Just spent the day at a genealogy conference learning all the latest technologies and strategies for tracing your roots. I was fascinated by the DNA genealogy presentation. By swabbing your mouth and having your DNA analyzed and then compared with a database of other’s DNA and their accompanying genealogy pedigrees on-line, it’s possible to get past brick walls or dead ends in your genealogy searching by finding possible ancestors. This has been especially helpful for African Americans who because of slavery are unable to trace their ancestors back to their African homelands. As the database is growing, more people are able to match with descendents that share matching DNA patterns to find a common ancestor. For women it is monochronial DNA and only their maternal lines can be traced, but for men it is possible with Y chromosomes DNA to trace both the maternal and paternal ancestry. Amazing that not only do we share blood lines with our ancestors but also our DNA. For more info see http://www.smgf.org