As per veD a body of a living being in current life is made to experience the kARm-fl (which could be puANy = good or paapi = sinful) dividends of past kARm) of the kARm performed in previous lifetimes which one cannot even count....current genetic science tell us that the current body is made from the information coded in one's DNA from many many ancestors....so how does the veDik statement relates to the current science statement....PVAF would like to hear from you on this topic....just share your knowledge about veD and genetics by clicking on the POST A COMMENT sign in the header of this new item and write away......(from SRii chmpklaal daajibhaai misTRii of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)  DNA analysis has solved murder cases and historical puzzles. Now it's being applied to the most personal mysteries of all: Exactly who is my family?.... Where did we come from? As the cost of genetic testing comes down, thousands of people are finding new opportunities within their reach — and wrestling with new questions as well. Twenty-five years after "Roots" brought the genealogical quest home to millions of television viewers, "Genetic Genealogy" explores the next family frontier...... For more on the Genetic Genealogy please click on the next line for a news item from MSNBC NEWS SCIENCE or click on the preceding red hilite...

DNA tackles a family’s mysteries   Genetic testing brings science to bear in the search for roots   From: MSNBC NEWS SCIENCE     By Alan Boyle MSNBC         REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 16 —  I clutched the phone and started the trans-Atlantic countdown: Thanks to a mail-order DNA test, I was about to find out whether my Irish “cousin” was really my cousin. On the other end of the call was my cousin’s fiancée, who read off 10 numbers while I compared them. The first number? Check. The second? Check. So far, so good.                    MY QUEST was coming to a climax after four years of researching my Boyle family tree. Since 1997, I’ve traced scores of relatives, living and long-gone — but the trail hit a dead end three generations back.        My great-grandfather, Michael Boyle, fled Ireland’s County Clare for America in 1847, during the depths of Ireland’s potato famine. He left no records that could point to his precise birthplace or his kin. He did, however, leave behind an enduring clue: his genetic code.        A specific section of his DNA, passed down from father to son, could confirm whether I was right on my guesses about a common ancestry with Boyles who still live in County Clare. So I became a genetic genealogist, using a technology that is transforming one of America’s most popular pursuits.         HOW IT WORKS        DNA tests have been around for many years, but it’s been only in the last year or so that ordinary people could get their own genetic family profile for less than $300 a test.       • Genetic fingerprints •  Mapping DNA •  Start your search here            The home test kit can be ordered through the mail or over the Internet. It comes with a scraper or brush to scrub a sample of cells from the inside of your cheek.        You send back the sample, along with your check and the release forms. Within a month or two, you get the results in the mail: a series of numbers that represent key chemical “markers” within your DNA, displayed on a form suitable for framing.        One type of test traces your maternal line, based on slight variations in mitochondrial DNA. This brand of DNA changes very slowly, which means it’s of limited usefulness for genealogical purposes. The best you can do is determine your ancestral “clan” from a couple of dozen around the world.        Another type traces the paternal line through Y-chromosome DNA, which is passed down from father to son. This test can be conducted only on males, and taken in isolation, the results don’t tell you much. But two sets of results can be used to estimate your chances of being related to someone else on a scale of hundreds of years. (An interactive graphic titled “Genetic Fingerprints” provides additional detail.)        In 1998, such a test indicated that Thomas Jefferson or one of his relatives fathered at least one child born to a slave at Jefferson’s Monticello estate. Last summer, I used the same kind of Y-chromosome test in my own family search.           DNA identification techniques have shed new light on crimes and controversies that go back as far as 200 years. Laboratory analysis can match victims with potential assailants, identify unknown remains or even determine the relationships between historical figures. Click on the topics above for details on five of the best-known cases. SEPT. 11 ATTACKS More than 12,000 DNA samples have been taken in the effort to identify human remains recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. DNA readings from the remains are compared with cheek swabs from relatives or samples taken from personal effects such as toothbrushes or unwashed clothing. By the end of 2001, labs had identified 94 victims based solely on DNA, and the pace of identification is increasing. New York City: DNA Collection GREEN RIVER KILLINGS Since 1982, 49 Seattle-area women have died in a collection of cases known as the Green River killings. Advances in DNA technology finally led to an arrest in November 2001, when tests found a match between minute samples recovered from the remains of four Green River victims and a sample of saliva taken in 1987 from Gary Leon Ridgway, a 52-year-old truck painter. Ridgway has pleaded not guilty to the killings. Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Green River Killings BOSTON STRANGLER Eleven Boston-area women were strangled between 1962 and 1964. Blue-collar worker Albert DeSalvo confessed to the crimes. He later recanted, but the "Boston Strangler" label stuck. DeSalvo was himself killed in prison in 1973 while serving a sentence on unrelated charges. Now the mystery has been revived: In December 2001, scientists said they found no match between foreign DNA recovered from the Boston Strangler's last victim and samples from DeSalvo's exhumed remains. Crime Library: Boston Strangler THE INNOCENCE PROJECT Between 1989 and 2001, 100 convicted felons have been exonerated on the basis of DNA evidence under the auspices of the Innocence Project. The 100 include Idaho death-row inmate Charles Fain, who was set free in August 2001, nearly 18 years after his wrongful conviction on charges of kidnapping, rape and murder. Spurred by such cases, the U.S. Justice Department had planned to spend $750,000 for DNA testing of convicts, but that money was diverted to help identify Sept. 11 terror victims instead. Innocence Project THOMAS JEFFERSON'S KIN Even while he lived, America's third president was rumored to have carried on an affair with Sally Hemings, a slave at his Monticello estate. In 1998, Y-chromosome samples provided by the Jefferson family and descendants of Sally Hemings showed that there was a common male ancestor dating to Thomas Jefferson's era. Many saw the DNA findings as confirming the rumors, but the Jefferson family pointed out that Hemings' children could have been fathered instead by one of the president's relatives. Monticello: Jefferson-Hemings Online Resource   Printable version         TIME OF TESTING        My case was a good candidate: My research led me to the coastal town of Quilty, where almost half of the county’s recorded Boyles lived in the mid-1800s. One family there had a string of Boyles named Austin — which was a common name in my family as well. Internet contacts, phone calls and a visit to Ireland in 1999 solidified my connection with this family, which had relatives spread across the globe.     Austin Boyle, at left, lives in England. His cousin, Martin O'Boyle, at right, lives in Australia.            I made contact with one of the Austins in London over the phone, and he played host to my daughter for an afternoon during her first trip to Europe. Austin’s long-lost Australian cousin, Martin O’Boyle, sent me a history of the Quilty area.        In July, Martin and Austin agreed to be tested at MSNBC’s expense — with Martin taking a mail-order test from Houston-based Family Tree DNA, and Austin taking a similar test from Oxford Ancestors in England. I took the test from both companies, to see how the procedures and the results compared.        Martin and Austin were as intrigued to hear about each other as they were to hear about my DNA project. “I haven’t seen Austin in about 16 years,” Martin marveled.        Austin and his fiancée, Pura Bolea, were taken by the idea that technology could trace a long-hidden relationship to someone across an ocean. “It has that sort of ‘ooh’ effect,” Bolea said, “like a little kid looking for treasure.”         WAITING AND LEARNING              The treasure hunt — for genealogists and the companies offering the DNA services — is just beginning. Over the past year, Family Tree DNA and Oxford Ancestors have each amassed a database of more than 2,000 samples.        “The tests have really taken off,” said David Ashworth, chief executive officer of Oxford Ancestors. “There’s been an explosion, to be honest.”        One of Ashworth’s biggest challenges is explaining the limitations of genetic genealogy.        “It can get very complicated, and the average man in the street wants to know yes, no, we have a common ancestor — and you can’t give them that information,” he said.        Instead, you get fuzzy statistics. If two men have identical results on a 12-marker test, they’re almost certainly related, said Bennett Greenspan, founder of Family Tree DNA. But there’s only a 50 percent chance that their common ancestor lived within the past 14.5 generations, or roughly 600 years.        If just one marker is different, that means there has been a change, or mutation, in the Y-chromosome since the common ancestor lived — pointing to a more distant relationship.        “You can expect one mutation. That’s rolling the dice,” said Doug Mumma, a genealogist who has arranged for more than 30 DNA tests of other Mummas. Two variations, however, is “pushing it.” And when three or more markers are different, Mumma considers the person to be unrelated.                That can come as hard news — particularly if a test indicates that there was an undisclosed adoption or marital infidelity. Mumma came across one such case.        “It’s like someone hitting you in the chest,” he said. “It takes the wind out of you. That’s where you want to keep confidentiality, particularly if your parents or grandparents are still living.”                Vicki Michel, a law professor and bioethics consultant, says that’s one of the risks of genetic genealogy — even for Austin, Martin and me.        “Suppose that you had created a relationship with these people. If you all connected and felt like family, would that all disappear if it turned out that you weren’t genetically connected?” Michel asked. “Or do relationships have to do with a history of being together, of sharing experiences?”        Genetic testing poses a “big unknown” for family relationships, Michel said.        “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with exploring the unknown,” she told me, “but I think it’s important for people to be aware that when you go into the unknown, sometimes you like what happens, and sometimes you don’t.”        It was a sobering thought, even as I waited for the results from my own project.         MOMENT OF TRUTH        The white envelope from Oxford Ancestors came back in early September. Over the weekend, I studied the numbers and pored through pages of scientific explanations. The following Monday, I picked up the phone and called Austin in London. He was away at work, but Bolea pulled out the results from his white envelope.     After a DNA specimen is tested, Oxford Ancestors provides a color-coded chart of 10 genetic markers within the Y-chromosome, as shown in this sample.            The first two numbers — 14 and 12 — matched. The third was different: 25 for Austin, 24 for me. That’s OK, I thought. It’s a roll of the dice.        The fourth numbers were the same. We were back on track.        Then Bolea read off the fifth number. No match. The sixth number. No match. The rest of the numbers were identical, but by then I felt as if I had missed the lottery. “There might be a distant relationship,” I told her wanly. I promised to call back and discuss the results further with Austin.        That was Sept. 10. The next day, four airliners were hijacked, the World Trade Center collapsed and the world changed. It was months before I got back to Austin.        When I had time to muse about the DNA results, I wondered if three mismatches out of 10 was really that bad. But on Sept. 19, I received the confirmation in an e-mail from Bennett Greenspan at Family Tree DNA, who compared my results with Martin’s.        “He and you did not match,” he wrote. The full list of numbers showed that five of the 12 markers were different. Based on those readings, I had more in common with Doug Mumma than with Martin O’Boyle.        Austin and Martin clearly were descended from a different strain of Boyles. Even though we knew each other only through telephone lines and the Internet, I felt as if there had been a divorce or a death in the family.        Then came consolation.         REVISITING THE RELATIVES        After the holidays, I finally got back to Austin and Martin. When I discussed the results with Austin, the first thing he asked was, “Are you sure?”         Genealogy archive Family Tree DNA and Oxford Ancestors are just two of several firms doing genetic tests for family research. Check our genealogy links for more: •  Part 1: A family tree that spans the Net •  Part 2: A leap of faith in the family quest •  Assembling the puzzle •  Roots in a drop of blood •  MSNBC genealogy links          He noted that his grandmother as well as his grandfather was a Boyle, and that the line of relationship might go through the grandmother’s side. There were male cousins on that branch who might be willing to take the DNA test. And if that lead didn’t pan out, there were plenty more Boyles to go, he said.        “Even when I was growing up, the amount of Boyle families (in Quilty) that were not related was six or seven,” he offered.        Then Austin asked about Martin and his family: Where exactly does he live? Was Martin’s brother still alive? When I got in touch with Martin on the other side of the world, he had questions as well: Were there any maps of County Clare on the Internet? Does Austin use e-mail?        So I’ve found myself drawn into a circle despite the DNA results. Austin is helping me get in touch with other Boyles in America and Ireland. I’ve sent Martin pointers to Clare-related Web sites, and I’m helping the two long-separated cousins stay in closer touch.        After all, isn’t that what families are for?                 •  DNA tackles family mysteries •  African-American traces her genetic "Roots" •  Road show adds to DNA database •  Is your DNA safe from Big Brother? •  Genealogy archive   African-American traces her genetic "Roots"    2 of 5  1. DNA tackles family mysteries  2. African-American traces her genetic "Roots"  3. Road show adds to DNA database  4. Is your DNA safe from Big Brother?  5. Genealogy archive                                     Genealogy Archive on MSNBC Genetics coverage from MSNBC    Terror alert level cut to 'yellow'  U.S. 0says Syria ordering Iraqis to leave  Achille Lauro hijacker seized in Iraq  Talks on N. Korean nukes reported  U.S. forces raid home of 'Dr. Germ'  MSNBC Cover Page RootsWeb Mailing List: Genealogy-DNA

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