A New Research Agenda for the Study of Genetic Ancestry Tests and the Formation of Racial and Ethnic Identities and Ancestries

Katharine Tyler

doi:10.3390/genealogy2010001

Abstract

This paper sets out a new research agenda for the study of family historians’ (referred to as ‘genealogists’) use of genetic ancestry tests in the course of their family history research in postcolonial Britain. My focus is upon the ways in which the use of these tests shapes the formation of genealogists’ ethnic, racial, national, class and gender identities and their ancestries. I argue that, while there is some significant and important work on the ways in which African Americans and white Americans deploy these tests to trace their family histories, there is little comparable work in the context of postcolonial Britain. Drawing on sociological, anthropological and geographical research on identity, genetic ancestry testing and family history research, I set out some of the theoretical issues that research in this area in Britain should address, and outline possible methodologies and methods that will serve to bridge this gap in the current literature on race, ethnicity, identity and genealogy.

Highlights

Population geneticists have argued that innovations in genetic science mean that the DNA contained in a swab of someone’s saliva provides information on the genetic identities of their ancestors.Genetic ancestry tests are thought to enhance traditional forms of family history research by tracing the identities of ancestors that cannot be accessed in archival research
Taking on board the specific histories of empire, slavery, race, nation, racism, nationalism and multiculturalism that have formed and continue to shape the UK and its ethnically diverse citizenry, the study of genetic ancestry testing in the UK offers specific ethnographic insight into the ways in which these tests are mobilised and their results interpreted in the context of postcolonial Britain
My supposition is that the ethnographic study of family history research through the lens of genetic ancestry testing offers the potential to explore people’s understandings of what race, ethnicity and class is, how they understand differences between these concepts, and where the concepts come from

Summary

Introduction

Population geneticists have argued that innovations in genetic science mean that the DNA contained in a swab of someone’s saliva provides information on the genetic identities of their ancestors. For example, there are companies that claim to map African American ancestries to geographical areas in regions of Africa, Native American ancestries to particular tribes and homelands in parts of the US, and Jewish identities across the globe In this way, the marketing of the tests parades genetic analysis as evidence of the user’s origins, identity and ethnic and racial belonging. I make the case for a research agenda that will deploy the technology of genetic ancestry testing as a lens through which to examine how British people from diverse ethnic, racial and class locations, and across gender categories, conceive and imagine the genealogical constitution of individual and collective identities. I shall refer to the scientists that work in the area of genetic ancestry as ‘geneticists’

An Analytical Review of the Use of Genetic Ancestry Tests

Reflections on the Use of Genetic Ancestry Tests in the USA

Reflections on Genetic Ancestry Testing in the UK

Ways Forward

Concluding Remarks