Genetimes and lifetimes: DNA,new media,and history

Abstract

The last decade has seen the increased use of direct-to-consumer genetic testing for constructing genealogies. These services, offered by companies such as 23andMe, combine biotechnology with new media technologies such as blogging and social networking. Individual consumers are able to construct new identities, communities, and personal histories on the basis of their DNA. Such technology-based and technology-mediated historical reconstructions have the potential to reshape our relationship to the past. In particular, DNA histories entail a particular notion of temporality, specific standards of evidence, and a particular vision of identity. By analyzing the development and use of these new technologies, we can begin to identify specific ways in which biotechnologies and new media technologies are impacting the construction of social memory in the twenty-first century.

Keywords

23andMe ancestry direct-to-consumer genetic testing genealogy genetic testing

Introduction

Historians have documented a twentieth-century enthusiasm for memorialization that has caused memory to become “a best-seller in consumer society” (Le Goff, 1992: 95). In Twilight Memories, Andreas Huyssen (1995) writes that a “waning of history and historical consciousness” has paradoxically accompanied a growth in the popularity of museums, monuments, and other material markers of the past. This he attributes to a simultaneous loss of confidence in the grand narratives of teleological history and a concern about the speed of technological change. A “crisis of memory”

… represents the attempt to slow down information processing, to resist the dissolution of time in the synchronicity of the archive, to recover a mode of contemplation outside the universe of simulation and fast-speed information and cable networks, to claim some anchoring space in a world of often threatening heterogeneity, non-synchronicity, and information overload. (Huyssen, 1995: 7)

According to Huyssen, the dislocation and disorientation due to technology have left people searching for rootedness in history at a time when postmodernity has rendered traditional historical narratives implausible. On this view, technology points inexorably toward the future, severing links with the past.

But in addition to their potential for dislocation, technologies afford new ways of constructing the past too. Some technologies mitigate the problems of speed, dislocation, and identity by helping to reshape our perceptions of and relationship to the past. This article explores two such technologies. The first derives from molecular biology and biotechnology. Genetic testing, genotyping, and DNA sequencing have made it possible to perform detailed genetic comparisons between humans across the globe. Biologists use these comparisons to explore the distribution of genes and diseases among families, ethnic groups, and races. But the relationships between genes also reveal patterns of human migration and can be reconstructed into stories about and when and where particular groups of human lived, traveled, and intermarried.

The exponentially decreasing cost of these technologies has brought these tools within the reach of the consumer. In the last decade, a number of companies, most prominently 23amdMe, have begun to offer personalized genotyping and gene sequencing services.¹ In addition to offering a personalized genetic testing for personalized medicine, these companies also sell their products as “ancestry,” “family history,” and “genealogical” services. Here, biotechnology is combined with a second set of new media technologies that promote, add value to, and supplement DNA testing. Consumers blog about their genotyping experiences or their quests to discover lost family members; results are connected to social networking profiles that match individuals on the basis of genetic similarities; and companies “crowdsource” from their consumers to connect families, study diseases, and generate histories of particular ethnicities or groups.

It is the combination of biotechnologies and information technologies that give these products (and the histories they generate) much of their appeal and power. New media provide a framework within which genetic information can be more or less instantly shared, interpreted, discussed, compared, and used to build stories about the past. The direct-to-consumer (DTC) sale of personal genetics and genomics services raises a number of important health policy, ethical, and political issues. In particular, the interpretation of information garnered from genes is often difficult, even for geneticists. Consumers and primary care physicians may not be well equipped to understand or appropriately respond to the results of genetic testing. There has been a growing debate over the need to license and/or regulate these services.² Moreover, since these companies routinely store consumers’ genetic information, data privacy is a significant concern.

These are an important set of issues, but they are not my concern here (see Davies, 2010; Robertson, 2003). Rather, this article is interested in understanding how such genetic testing has become involved in making accounts of the past, and how those accounts might affect our notions of history and social memory. Scholars in the field of memory studies have examined the ways in which what is remembered is constitutive of individual, community, and national identities. Connerton (1989), for instance, has argued that “our knowledge of the past … commonly serve[s] to legitimate a present social order” (p. 3). Which aspects of the past are preserved and repeated shapes contemporary societies. Second, this scholarship has shown how the content of social memory, what is remembered, depends on the means of remembering. Le Goff’s (1992) tracing of the history of memory shows how transitions from oral to written culture, for example, affect conceptions of the past. As a set of “technologies of memory,” DNA histories have significant potential to affect what is remembered and, concomitantly, to have a significant set of impacts on identity, community, and nation. The combination of genetic testing services and new media is beginning to reshape perceptions of agency, causality, objectivity, and identity in relation to history. DNA histories connect individual history (genealogy) to grand stories of human migration and exploration. As such, they provide powerful ways of forming group identities at a time when older narratives of identity (centered on nation, ethnicity, culture, and language) are being eroded.

This article is divided into three parts. In the first part, I describe the development of a DTC personal genomics industry. In the second, I examine how online and new media technologies are deployed by these services and how these play a central role in reconstructing accounts of the past. In the final part, I analyze the effects of these new accounts, showing how they provide new ways of perceiving the flow of time, the objectivity of history, and human relatedness.

Bringing DNA DTC

Since the middle of the twentieth century, biologists have developed increasingly sophisticated methods of discovering the evolutionary history of species using molecules. Emile Zuckerkandl developed the notion of the “molecular clock” in the early 1960s. Some parts of proteins, Zuckerkandl reasoned, should accumulate mutations at a more or less constant rate, like the ticking of a clock. By counting the number of mutations between proteins from two similar species, it would be possible to estimate the amount of time that had passed since their lineages had diverged (Dietrich, 1998; Zuckerkandl and Pauling, 1962).

From the late 1980s, a number of studies also demonstrated the potential of using similar methods (now using DNA rather than protein) to investigate the human past. In 1987, Allan Wilson’s analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggested the conclusion that all living humans were descended from a common female ancestor (“mitochondrial Eve”) who lived between 140,000 and 290,000 years ago (Cann et al., 1987; Wainscoat, 1987). In 1997, Michael Hammer studied the genetic relationships between male Jews (using Y-chromosomes), comparing those with the surname “Cohen” to those without (Skorecki et al., 1997). According to Jewish lore, all Cohens should be descended from Moses’ brother Aaron. Hammer found genetic evidence that suggested that a common genetic heritage had been preserved over thousands of years. In the United Kingdom, Brian Skyes conducted a similar “surname” project, testing the relatedness of males who shared his own family name (Sykes and Irven, 2000). These studies suggested the potential usefulness of genes for investigating genealogy.

