- 1). Talk with your family. Try questioning parents and older relatives to trace the geographical migration pattern of relatives. This information may be useful in discovering unknown relatives and making connections with other family trees that may intermingle with your own.
- 2). Question local historians and archivists at historical societies in areas where your family has strong roots. By tracing your family's migration patterns back to the oldest known ancestor, it will be easier to pinpoint where your deep ancestry search should begin.
- 3). Contact professional DNA researchers that specialize in deep ancestry analysis. Companies such as African Ancestry (africanancestry.com) can run DNA tests using a small sample of saliva swabbed from the inside of a cheek. For a fee, maternal or paternal DNA tests can trace ancestry back more than 500 years.
- 4). Trace lineage back to Africa using the The National Geographic Genographic Project kit. The Genographic Project's primary goal is to map human migration patterns back to the origins of man on earth. Therefore, this DNA analysis will not be able to provide specific names of ancestors or the exact country of origin. However, it can point you to the region of origin and provide the name of an ancestral or cultural group that share similar DNA sequencing. Kits can be obtained from the National Geographic Museum store or purchased online.
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