She traces genetic ~Roots~ to Africa

DNA helps
author forge links to cousins from Ghana
After years of genealogical research, interviews and DNA testing,
Pearl Duncan, right, identified Vida Opare as one of her ``ancestral cousins''
from Ghana. The two have developed a close friendship since they found out that
their fathers' DNA matched. ``She looks just like my sister,'' Duncan says.

By Alan Boyle
MSNBC

Jan. 16 ~ Twenty-five years after Alex Haley~s ~Roots~ showed
blacks that they could trace their family stories backward beyond slavery,
another African-American author is using genetics to take the saga to the next
level: Pearl Duncan has combined extensive DNA testing with years of research
to trace her lineage back to Ghana ~ without ever setting foot in the country.

~ Genetic fingerprints

~ Mapping DNA
~ Start your search here

~I WOULD NOT have been able to do it in any other time in history,~
says Duncan, a travel writer and former college professor who is writing a book
about her quest, titled ~DNA Dawns Bringing Daylight.~
The search for roots poses special challenges for
African-Americans, whose native cultures and languages were often blotted out
by generations of slavery and racism in the New World. Individuals like Duncan
and research efforts like the African Burial Ground Project and African
Ancestry are using genetic analysis to make the connection to long-sundered
cousins on the mother continent.

A WAY WITH WORDS
For Duncan, 51, the DNA connection is only the latest chapter in a
decades-long story.
The tale took root when she was a little girl in New York,
listening to the linguistic twists of her Jamaican-born parents: If she started
making a mess, she was told not to ~chaka-chaka~ the room. If she ate too fast,
her mother reminded her not to ~nyam~ her food. Her mother~s nickname was
~Dockyi,~ her father~s was ~Pari.~
The airing of ~Roots~ in 1977 served only to whet an
already-strong appetite for the family quest. ~I remember how intertwined the
family stories were in ~Roots,~ but I think that~s something that
African-Americans take for granted,~ she said.
She learned that her ancestors were Maroons ~ slaves who were
brought from Africa to Jamaica more than 300 years ago, but escaped from their
British conquerors and fought to keep their freedom.

When she visited the Caribbean as a travel writer, she saw the
places where her ancestors lived, and heard some of the strange words she
remembered from her childhood.
Eventually, her curiosity brought her to a linguistic
anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution. He told her the words came from
a language spoken by the Akuapim tribe, part of the Akan people in present-day
Ghana. ~Pari,~ for example, was a shortened form of the family surname Opare.
~I said, ~Well, do the Opares still exist? And he said, ~Do they
exist! I know some of them!~~
That set her on a time-consuming search for Ghanaian immigrants
throughout the East Coast, and especially for Opares. ~I literally interviewed
about 500 Africans,~ she said. By 1999, she had found dozens of members of the
Opare family ~ but there was little more to support the link than words and
family resemblances.
That~s when genetics played a crucial role.

"Roots: Celebrating 25 Years"

LeVar Burton and others whose lives were touched by the
original "Roots" reflect on the saga's meaning in "Roots: Celebrating 25
Years," airing at 8 p.m. ET/PT Friday on NBC. Beginning Sunday, the Hallmark
Channel airs the original "Roots."
~ "Roots" revisited: A different kind of American saga
~ "Roots" documentary leaves its ABC roots behind
~ A 21st-century genetic twist on African "Roots"
~ More about "Roots: Celebrating 25 Years"
~ More about "Roots" from the Hallmark Channel

A WAY WITH DNA
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In 1999, scientists announced that Y-chromosome tests had turned
up a genetic link between southern Africa~s Lemba tribe and the Jewish Cohanim,
a priestly clan going back to biblical times. Excited by the news, Duncan
contacted researchers at the University of Arizona~s Human Genome Diversity
Project and asked if they could run the same tests on her father and the
Opares.
~They said they didn~t work with the general public ~ they needed
a whole pool of people,~ she recalled. ~~How many do you need?~ I asked. They
said a dozen. So I said, ~Well, I~ll have three dozen for you.~~
The researchers tested the three dozen cheek-swab samples, and in
exchange Duncan shared her years of research on African culture and history.
When the lab results came back, 30 samples of Y-chromosome DNA from male Opares
matched up with Duncan~s father.
~They~re still doing the comparisons,~ she said, ~because given
the information I have, we will actually narrow down the group of Opares to the
specific family where the person got on the boat,~ four centuries ago.
She already feels as if she~s found family in Vida Opare, a nurse
who immigrated from Ghana, and whose family~s DNA matches that of Duncan~s
father. ~She looks more like me than two of my sisters do,~ Duncan said.

Pearl Duncan shows Vida Opare the entry for their family name -- Opare --
in a rare Asante- and Fante-language dictionary which was vital to Pearl's
genealogical research. Vida had never seen the book before. The book was
prepared by Swiss missionaries who worked in Ghana in colonial times.

A WAY WITH WONDER
Duncan is planning to take her first trip to Ghana this fall for
the traditional harvest festivals, if she can get her book finished. Looking
back, she wonders at the complex, four-century saga of her family ~ from Ghana
to Jamaica to America. Strangely enough, the family quest has made her feel
more American as well as more African.

African 'Roots'

~ African Ancestry has gathered DNA samples to lay the
groundwork for an African genetic map
~ Afrigeneas focuses on African-American roots
~ More on Pearl Duncan
~ MSNBC genealogy links

~Once you do the research, you say, ~Wait a minute: These are
people who were here before the country became organized,~~ she said. ~It~s not
the narrative that they were victims, that they were beaten, that they were
slaves. They were the workers. They were the builders. And that~s a very
empowering feeling.~
She believes it~s a message that can be drawn from the saga of the
Haleys, the Duncans, the Opares ~ and many more families.
~As more stories are revealed, we will change the narrative of
African-American culture and experience in America. When I was discussing my
book with editors before, one editor asked me how I could be writing about how
heroic my people were, when they were victims,~ said Duncan, who lives just
three blocks from the ruins left behind by the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the
World Trade Center.
~After 9/11,~ she said in an e-mail message, ~I think a lot more
people in America understand how humans can have traumatic experiences, suffer
travesties, and still be heroic.~

Is your DNA safe from Big Brother?
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1. DNA tackles family mysteries
2. African-American traces her genetic "Roots"
3. Is your DNA safe from Big Brother?
4. Genealogy archive

PearlDuncan.com

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