As the Human Genome Project (HGP) came to an end between 2001 and 2003, biologists developed more ambitious projects for cataloging human genetic diversity. First, the HapMap project (initiated in 2002) proposed a survey of genetic diversity that would record the haplotypes (particular patterns of mutations) of four population groups (Nigerian, American-European, Japanese, Han Chinese) (International HapMap Consortium, 2005). Second, in 2005, National Geographic launched the Genographic Project. Led by Spencer Wells, the Genographic Project aimed more explicitly at mapping human migrations by collecting and analyzing DNA samples. As well as collecting samples from isolated populations around the world, the project established a collaboration with the company Family Tree DNA and Arizona Research Labs to sell DNA “self-test” kits for US$100. Customers paid to have their own DNA analyzed and the results made available online. The Genographic Project lured consumers with the promise of seeing how their own genetic pasts fitted into the population histories that the project was aiming to reconstruct. Wells is quoted prominently on the website: “The greatest history book ever written is the one hidden in our DNA” (National Geographic Society, 2012a).

Before its partnership with the Genographic Project, Family Tree DNA had been offering DTC genetic services for several years. Closely associated with Hammer’s lab in Arizona, Family Tree was founded in 1999 and offered its first tests to the public in April 2000. Almost simultaneously, Skyes lab at Oxford commercialized to become Oxford Ancestors. The following year, a UK company called Sciona began offering “personalized reports” based on DNA tests. A lifestyle questionnaire and a DNA sample (obtained by rubbing a brush swab on the inside of the consumer’s cheek) allowed Sciona to provide a report “describing your lifestyle results, together with further informative sections on food groups, vitamins and minerals and an easy to understand guide to the science behind the service” (Barrett and Hall, 2008). Rather than selling its nutrigenomics products online, Sciona became available at first through retail stores (notably The Body Shop) and later via physicians, pharmacists, and nutritionists (Genewatch, 2012).

This first wave of DTC genetics companies in the early 2000s had been able to offer tests based on just a handful of genetic markers. That is, their tests examined just a few carefully selected spots on the human genome. This limited the amount of genealogically relevant information that could be gathered. This usually amounted to testing of Y chromosomes (passed from father to son) and mtDNA (passed from mother to daughter). Because Y chromosomes were unaffected by maternal genes and mtDNA was unaffected by paternal genes, markers on these regions could provide a direct indication of whether any two males or any two females shared a common ancestor (and an estimate of the number of generations of separation). If two individuals shared a marker on these regions, then they were related; the more markers they shared, the more closely related they were.

Technological advances in DNA sequencing, largely spun off from the HGP, made these services faster, cheaper, and more powerful. Companies such as Affymetrix, Illumina, and Applied Biosystems drove down the price of sequencing and testing. By mid-decade, this inspired the launch of a second wave of DTC genetic testing companies. Navigenics was founded in 2006, launched in 2007, and made its first sales of consumer genetic tests in April 2008. 23andMe was founded in April 2006. Decode Genetics—established in 1996 with the aim of genotyping the Icelandic population—launched their consumer testing service, DecodeMe, in November 2007. New technologies made it possible to test a larger and larger number of genetic markers (not just those on the Y chromosome or mtDNA). The primary market for these companies lay in the realm of personalized medicine. By testing genetic markers known to be associated with particular diseases and traits (including information about whether you carried the genes for a particular disorder and drug response), the DTC companies could compile a personal report providing the “risk factors” associated with these diseases and traits. In 2012, 23andMe (2012b) offered testing for over 200 diseases and traits.

But ancestry testing and genealogy were also an important driver of business. For some customers, it might be the primary reason for testing, for others an enticing “add on” to their to health information.³ In ancestry testing, the genome is treated as a set of “markers.” Each marker consists of a specific pattern of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts (the letters used to represent the chemical code of DNA) at a specific location on the genome (e.g. TAGGCTA). The starting assumption is that at some point in the past the ancestors of all living humans shared an identical set of markers. Then, however, an individual living a long time ago experienced a mutation in this particular pattern (e.g. TAGGCTA → TGGGCTA: an A is mutated to a G). This mutation would be passed on to that individual’s descendants, creating a slightly modified version of the marker. Those descendants may also experience mutations of their own, leading to changes in other markers on the genome. If this group of descendants become isolated from the rest of the human population (through migration, for instance), the particular markers they possess may become characteristic of this group. Their markers will usually not be entirely unique since other humans, by chance, may undergo the same mutations. But statistically speaking, a specific marker may be far more likely to occur in a particular group or sub-population than in the human population as a whole. The consequences of this are that testing one or a few markers provides some information about ancestry.⁴ Testing a large number of markers, however, allows for increased precision and more knowledge about family and ancestral connections. Moreover, gathering more information about the relative frequencies of markers in many different populations increases the sample size and diversity, therefore allowing more precise predictions.

From 2010, Family Tree offered a “Family Finder” test that examines over 700,000 markers for a retail price of about US$300 (Genealogy by Genetics, 2012a). Such a large number of markers offer greater predictive accuracy and the ability to discover more distant relationships. Such data can also be analyzed to provide information associating an individual with specific regions or ethnic groups. 23andMe offered a test that covered almost 1 million genetic markers for a few hundred dollars. This provides sufficient information to generate a report on “ancestry composition” (e.g. 88% European, 5% Asian, 7% Black), a report on “genetic relatives” (including a Google Map showing the location of “cousins”), a family tree (if multiple family members are tested), reports on maternal and paternal lineage, and “Neanderthal percentage” (showing what percentage of genes you share with Neanderthals) (23andMe, 2012d).

