The other side of the coin
Just yesterday, at the spring seminar of the New Hampshire Society of Genealogists, The Legal Genealogist stood before a group of enthusiasts and reminded everyone in the room (the speaker included) that DNA — as a research tool — has limitations.
The one point I try to stress, each and every time I talk about using DNA testing, is this: DNA can tell us how we are biologically related to each other. DNA doesn’t — and can’t — tell us how families are formed.
Think for example of the case where DNA proves that this child is not the biological child of this man. That’s a common scenario, whether it’s a relationship today or (as in the case of Richard III and the questions DNA has raised about his paternity1) a relationship in the far distant past.
And think about what DNA does not and cannot ever tell us: whether that child loved that man, and that man loved and cherished and guided and raised that child. It may have been the child of his wife by her first husband. Or the child of his wife’s sister. Or a child taken in to the family when no-one else would or could. But the only the bonds of biology can be tested through DNA; the bonds of the heart don’t show up in our genetic code.
This point was stressed, in Alva Noë’s post DNA, Genealogy And The Search For Who We Are, on NPR’s blog back in January, where he pointed out that:
family and family history are one thing, and DNA-based ancestry is another. You just can’t map these beautiful, defining, important family stories onto a DNA tree. … (Y)ou literally can’t. DNA draws the boundaries in the wrong place.2
And, he went on:
As a culture, we like simple solutions. And the idea that who, and what, we really are is written in the language of the genome, that it is inside us — and that we need only send away to have it decoded — is almost irresistible. But to judge by the example of (Henry Louis) Gates’ television show (Finding Your Roots), the stories that matter, the ones that bring his guests and his viewers to tears, are sagas of marriage and migration, of childrearing, hard work and love. It is family that matters — and family is relationship, not DNA. Family is not to be found inside us. The DNA story is a good one, and no doubt important for certain purposes, e.g., medical. But when what we want to know is who we are, it won’t deliver the answers.3
Noë then urged his readers to listen to a presentation by Professor Mark Thomas of University College London on the topic at the Who Do You Think You Are Live conference in Birmingham, England, last year. It’s worth lending an ear to Thomas, even though he focuses almost entirely on the limits of YDNA and mtDNA in determining ancestral origins, not taking much into account from the newer autosomal DNA tests.
But when we review what Thomas says — when we think about what’s written in our genetic code — and above all when we set out to use DNA in our research, the bottom line we have to keep in mind as genealogists (rather than as geneticists) is this: families are more than blood or DNA.
That stepfather and stepson are family every bit as much as two related by biology — and in far more important ways than biology alone suggests.
Let’s not forget the relationships of the heart even as we enthusiastically learn more about the relationships of the genome.
SOURCES
- See Judy G. Russell, “Case closed … and another opened,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 3 Dec 2014 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 15 May 2016). ↩
- Alva Noë, “DNA, Genealogy And The Search For Who We Are,” Cosmos & Culture: Commentary on Science and Society, NPR, posted 29 January 2016 (http://www.npr.org/ : accessed 15 May 2016). ↩
- Ibid. ↩
When people tell me about their geographic origins based on DNA testing I tell them that DNA determines what makes you you. It determines a person’s eye colour, height, etc. It can not determine geographic location. There is no geographic loci on the double helix that tells where a person is from or where they will live. It just isn’t there. I tell them that the geographic origins are used as a marketing tool to get people to buy into the program. In other words, it is creme de la ce….. . I didn’t start looking at my DNA results from 2012 until 2016 – didn’t have time cause I was too busy with gathering important human generated information from records.
I won’t go quite that far, Sara, because there IS information in those genes about deep ancestral origins (basically at the continental level). But (sigh) I wouldn’t change my lederhosen for a kilt…
Beautifully said! Something we need to keep reminding ourselves. Sometimes the science seems to take over our brain. Sort of a nature versus nurture thing – we keep forgetting the “AND” !
Great way of putting it, Lil: it’s and, not or.
I see that you, Judy, are going to be in Fort Wayne at MAAGI and for a public lecture in July! Hoping to be able to see you and hear you during your classes and lecture presentation!!Whatever you decide to speak on, I know it will be excellent!
Sure am proud to be on the MAAGI faculty, Patrick, and yes — a public lecture as well. Gorgeous facility and a great program. Hope lots of folks are there.
Well and wisely stated, Judy, but it may be emotionally easier to accept your point when the ancestor in question is quite distant. When the ancestor is (say) your birth father, it seems excessively rational to say, in effect, “He just provided the DNA”. As you know, there are a great many individuals investing a great deal of time, money and energy trying to find their birth parents.
And yet few of those who are looking for birth parents are denying the very real depth of the relationship they have with those who raised them. They’re the ones whose values, beliefs and stories helped shape the individual and will be passed on to future generations. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to know and, if possible, to cherish the biological as well, but it’s almost always in addition to and not instead of.
Again, I agree, but the duality of all of that seems a burden to those of us who dislike ambiguity. And I’m not at all sure it’s merely a cultural thing. (Full disclosure: I have an unresolved NPE with my own father’s birth, and I further have reason to think he was not treated well by the man who raised him.)
Ambiguity can be a bear, for sure — but it can also be fun. Let’s hope for more of the latter and less of the former.
For most of my 73 years, I have viewed ambiguity as my friend, but the tension in this particular issue finally hit me when it came time to choose which grandfather to show in the family tree.
I can’t begin to put myself in your shoes with that decision.
Surely your readers, if not you, are tiring of this narrative, Judy, so I’ll bring it to closure. Since I never knew my “nominal” grandfather, since I would never have discovered the NPE without genetic genealogy, and since genetic genealogy was the only way to solve the mystery, I chose to show my genetic grandfather in the family tree. But there’s one final twist: my “nominal” grandfather and his wife, who was both my nominal grandmother and my genetic grandmother, were 1st cousins! So I get to keep his paternal side, save only his father, in my tree.
The twists and turns of family history are fascinating, Howard. Thanks for sharing yours.
So you go back more than couple of generations or sideways in your family tree to people you have had no interaction with. If there is no genetic connection what degree of influence do these people have on who you are ? If we accept the Legal Genealogist’ argument then why bother going back many generations or developing a family tree of people we never interacted with. Ask people who were not brought up by biological parents and most will tell you that the genetics do indeed have a significant influence on who you are. We are the result of a complex interaction of influences from our legal and biological families as well as many other people we have interacted with.
David, this isn’t an either-or. It’s not one or the other. It’s both. You don’t dismiss the genetics, no. But you don’t make them the be-all and end-all of family history either. As you say, who we are and what we are is the result of that complex interaction of influences and players, and simply saying “this is the bloodline” misses the depth and breadth of that interaction.
A great post Judy! For me the stories from the heart are what makes family history interesting. DNA becomes the way to connect the fa,I lies and reveal more of the stories. I include adoptions in and out as well as step-family.
This was a timely post, as I just bid a final farewell to my aunt (both of the heart and of the genes) with my first cousins (of the heart). I was thinking about the importance of families of commitment and like adding heart to that. Family relationships are incredibly complicated and our trees should include all of them. My first cousins’ step-mother is my aunt and my step-grandmother is their grandmother. Family of the genes, as well as family of heart and commitment.