day, in spring 2016, I took it down and looked at it. I thought to myself, 'I should take this thing. I've been looking for my mom all this time,'" Giddins recalls. "So, I did it. I took the test."

Using the kit's prepaid packaging, Giddins mailed a sample of his saliva to AncestryDNA for analysis of maternal and paternal genetic information ("autosomal DNA," or all 23 pairs of chromosomes). A few weeks later it can take six to eight weeks he was notified that his results were available online.

"They give you links to everyone [in the testing database] you share DNA with," Giddins says. "I found my mom and much more. I found a brother, two sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. I found my history; I found my truth."

Giddins' biological mother, now 70 and living in Columbia, S.C., called him, knowing only that her family tree indicated that they somehow were related. As they talked, she asked for his birthday.

"Dec. 17," he answered.

"She said, 'I am the woman on your birth certificate.' We both cried," Giddins says. "She told me that on every Dec. 17, she had prayed to God that I was well."

Giddins, his wife, Lita, and their five children have since visited his rediscovered relatives in South Carolina, and he talks with his biological mother two or three times a week on the telephone.

"We have a lot to catch up on," he laughs.

Spokeswoman Crista Cowan said that while Lehi-based AncestryDNA provides clients with ethnicity breakdowns, it does not keep specific records of customers' race or religion. That said, there seems ample anecdotal evidence (a search of YouTube using the term "African-American DNA testing" turns up more than 40,000 results) of black people using AncestryDNA and other testing companies to plumb their roots.

"A lot of people are creating videos of their DNA 'reveals,'" Cowan says, adding that many customers are surprised at the ethnic diversity discovered within their chromosomes.

Overall, AncestryDNA has seen orders for its kits skyrocket since the service launched in May 2012. More than 3 million people have tested, with that number having jumped from just 2 million in spring 2016.

As life-changing as DNA testing has proved for African-American clients in general, it allows blacks who have embraced Mormonism to do what other Latter-day Saints take for granted identify ancestor candidates for baptismal temple rites for the dead.

Robert Burch Jr., president of the Utah chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, found DNA results in 2016 that took him beyond his slave forebears, all the way to ancestors in the Cameroon and Congo regions several centuries ago.

"I encourage African-Americans to do DNA testing," Burch says. "It allows us to leap across the obstruction of 600 years of racial lies and historic deletions."

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For black Mormons, DNA testing a revelation of roots and faith - Salt Lake Tribune