The scope and accuracy of these tests continue to increase, and the prices continue to fall. When 23andMe suspended its services in December 2013, their testing price stood at US$99. In June 2009, Illumina introduced a DTC full genome sequencing (called Every Genome) for US$48,000. In 2012, the price stood at US$9500 (Darcé, 2011; Illumina, 2012). In 2012, 23andMe (2012a) offered a pilot program for complete exome testing (i.e. a complete sequence of all human genes, but not including the non-gene parts of the genome) for US$999. 23andMe and its competitors aim to bring complete genome sequencing within the price range of the consumer. The value of personalized genetic information is likely to grow as scientific research on genetics and genomics accelerates. The publicly funded 1000 Genomes Project and the Personal Genome Project each aim to fully sequence thousands of individuals in order to facilitate the study of human disease (1000 Genomes, 2012). In addition, hundreds of genome-wide association studies have been completed (with many more in progress), discovering statistical relationships between particular genomic markers (called “common variants”) and particular traits. As the data from these studies enter the public domain, they will allow DTC genetic testing to become an even more powerful tool for reporting on diseases, traits, and ancestral relationships.

Genealogy and new media

The market for genetic testing and sequencing has grown rapidly. The Genographic project claims over half a million participants from 140 countries (National Geographic Society, 2012b). In early 2015, it was reported that 23andMe had a database of over 800,000 individuals (Herper 2015).⁵ One of the main drivers of the success of these personalized genomic services in the last five years has been their ability to exploit new media technologies. DNA sequencing produces a letter-based code (a string of As, Gs, Ts, and Cs) that can be easily managed, stored, transmitted, and analyzed using digital computers. Indeed, the HGP relied on computers (and the Internet) to share, store, and assemble the first human genome. DNA sequencing machines are computerized instruments that produce DNA as bits and bytes. In this sense, a human genome sequence is already a new media object—it is born online, to be stored in databases and transmitted across the Internet. DTC genetic services take advantage of DNA’s status as digitized biology (for more on this process and its history, see Stevens, 2013).

The Web has also enabled genotyping services to be marketed and sold directly to the consumer. Online systems have allowed companies to circumvent any role physicians, pharmacists, nutritionists, or storekeepers might have played stocking, promoting, or selling these services. The testing can be performed entirely online and via the regular post. Usually, a purchase takes place online using a credit card; this process involves creating a secure account for the customer’s records. The provider then mails the customer an empty container (usually with a “kit” that includes instructions and a consent form) and a reply-paid envelope. The customer fills the container with his or her spit and mails it back to the provider’s lab. The lab conducts the testing, and results are posted to the customer’s online account. The customer can then login to view their genetic profile. All this keeps the service automatic and autonomous (the customer does not have to deal with any third party at any point). It creates at least the appearance of privacy, a significant advantage in an industry where customers are transacting their bodily fluids.

The Web also allows genetic testing services to operate within an ambiguous regulatory framework. Operating out of doctors’ offices or pharmacies may have left genetic testing open to regulation as medical treatments or drugs. As an online “information” service, genetic testing companies provide worldwide service without being (until recently) subjected to regimes of medical regulation. There have been some efforts by both the California Department of Public Health and the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to regulate DTC genetic testing (Pollack, 2008; Young, 2012). In November 2013, the FDA sent 23andMe a “warning letter” arguing that their DTC genetic testing services fell under the definition of “medical devices” and therefore that the company was in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act (USFDA, 2013). 23andMe responded by voluntarily suspending their personal genetic testing services until the matter could be resolved; the company continued to offer ancestry testing services (Wojcicki, 2013). Nevertheless, the online presence and worldwide scope of these companies would make any effort to completely restrict their activities impractical.

Apart from these general advantages of online operations, DTC genetic services have also benefitted from new media technologies in more specific ways. Most straightforwardly, these companies have piggybacked on existing online genealogical services to promote and spread awareness about their operations. The Internet has proved a great boon to genealogy: individuals have connected with distant relatives via email or online chat; states and municipalities have made birth, marriage, and death records available for online search; and hundreds of companies and private individuals offer genealogical services via the Web (for instance, they will consult locally available records for a fee).⁶ Several companies offering genetic testing services work in cooperation with genealogy websites. One of the most popular genealogy websites, Ancestry.com, has begun to offer a service called AncestryDNA that aims to integrate the results of genetic testing with the findings from more conventional genealogical research. “Find out where your ancestors came from and see how it compares to what you already know—or may think you know—about your family history” (Ancestry.com, 2012). Genetic services have succeeded in exploiting the existing Web presence of individuals interested in family histories.

The blogosphere has proved particularly useful in this respect. There are a vast number of blogs that deal with family history, genealogical research, and individual quests to reconnect with long-lost or distant family members. The “Genealogy Blog Finder” lists almost 2000 blogs categorized into “news,” “technology,” “single surname,” “Jewish,” “cemeteries,” “famous folks,” and so on (The Genealogue, 2012). These blogs have helped to promote and spread information about genetic testing. Many DTC companies maintain their own blogs that not only describe their own technology but also share the stories and discoveries made by their customers. 23andMe (2012c) maintains a blog, “The Spittoon,” that regularly reports on genealogical success stories and a group of “Ancestry Ambassadors” (mostly composed of active bloggers in the genealogy community) who provide guidance for improving 23andMe’s ancestry services. DTC genetics companies invest significant resources in maintaining an ongoing conversation with this online community.

In addition to blogging, sites like 23andMe seek to add value to their products by providing “community pages” for customers to share their insights and experiences from genetic testing. In September 2008, 23andMe (2008) added a set of social networking tools to its website: those who had received their genetic profiles could “create a profile, connect with others, share stories, ask questions about specific traits and ancestry groups and learn more about research studies.” Customers could compare their genes with friends or family and search for others who showed a high degree of genetic similarity. 23andMe’s vision for this new form of social network was that individuals would connect not just on the basis of common interests or mutual friends but because of similar genetic predispositions or DNA matches indicating a distant relatedness. David Rowan, a writer for Wired, reported on a message in his inbox after setting up his 23andMe profile: “My name is Alison. I’m contacting you because we share 0.62% DNA on six segments, and we could be distant cousins” (Rowan, 2011). Swapping genetic information provided a new way to discover things in common and a new way to connect to people around the world.

Apart from just making friends with your distant cousins, the genetic social networking has a serious aspect. 23andMe also uses their social networks to contribute to its research projects (called 23andWe). Just a month after setting up its social networking functionality, 23andMe organized a “breast cancer networking project.” The aim was to bring together women who either had breast cancer or had a genetic predisposition to it (as revealed by 23andMe’s tests). This would not only create a social network for “the swapping of knowledge, advice and support,” but also allow 23andMe to use the genetic data from this group to conduct research studies on breast cancer (McCarthy, 2008). The ultimate aim is to be able to use 23andMe’s data, combined with the power of social networks for connecting groups, to generate powerful genetic research.

