By Peter J. Roberts
The Bahamas DNA Project was launched in June to support genealogy research. The administrator, Peter J. Roberts, a Bahamian and a professor at Georgia State University, invites others with Bahamian ancestry to join. Potential participants qualify for this project if they are male and their paternal grandfather's father's direct line is from The Bahamas, or if they are male or female and their maternal grandmother's mother's direct line is from The Bahamas.
Early results of the project show that sharing the same surname is not a guarantee of being related. Peter Roberts' family from Marsh Harbour enjoys a legend that his great-great grandfather and two brothers sailed from Belfast and shipwrecked in Abaco. Despite this tale, Peter continued to believe that all the Roberts families in The Bahamas shared a common ancestry back to about 1720. When Peter compared test results with a Roberts from Key West whose ancestry is from Harbour Island via Green Turtle Cay, and another Roberts with ancestry from Great Guana Cay, they found that no two of them were related. It turns out Peter's closest matches to date have Belfast or Scottish heritage.
Participation in this project offers additional benefits. It can help identify an unknown ancestor, such as Wyannie Malone's husband. His male Malone descendants carry his Y-chromosome signature, which passes virtually unchanged from father to son. A match between two of his distant male Malone descendants will reveal his signature or haplotype. If his haplotype were a close match with other Malones with ancestry in South Carolina, then researchers would discover the family line that Wyannie married into.
Y-chromosome testing can confirm traditional genealogy. For example, an 18th-century Abaconian, Gideon Lowe, is believed to have had two sons, Benjamin and Matthew. If tests of a male Lowe who descends from Benjamin and another who descends from Matthew provide a close match, then we would know this genealogy was correct and that there had not been a non-paternity event in those lines. This is a significant result because about three to six per cent of people do not have the father they believe is their father. Any other Lowe who tests and is a close match to Gideon's markers would confirm that he belongs to this same male line.
This project can also identify or provide clues of early ancestral origin. To date, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon haplotypes have been identified for participants. Additional results may divulge other European ethnic groups such as Norse Viking, or African groups such as Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo, Ashanti, or Congo. A recent DNA study of black West Indians living in England found that 26 per cent of them had European ancestry on their direct paternal line.
SEE DNA, B 3
When applicable, the project will also test a participant's direct female line through mtDNA, which passes virtually unchanged from a mother to her children. This test is less useful for genealogy purposes because mtDNA rarely changes. A perfect match with someone outside the project could indicate a common female ancestor within a couple hundred years or several thousand years ago. Because the match is with someone who shares a maternal ancestry in The Bahamas, however, there is a strong likelihood that the woman lived at some time since its settlement in the 1600s. The challenge lies in learning who that ancestor was because of the patrilineal changing of women's surnames with each generation.
Although discovering a match with another surname may be a worry for some participants, they need not be concerned about their privacy. The small portion of the Y-chromosome under analysis contains no genes that relate to medical issues or that will be of interest to insurance companies. Likewise, the area of the mtDNA that is tested does not provide enough information from which to draw any conclusions regarding medical issues. The portion of the DNA tested provides a distinctive signature for a lineage rather than for an individual, so there is no risk of the data being applied as an identity test for forensic purposes. Participants will also remain anonymous on the project website; however, to further genealogical research, they are requested to identify their earliest known ancestor in The Bahamas as well as that ancestor's descendants who have passed away.
Collecting a DNA sample requires only a simple mouth swab; no blood or pain is involved. The cost of the male-line Y-chromosome test is US$169 and the female-line mtDNA test is US$239. Since close relatives should receive the same test results, they may choose to share the cost to test one family member. This is a non-profit project and provides no financial benefit to anyone other than the testing company. The Bahamas DNA Project can be found online at http://home.comcast.net/~libpjr1/bahamasdna.html, and additional information is available from Peter J. Roberts at peterebay@yahoo.com.
Many of our early vital records for The Bahamas are incomplete or lacking altogether. DNA testing is one tool that can close those gaps and support genealogical research. In most cases testing will provide much needed confirmation and reinforcement of what we already know about the history of Bahamians. Having personal evidence of how your family line fits into our rich history can prove inspirational and quite rewarding.
