 Tracing Your Clan With Dna |
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Mailagnas maqqas Dunaidonas  |
Posted: 08-Oct-2004, 07:47 AM
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Celtic Guardian
Group: Celtic Nation
Posts: 911
Joined: 18-Nov-2003
Zodiac: Oak
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This is an interesting development. Thank you,Annabelle, for the info.
Clan Donald and several other clans have developed their own databases, and hopefully will share in developing the big picture of how the clans are related to one another.
There is a potential downside to widespread genetic testing. According to The Scotsman:
| QUOTE | AS MANY as one in seven people in parts of Scotland are not related to the man they believe is their father, according to a leading geneticist.
Dr John Gow, of Glasgow University who has recently set up a company offering DNA testing, said that in areas of Dundee and Glasgow about 15 per cent of the population were the offspring of someone other than the person they had been led to believe was their biological father. This rate is three times the national average.
The revelation that so many people have been misled about their parentage was described by a leading child psychologist as "dynamite" that could destroy family relationships.
He linked the high numbers found in Dundee and the east end of Glasgow to high teenage pregnancy rates and said they were both a symptom of poverty.
The policy of not telling children that they had been adopted - something that was done up until the early 1960s - to try to protect their feelings were also said to be a likely factor behind the figures.
Dr Gow, whose firm Crucial Genetics is building up a database of Scottish and Irish DNA samples, said: "Approximately one in 20 children don�t have the biological father they think they have, but in certain regions it is higher than that.
"In some areas of the east end of Glasgow and parts of Dundee it is as high as 15 per cent, which is about one in seven. If all the men start thinking: �If the numbers are that high then...�, we�ll have a queue at our door."
The DNA database is developed anonymously with the permission of those involved and so Dr Gow has not had to break the news to people attending the centre, which is based at Glasgow�s Southern General hospital. But paternity tests can be carried out as long as all the parties agree.
There have been several high profile cases of people belatedly discovering the true identity of their father. Paula Yates, the late television personality, discovered at 37 that she was the daughter of Hughie Green, the Opportunity Knocks star.
And Soraya Khashoggi, 57, former wife of arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, told how a DNA test had proved that her daughter Petrina was the child of Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced former Conservative minister. |
Scotsman excerptA google search for "crucial genetics" will turn up additional information. One thing that may be a matter of concern is that Crucial is only testing 16 genes, rather than the 25 to 35 that may ultimately be necessary to tease out deep relationships. See Science helps turn genes into kilts
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Síochán leat,
Mailagnas
Clan Donald USA
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