The DTC genetic testing market shares the economic logic that drives the growth of other new media. First, companies such as Facebook, Digg, and Twitter rely on user-generated content. Customers utilize these services not to consume content created by the companies themselves but rather to view photos, read Tweets, and visit links generated by other users. These companies’ value lies in the fact that they provide a platform or medium through which exchanges can take place. With DTC genetic testing, the customers are providing (and in some cases, sharing) their own DNA. Of course, customers are paying to have this content extracted from their own cells in a lab. But they are also paying for the ability to compare themselves to others: to see whether their genetic risks for diseases are higher or lower, to see how their genetics places them among different ethnicities, and to see how they match up to other individuals. Some of this work is done by DTC company software, but much of it is done by the consumers themselves: sharing stories, swapping data, and blogging about their experiences. DTC genetics companies, like other new media, provide a convenient platform for these exchanges to take place. It is this participatory aspect that encourages many customers to pay up.

Second, DTC genetic testing also utilizes the logic of crowdsourcing. 23andMe’s research draws on the power of the crowd to identify clinically important genetic markers. But the use of genetic data to track down family members, build family trees, or reconstruct histories of human migration is based on the same idea. Most crucially, it relies on the participation of large numbers of people. Surname projects, for instance, are genealogical projects that attempt to determine the genetic similarity between people who share the same surname. Family Tree DNA runs over 7000 such projects, relying on individual contributors to provide their genetic data (at their own expense) (Genealogy by Genetics, 2012b). Such projects—and others that track geography, lineage, race, and ethnicity—would not have any value except for the participation of the (Web) community.

Google’s PageRank algorithm or Amazon’s or Netflix’s algorithms work to aggregate the thousands of selections made by the crowd into intelligent recommendations for websites, books, and movies. The DTC genetic testing software performs a similar function: aggregating the (genetic, personal, and social) data from thousands of individuals in order to generate conclusions about human relatedness and difference. As described above, the power of ancestry testing depends on the amount and diversity of data available: the more the people, the more it can predict and the more precision these predictions have. A similar statistical logic applies to new media—the more the likes or clicks Facebook or Google can log, the more accurately it can predict user preferences. This ability allows these services to target advertisements in ways that increase the commercial value of the companies.

Both new media and DTC genetics are driven by network effects: the more the people who use these services, the most data that service will have, and the greater will be its ability to find similarities, connect individuals, form social groups, and conduct research. The bigger the network, the bigger the payoff. Both industries rely on the ability to organize and make accessible large volumes of information, much of it extracted from customers themselves. This connection was surely recognized by Google when the company invested US$3.9 million of start-up capital in 23andMe in 2007 (at the time, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was engaged to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki). Google’s plan to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible” extends to genetic information too. DTC genetic testing and social media rely on similar assumptions, strategies, and economic logic.

The consequences of DNA history

The result of this synergy between genetic testing and new media is that DNA has become an increasingly popular tool for understanding genealogy and history. DTC genetic testing and its online presence offer not merely the tools for analyzing your own DNA but also provide the means for situating and understanding the data that are produced. New media tools provide the context in which individuals can make sense of the potentially perplexing content of their own genomes, interpreting DNA into socially and culturally relevant information. The remainder of this article explores the consequences of these genetic histories and their proliferation via new media. It argues that social memory is likely to be affected in important ways by the meeting of DNA with the Web. These combined technologies have three immediate consequences. First, molecular clocks represent the flow of time in a particular way: the stochastic ticking of the clock according to mutations puts us in a new relation to our past. Second, DNA brings new standards of evidence to history. The scientific basis of genetic histories suggests an “objectivity” that has the potential to diminish or trump other forms of historical evidence. Third, DNA histories have the potential to reshape individual and collective identity—the epic and mythic stories that they suggest link people together in new ways across time and space.

Temporality

Genetic histories represent a certain kind of temporality. DNA is a clock, we are told, but it is a very unusual clock. It is ticking based on random mutations in our DNA that are passed on to subsequent generations. It relies on the assumption that mutations occur at a constant rate over time. If, for some reason, mutations occur rapidly, then time is stretched and slowed down; during periods when mutations are fewer, time gets speeded up. The speed of the clock can also be affected by changing generation times, changing population size, the changing function of the DNA itself, or changes in the intensity of natural selection (Ayala, 1995). Moreover, DNA by itself cannot provide direct information about when an event occurred. It can show, for instance, that event A occurred twice as long ago as event B, but it cannot fix either event in time. For this, biologists must rely on the fossil record or other forms of physical evidence.

Molecular clocks, then, suggest the contingency of history. Events and populations are tracked through random (and usually inconsequential) mutations. History becomes stochastic, and chance events seem to govern the flow of time. There is little room left for agency, or even causality, in such stories. Populations simply move apart—the traces of their separation and difference can be discovered in their genes. In his book The Journey of Man, Spencer Wells (2002) describes how one of his ancestors experienced a single nucleotide mutation at some point in the past:

This man could, in fact, be called M173, after the marker. All of his sons carried this marker, marking them uniquely as his male descendants. They in turn passed it on to their sons, and over time it increased in frequency. (p. 81)

Genetic history can tell us nothing about how or why this one man’s mutation managed to spread. It can tell us nothing about the man himself—he is just defined by a random mutation, M173. Chance events dominate human history.

In Brian Sykes’ book, The Seven Daughters of Eve, the narrative is centered on seven women (“clan mothers”) who were the most recent common maternal ancestors of most living Europeans. These clusters or “clans” had been known to population geneticists as U, X, H, V, T, K, and J. “It required only that I give them names to bring them to life … Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrine and Jasmine became real people” (Sykes, 2001: 196). Sykes’ chapters then fill out the imagined lives of these women who lived between 10,000 and 45,000 years ago. Ursula was born in a cave in modern-day Greece; Jasmine lived in one of the first human settlements in Europe; Katrine helped to domesticate a wolf. The fragmentary pieces of DNA evidence are fleshed out into origin myths. But these stories cannot tell us anything about why the DNA of these women survived into the present. And although the women’s stories appear side by side, they remain disconnected from one another in time and space. As Sykes concedes, there was probably nothing special about the “seven daughters of Eve.” They were just ordinary, picked out only because their genes happened to persist while others’ “drifted into extinction” (Sykes, 2001: 273).