By Peter J. Roberts
The Bahamas DNA Project was launched in June to support genealogy research. The administrator, Peter J. Roberts, a Bahamian and a professor at Georgia State University, invites others with Bahamian ancestry to join. Potential participants qualify for this project if they are male and their paternal grandfather's father's direct line is from The Bahamas, or if they are male or female and their maternal grandmother's mother's direct line is from The Bahamas.
Early results of the project show that sharing the same surname is not a guarantee of being related. Peter Roberts' family from Marsh Harbour enjoys a legend that his great-great grandfather and two brothers sailed from Belfast and shipwrecked in Abaco. Despite this tale, Peter continued to believe that all the Roberts families in The Bahamas shared a common ancestry back to about 1720. When Peter compared test results with a Roberts from Key West whose ancestry is from Harbour Island via Green Turtle Cay, and another Roberts with ancestry from Great Guana Cay, they found that no two of them were related. It turns out Peter's closest matches to date have Belfast or Scottish heritage.
Participation in this project offers additional benefits. It can help identify an unknown ancestor, such as Wyannie Malone's husband. His male Malone descendants carry his Y-chromosome signature, which passes virtually unchanged from father to son. A match between two of his distant male Malone descendants will reveal his signature or haplotype. If his haplotype were a close match with other Malones with ancestry in South Carolina, then researchers would discover the family line that Wyannie married into.
Y-chromosome testing can confirm traditional genealogy. For example, an 18th-century Abaconian, Gideon Lowe, is believed to have had two sons, Benjamin and Matthew. If tests of a male Lowe who descends from Benjamin and another who descends from Matthew provide a close match, then we would know this genealogy was correct and that there had not been a non-paternity event in those lines. This is a significant result because about three to six per cent of people do not have the father they believe is their father. Any other Lowe who tests and is a close match to Gideon's markers would confirm that he belongs to this same male line.
This project can also identify or provide clues of early ancestral origin. To date, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon haplotypes have been identified for participants. Additional results may divulge other European ethnic groups such as Norse Viking, or African groups such as Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo, Ashanti, or Congo. A recent DNA study of black West Indians living in England found that 26 per cent of them had European ancestry on their direct paternal line.
SEE DNA, B 3
When applicable, the project will also test a participant's direct female line through mtDNA, which passes virtually unchanged from a mother to her children. This test is less useful for genealogy purposes because mtDNA rarely changes. A perfect match with someone outside the project could indicate a common female ancestor within a couple hundred years or several thousand years ago. Because the match is with someone who shares a maternal ancestry in The Bahamas, however, there is a strong likelihood that the woman lived at some time since its settlement in the 1600s. The challenge lies in learning who that ancestor was because of the patrilineal changing of women's surnames with each generation.
Although discovering a match with another surname may be a worry for some participants, they need not be concerned about their privacy. The small portion of the Y-chromosome under analysis contains no genes that relate to medical issues or that will be of interest to insurance companies. Likewise, the area of the mtDNA that is tested does not provide enough information from which to draw any conclusions regarding medical issues. The portion of the DNA tested provides a distinctive signature for a lineage rather than for an individual, so there is no risk of the data being applied as an identity test for forensic purposes. Participants will also remain anonymous on the project website; however, to further genealogical research, they are requested to identify their earliest known ancestor in The Bahamas as well as that ancestor's descendants who have passed away.
Collecting a DNA sample requires only a simple mouth swab; no blood or pain is involved. The cost of the male-line Y-chromosome test is US$169 and the female-line mtDNA test is US$239. Since close relatives should receive the same test results, they may choose to share the cost to test one family member. This is a non-profit project and provides no financial benefit to anyone other than the testing company. The Bahamas DNA Project can be found online at http://home.comcast.net/~libpjr1/bahamasdna.html, and additional information is available from Peter J. Roberts at peterebay@yahoo.com.
Many of our early vital records for The Bahamas are incomplete or lacking altogether. DNA testing is one tool that can close those gaps and support genealogical research. In most cases testing will provide much needed confirmation and reinforcement of what we already know about the history of Bahamians. Having personal evidence of how your family line fits into our rich history can prove inspirational and quite rewarding.