DNA histories turn on random events. Even when the DNA is elaborated into fictional life stories, its authors do not claim that their protagonists were especially interesting or important. In these narratives, human history appears to be a random flux of events in which anyone could be picked out by their DNA, while others fade into obscurity. All this has nothing to do with human action or the details of human lives, but only with the contingency of mutations. For that reason, this is also a history in which everyone has a chance of playing a part—anyone could be singled out for genetic greatness. Just as the “seven daughters of Eve” were ordinary people, ordinary people today could, just by chance, pass on an extraordinary genetic provenance.

But this view of the past also promises connectedness. Its aim is to show how everyone is genetically related to everyone else. The fact that all modern Europeans are directly descended from one of just seven females suggests the connectedness of human populations. Paradoxically, even as human populations grow, according to these stories we become more closely related over time. This is a history in which we are all involved and in which time seems to bring us closer together.

The stories reconstructed through genetic testing and new media share these features. They inscribe an idea of the past in which the dominant force is randomness—almost anyone, anywhere could be our relative separated from us through the contingencies of time. Moreover, the possibility of finding remote and distant connections via the Web suggests a narrative in which everyone plays a role: we are all related to one another and are all a part of some larger story.

Objectivity

Genetic histories are stories written by science and technology—they are deeply embedded in the technical apparatus of twentieth-century molecular biology. They rely on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines, high-throughput sequencing, computer modeling, bioinformatics, networked databases, and sophisticated statistics. Paul Connerton (1989) writes that

the storage of present-day information technologies, and hence the organization of collective memory through the use of data-processing machines, is not merely a technical matter but one directly bearing on legitimation, the question of control and ownership of information being a crucial political issue. (p. 1)

What we remember depends on the technologies in which it is inscribed and who controls these technologies.

Those who control these modes of inscriptions hold significant power over collective memory. The standards of plausibility for DNA histories are the scientific standards of editors and peer-reviewers of Science or Nature. The proliferation of genetic histories, then, has the potential to reduce the plausibility of other, more interpretative forms of history not subject to scientific standards of proof. Genetic histories are associated not only with the perceived “objectivity” of science but also with the “naturalness” of biology. According to its promoters, it is history literally written in our bodies, giving it an almost automatic legitimacy.

This raises questions about how to properly weigh genetic evidence against documentary, oral, or other forms of historical evidence. In the United States, these problems have been played out in the controversy surrounding Thomas Jefferson (the third president, 1801–1809). In September 1802, a political journalist from Richmond, Virginia, reported that Thomas Jefferson had “kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves,” Sally Hemings, and alleged that he had “several children” by her (The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2012). So began a long-standing scandal that implicated Jefferson as the father of Eston Hemings and several of his siblings.

In 1998, Eugene Foster and his coworkers reported in Nature the results of their attempts to establish paternity using Y-chromosome DNA tests. The authors argued that because “most of the Y chromosome is passed unchanged from father to son, apart from occasional mutations, DNA analysis of the Y chromosome can reveal whether or not individuals are likely to be male-line relatives” (Foster et al., 1998: 27). Foster’s laboratory compared the DNA of five male-line descendants of the President’s paternal uncle, five male-line descendants of Thomas Woodson (Sally’s first child), one male-line descendant of Eston Hemings, and three male-line descendants of the President’s nephews (who have been suggested as alternative fathers) (Foster et al., 1999). Although markers carried by Jefferson appeared to be rare (not found among a sample of 670 Europeans or 1200 men worldwide), they perfectly matched the markers of the descendant of Eston Hemings. This led the authors to the conclusion that Jefferson’s paternity was the “simplest and most probable” explanation, noting that it was “one hundred times” more likely that Thomas Jefferson, rather than someone unrelated to him, was the father (Foster et al., 1998: 27).

This was a highly controversial result that reignited a two-century-old debate. Just after the release of the DNA results, The Thomas Jefferson Foundation (2012) (a private non-profit organization) convened a nine-member research group to investigate the findings. Weighing evidence from the DNA study, historical documents, oral accounts, and statistical data, their report concluded that Jefferson was likely the father of Hemings’ children. Their conclusions relied heavily on the DNA findings, basing their confidence on the fact that

the design and methodology of the DNA analysis reported by Dr. Eugene Foster et al. in the journal Nature is sound and straightforward and meets the current standards of the scientific community. The laboratories involved are highly reputable in Y-chromosomal studies and have extensive records of publication in scientific peer-reviewed journals. (The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2000)

In 2000, a group dedicated to “furthering the honor and integrity of Thomas Jefferson” formed the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (2012). They commissioned another research committee to review the same evidence and came to the opposite conclusion. Rather than questioning the genetic evidence directly, however, their report argued that the Y-chromosome analysis performed by Foster was insufficient to rule out other Jefferson relatives as the father (Coates, 2001). In the Jefferson–Hemings case, DNA managed to re-open a controversy that was, for most historians, considered closed. The DNA findings have proved definitive: even for those who oppose the conclusion that Jefferson was the father, the DNA evidence has now set the parameters of the debate.

Similar stories can be found in accounts of individual genealogy. Hundreds of blogs and posts online describe the “surprise” provided by DNA testing. Typically in these accounts, genealogists have first traced an individual’s family history using oral and documentary evidence to particular regions or particular ethnicities. Then, DNA tests, purchased online via 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, or other services, often reveal different origins, confounding expectations. In 2006, the Harvard Professor of African-American Studies, Henry Louis Gates, Jr and host of PBS’ “African American Lives” attempted to retrace his African roots via DNA. To his surprise, what he found was that the DNA testing showed European ancestors on both the maternal and paternal sides. “I’ll never see my family tree in quite the same way,” Gates confessed, “I have the blues. Can I still have the blues?” (quoted in Willing, 2006).

In other stories, DNA evidence provides the “missing link” that could not be discovered in the traditional historical record. The absence of records connecting one family to another is filled-in once and for all by DNA testing. Often, elaborate attempts are made to reconcile seemingly anomalous DNA evidence with more conventional histories. One website reports how Sonia Rosa-Velez of Virginia, who had previously traced her ancestors to Puerto Rico, tested her father’s Y chromosome only to find that it matched Jewish DNA. “Historians agree that Columbus’ crews included known conversos, Jews who converted to avoid persecution during the Spanish Inquisition … By definition [her father’s] ancestor must have been a converso” (Dardashti, 2006). Suddenly, Rosa-Velez became Jewish: a family history was invented to match the DNA. In almost all these stories, DNA is taken to be definitive—it provides a solid backbone around which other stories and other evidence must be fitted.

In 2014, Science reported the results of a major genetic study of “human mixing events” (Hellelthal et al., 2014). Reporting on the publication, the New York Times asked one of the authors whether they had collaborated with historians (they had not): “In some sense we don’t want to talk to historians,” he responded, “There’s a great virtue in being objective: you put the data in and get the history out” (Wade, 2014: A10). For these scientists, DNA provides an “objectivity” that can only be muddied by traditional historical methods. Family stories, documents, and oral accounts are either dismissed in the face of genetic evidence or re-interpreted to make them consistent with DNA. The proliferation of DNA history through new media has the potential to rewrite the past according to new standards of evidence. Online ancestry testing promises cheap, widely available, specific, and scientifically rendered accounts of the past. Such stories have the potential to profoundly alter what kinds of accounts of the past are considered “authentic.” We are increasingly looking to DNA to provide certified versions of memory, history, and identity.

Identity

Genetic history is also deeply implicated in the construction and reconstruction of identity. Stories like Gates’ suggest that DNA has the power to immediately re-cast people’s conceptions of self by tying them to different groups or geographic regions. New media are of particular importance here, allowing individuals to use their DNA to rapidly connect with people in other parts of the world. Traditional histories forge communities around common location, common religion, or common language. DNA histories, however, link people according to the statistics of the DNA, forging transnational bonds that unite through mythic origin and migration stories.

Skorecki et al.’s (1997) analysis of the “Cohen” is a good example of the relationship between DNA, history, and identity. For many, the genetic separation between “priests” and “non-priests” was a surprise. It suggested that Cohens really did constitute a unique biological grouping, not just a shared name. A few years later, Hammer et al. (2000) compared Y chromosomes of Jewish men to those of middle-eastern non-Jews, finding a high degree of similarity. Since then, numerous other studies of Jewish ancestry have been conducted using DNA both by Hammer and others (Goldstein, 2008; Ostrer, 2001). These have variously claimed that the origins of most Jewish populations are predominantly similar, that there is a high degree of intermixing between Jews and local populations, and that Palestinian Arabs are genetically similar to Jews. Such controversial claims about population and ethnic identity have a huge political significance. DNA here is not just reconstructing the past but also shaping how groups perceive themselves in the present.

Stamped with the imprimatur of science, such studies carry significant weight for many people. They have the potential to cause individuals and groups to re-think their relationships with others. In particular, they have been used to re-sort individuals between groups, either demonstrating that linguistic, cultural, or traditional groupings are reflected in DNA or that familiar cultural or racial groupings are biologically ephemeral. Paul Rabinow (1996) has argued that “through the use of computers, individuals sharing certain traits can be grouped together in a way that not only decontextualizes them from their social environment” (p. 107). He calls this notion “biosociality”: individuals are displaced from their immediate social environment and linked to other individuals in a different context. DNA evidence provides exactly this sort of re-contextualization, unjoining and re-joining people around the world.

These new forms of biosociality are exactly what we see being created within the new media forums of DTC genetics companies. Family Tree DNA, 23andMe, and Oxford Ancestors allow individuals to mobilize their DNA to form new (and often unexpected) kinds of relationships with others around the world. These are projects that construct social relationships and identity in the present. But they also construct an identity in relation to a particular past by recreating histories through which individuals and groups are related to one another.

These pasts are both global and mythical. In 2003, Spencer Wells and Pierre Zalloua began recruiting Lebanese fishermen, shopkeepers, and taxi-drivers to provide blood samples in order to discover whether they are related to the Phoenicians, the ancient Mediterranean sea-faring civilization originating in the Levant but now “vanished from history” (Gore, 2004: 27). The attempts to trace the heredity of Lebanese fishermen to the Phoenicians refer to a mythic past: the Phoenicians “dominated the Mediterranean Sea, establishing emporiums and colonies from Cyprus in the east to the Aegean Sea, Italy, North Africa, and Spain in the west …” (Gore, 2004: 36). They established an empire based at Carthage, did battle with Rome in the Punic wars under Hannibal, and were eventually destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. DNA history is being used to shed light on a hidden past of journeys, migration, conquest, displacement, and disappearance. It tells us not only how we are related but also how people moved around and interacted.

Other genetic histories too portray migration events as great adventures, intrepid explorers venturing out into the unknown. One semi-popular account uses the title “The Great Migration: To Asia and Beyond” (Olson, 2002: 123); another compares the Polynesian expansion to the exploration of outer space, the “final frontier”: “The entire history of human evolution has been one of expansion and colonization of new frontiers …” (Relethford, 2003: 167). The title of Spencer Wells’ (2002) book on human migration—The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey—also evokes the grand myths and epic journeys of discovery.

So as well as creating new relationships between individuals, genetic histories are deeply implicated in these efforts to generate global and epic accounts of the past. Genetic histories show how populations, like the Jewish priest caste, can persist over long periods of time. They describe human history in the longue durée and show how it flows continuously across regions and continents. They describe a globally connected set of human populations. Such accounts open up possibilities for constructing transnational identities and new narratives that transcend established borders and groupings based on the differences and similarities between genes. This is happening in large-scale scientific research projects (such as the Genographic Project). But new media technologies allow individuals’ personal investigations of their family histories to participate in and even to generate such epic stories.

Conclusion

What is remembered is intrinsically tied to how such remembering is done and how the past is reconstructed. Individuals, families, communities, and nations remember and reconstruct the past in a variety of ways. Stories and objects may be passed from generation to generation within families. Local rituals and bodily practices too help us to preserve memories on an individual or family level. More widespread rituals may also form the basis of community memories, whether they be tied to religion, food, music, or other aspects of culture. Nations attempt to build social memory through a variety of more elaborate means: education, museums, monuments, and commemorative events.

Globalization and information technology threaten, or at least undermine, many of these modes of remembering. Increased regional and global mobility allows individuals access to a wider variety of experiences, accounts, and traditions. More importantly, old and new media technologies including radio, television, and the Internet provide instantaneous access to diverse global sources of information. Within this globalized information landscape, local (or even national) stories and rituals may become less and less plausible accounts of the past as they become subject to a variety of conflicting, contradictory, and competing voices.

DTC genetic testing offers a new mode of reconstructing the past that relies on many of these same globalized information technologies. Thriving on the economic logic of new media and benefitting from expanding global reach, DNA histories stand to gain in credibility where more traditional forms of social memory may be challenged. DTC genetics companies have woven together biotechnology with new media to provide powerful accounts of the past—the accounts gain their strength not only from the power of the technologies themselves but also because these accounts mesh with, and therefore make sense within, the global ecology of new media and social networking.

New media connect the individual to global scientific projects: crowdsourced data are collected and contributed to the scientific projects, while also providing means by which individual users can see where their own stories fit into these larger histories of migration, exploration, and exchange. And this is their most important feature: their ability to mediate between personal pasts and larger pasts shared by communities or even the whole human population. In other words, they promise connection. They promise to show how our individual lives are all woven together in a grand historical story appropriate for a globalized age.

At the beginning of the HGP, its boosters promised that it would provide a definitive blueprint for all human beings—that it aimed to expose our common humanity. This idea—that the human genome is a shared and collective human heritage—still finds a place in the rhetoric of twenty-first-century biology. And, of course, all human genomes share much in common. However, our genomes are also what makes us different from one another: the idea of the personal genome is based on each individual’s genomic uniqueness. This paradox lies at the heart of genomics: we need to simultaneously understand both what makes all genomes the same and what makes each of them different.

In genetic histories, this dialectic between sameness and difference gives these reconstructions of the past much of their power. It allows these stories to be simultaneously about individuals and about their connectedness to larger groups; it allows them to be simultaneously personal stories and epic stories. New media technologies play a crucial role here too. It is through the social networks, blogs, and viral influence of the Web that individual genetic histories can become connected to each other and woven into larger stories. From the comfort of one’s personal computer, it is possible to play a part in developing a grand history of human genes. These histories are generated through new media as individuals connect, network, recruit others for testing, and form relationships over the Web. New media are often understood and described as disruptive, dislocating technologies. But they are also creating new modes of social memory that serve to root and locate individuals within new, distributed social networks and communities.

This essay has suggested some of the possible ways these new accounts of the past may affect the content of social memory: changing perceptions of time and agency and promoting mythic, global origin stories. What consequences might this new content have? Although globalization and new media sometimes encourage a plurality of voices, DNA histories privilege some voices over others. Whose voices may be silenced (or at least quietened) by these sorts of accounts?

We have seen that DNA histories are highly global and highly dependent on techno-science. Stories, memories, and histories that conform least to this model may be most at risk. Local and traditional accounts may be especially threatened. Kim Tallbear has written about the impact of DNA testing on Native American populations in the United States. DNA testing is increasingly used in conjunction with other genealogical methods to make decisions about who is “in” or “out” of various tribes. However, Tallbear (2013) describes how the emergence of “Native American DNA” was made possible only through the history of colonialism:

“Native American DNA” could not have emerged as an object of scientific research and genealogical desire until individuals and groups emerged as “Native American” in the course of colonial history. Without “settlers,” we could not have “Indians” or “Native Americans” … (p. 5)

The historical separation of “settlers” from “Indians” (based on nineteenth-century notions of race) is what provides the scientific basis for distinguishing “Native American DNA” in the first place. DNA histories, here, tell a very limited part of the story and tell it from a very particular point of view. Indeed, DNA tests take for granted historical-colonial categories and reinscribe them through techno-scientific practice. Relying on DNA tests for determining tribal identity is a highly problematic exercise.

In this example, DNA histories obscure assumptions about races and populations. This obscuring has financial and legal implications for indigenous communities. But such assumptions—about race, religion, gender, knowledge, ideology, and so on—get built into our accounts of the past all the time. Historians, and others, work to point out and overcome such assumptions by developing alternative accounts of the past. The supposed objectivity and techno-scientific power of biotechnology make it especially difficult to unpack and challenge the assumptions lying behind DNA histories. As qualitative forms of history come to be measured against the techno-scientific standards of DNA, the heterogeneity of history is likely to dwindle. DNA leads us toward one, (supposedly) objective account of the past—by reducing the authority of other voices, it promotes a more homogenized version of the past. DNA histories may ultimately make us less willing or able to construct alternative versions of the past, limiting our ability to imagine alternative versions of the future.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received support from a Start-Up Grant from Nanyang Technological University.

Notes

Author biography

Hallam Stevens is an Assistant Professor of history at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research focuses on the intersection between the life sciences and information technology. His book, Life out of sequence (November 2013), is a historical and ethnographic account of bioinformatics and computational biology.

References

1000 Genomes (2012) 1000 Genomes: a deep catalog of human genetic variation. Available at: http://www.1000genomes.org/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

23andMe (2008) 23andMe democratizes personal genetics. Available at: https://www.23andme.com/about/press/20080909b/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

23andMe (2012a) Exome 80x: Pilot program. Available at: https://www.23andme.com/exome/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

23andMe (2012b) Health reports: complete list. Available at: https://www.23andme.com/health/all/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

23andMe (2012c) The spittoon. Available at: http://spittoon.23andme.com/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

23andMe (2012d) Understand the story of your past. Available at: https://www.23andme.com/ancestry/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

Ancestry.com (2012) Introducing AncestryDNA(beta). Available at: http://dna.ancestry.com/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

Ayala

(1995) The myth of eve: molecular biology and human origins. Science 270(5244): 1930–1936.

Barrett

Hall

(2008) Dubious genetic testing. Available at: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Tests/genomics.html (accessed 13 September 2012).

10.

Cann

Stoneking

Wilson

(1987) Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Nature 325(6099): 31–36.

11.

Coates

(ed.) (2001) The Jefferson-Hemings Myth: An American Travesty. Charlottesville, VA: Jefferson editions.

12.

Connerton

(1989) How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

13.

Darcé

(2011) Illumina drops sequencing price to $4,000. U-T San Diego, 9 May. Available at: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/may/09/illumina-drops-human-sequencing-price-4000/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

14.

Dardashti

(2006) Ashkenazi or Sephardi? DNA united Jewish families, but raises questions. JTA, 30 May. Available at: http://www.jta.org/2006/05/30/archive/ashkenazi-or-sephardi-dna-unites-jewish-families-but-raises-questions (accessed 10 April 2015).

15.

Davies

(2010) The $1,000 Genome: The Revolution in DNA Sequencing and the New Era of Personalized Medicine. New York: Simon & Schuster.

16.

Dietrich

(1998) Paradox and persuasions: negotiating the place of molecular evolution within evolutionary biology. Journal of the History of Biology 31(1): 85–111.

17.

Foster

Jobling

Taylor

. (1998) Jefferson fathered slave’s last child. Nature 396(6706): 27–28.

18.

Foster

Jobling

Taylor

. (1999) Scientific correspondence: the Thomas Jefferson paternity case (reply). Nature 397(6714): 32.

19.

Genealogy by Genetics (2012a) Family finder. Available at: http://www.familytreedna.com/landing/family-finder.aspx (accessed 13 September 2012).

20.

Genealogy by Genetics (2012b) Surname & geographical projects. Available at: http://www.familytreedna.com/projects.aspx (accessed 13 September 2012).

21.

Genewatch (2012) The body shop and Sciona. Available at: http://www.genewatch.org/sub-425647 (accessed 13 September 2012).

22.

Goldstein

(2008) Jacob’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

23.

Gore

(2004) Who were the Phoenicians? New clues from ancient bones and modern blood. National Geographic, October, pp. 26–49.

24.

Hammer

Redd

Wood

. (2000) Jewish and middle-eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 97(12): 6769–6774.

25.

Hellelthal

Busby

GBJ

Band

. (2014) A genetic atlas of human admixture history. Science 343(6172): 747–751.

26.

Herper

(2015) Surprise! With $60 million Genentech deal, 23andMe has a business plan. Forbes, 6^th January. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/01/06/surprise-with-60-million-genentech-deal-23andme-has-a-business-plan/ (accessed 10 April 2015).

27.

Huyssen

(1995) Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge.

28.

Illumina (2012) Every genome: test process. Available at: http://www.everygenome.com/test_process/process.ilmn (accessed 13 September 2012).

29.

International HapMap Consortium (2005) A haplotype map of the human genome. Nature 437(7063): 1299–1320.

30.

Le Goff

(1992) History and Memory. New York: Columbia University Press.

31.

McCarthy

(2008) 23andMe launches breast cancer networking project. CNet News, 2 October. Available at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10056770-36.html (accessed 13 September 2012).

32.

National Geographic Society (2012a) The Genographic Project: About. Available at: https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/about/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

33.

National Geographic Society (2012b) The Genographic Project. Available at: https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

34.

Olson

(2002) Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins. Boston, MA: Mariner Books.

35.

Ostrer

(2001) A genetic profile of contemporary Jewish populations. Nature Reviews Genetics 2: 891–898.

36.

Pollack

(2008) California licenses 2 companies to offer gene services. New York Times, 20 August, p. C3.

37.

Rabinow

(1996) Artificiality and enlightenment: from sociobiology to biosociality. In: Essays on the Anthropology of Reason. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 97–111.

38.

Relethford

(2003) Reflections of Our Past: How Human History is Revealed in Our Genes. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

39.

Roberts

Rincon

(2014) Controversial DNA test comes to UK. BBC News 2 December. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30285581 (accessed 10 April 2015).

40.

Robertson

(2003) The $1000 genome: ethical and legal issues in whole genome sequencing of individuals. American Journal of Bioethics 3(3): 35–42.

41.

Rowan

(2011) 23andMe: the social network based on your genes. Available at: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-09/07/david-rowan-dna (accessed 13 September 2012).

42.

Skorecki

Selig

Blazer

. (1997) Y chromosomes of Jewish priests. Nature 385(6611): 32–33.

43.

Stevens

(2013) Life Out of Sequence: A Data-Driven History of Bioinformatics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

44.

Sykes

(2001) The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science that Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

45.

Sykes

Irven

(2000) Surnames and the Y chromosome. The American Journal of Human Genetics 66(4): 1417–1419.

46.

Tallbear

(2013) Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

47.

The Genealogue (2012) Genealogy blog finder. Available at: http://blogfinder.genealogue.com/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

48.

The Genetic Genealogist (2007) How big is the genetic genealogy market? Available at: http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2007/11/06/how-big-is-the-genetic-genealogy-market/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

49.

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation (2000) II. Assessment of DNA study. Available at: http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/ii-assessment-dna-study (accessed 13 September 2012).

50.

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation (2012) Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: a brief account. Available at: http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-brief-account (accessed 13 September 2012).

51.

Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (2012) Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society. Available at: http://www.tjheritage.org/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

52.

United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) (2013) 23andMe, Inc. 11/22/13. Letter to Anne Wojcicki. Document number: GEN1300666. Available at: http://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/2013/ucm376296.htm (accessed 24 February 2014).

53.

Vorhaus

(2010) A Thanksgiving tradition: 23andMe repackages product, raises prices. Genomics Law Report, 23 November. Available at: http://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2010/11/23/a-thanksgiving-tradition-23andme-repackages-product-raises-prices/ (accessed 10 April 2015).

54.

Wade

(2014) Tracing ancestry, researchers produce a genetic atlas of human mixing events. New York Times, 13 February, p. A10.

55.

Wainscoat

(1987) Out of the Garden of Eden. Nature 325(6099): 13.

56.

Wells

(2002) The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

57.

Willing

(2006) DNA rewrites history for African-Americans. USA Today, 1 February, p. 4A.

58.

Wojcicki

(2013) 23andMe provides an update regarding FDA’s review. Weblog Entry, 5 December. Available at: http://blog.23andme.com/news/23andme-provides-an-update-regarding-fdas-review/ (accessed 24 February 2014).

59.

Wright

Gregory-Jones

(2010) Size of the direct-to-consumer genomic testing market. Genetics in Medicine 12(9): 594.

60.

Young

(2012) Personal genetics company seeks regulatory approval. Technology Review, 5 August. Available at: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428682/personal-genetics-company-seeks-regulatory/ (accessed 13 September 2012).

61.

Zuckerkandl

Pauling

(1962) Evolutionary divergence and convergence in proteins. In: Bryson

Vogel

(eds) Evolving Genes and Proteins. New York: Academic Press, pp. 97–166.