Source: Marcell Pickins/ Blackwood Photography
African Ancestry co-founder Dr. Gina Paige helps Black people connect to their personal history one swab at a time. She credits her family for her interest in connecting others to their lineages. “I have an aunt Ocala, who is my father’s sister, and she – for as long as I can remember -she’s been the keeper of the family history,” she told HelloBeautiful .
She is working to undo the ways that Black people have been divorced from their personal histories through genetic ancestry tracing. According to the Journal of American Medical Association , “Genetic ancestry testing involves the comparison of a large number of DNA variants measured in an individual with the frequencies of these variants in reference populations sampled from across the world. The geographic region in which an individual variant has its highest frequency is assumed to be the most likely location of an ancestor who transmitted the variant to the person being tested.”
Motherland To The Front
African Ancestry focuses on the region of Africa. They dedicate extensive resources to building a dataset to help people with African roots discover more about themselves. Chattel slavery, systemic racism, and forced migrations have historically led Black people to more questions than answers. Being spread across the diaspora makes gaining access to accurate and comprehensive records even more difficult.
Source: African Ancestry
The African Ancestry founder takes pride in building and developing a service to help people connect with the continent. “When you’re a Black person in the U.S. the amount of the amount of genealogy information that’s available for your family is much more limited,” Dr. Paige tells HelloBeautiful .
Blocked From The Bloodline
She pointed out barriers Black people face that often prevent them from finding out the full extent of their backgrounds, including institutional exclusion. “When you talk about something like census records, Black people weren’t recorded as human beings on a federal census until 1870,” she continued.
Racism complicates history further. Limitations of information available to many Black people curious about their lineage coincide with their erasure from history. The minimization and dismissal of African governments make things more complicated for those curious about their ancestors. Paper rarely tells the full story.
“It doesn’t matter how much you know about your family here; you’re not going to get an African answer based on documents,” said Dr. Paige.
Healing Through History
“Stronger ethnic identity has been associated with fewer depressive and anxiety symptoms among Black and Latino/ a American adults,” according to the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal .
Dr. Paige noted the importance of ethnic belonging. “If you don’t know where you’re from, psychologically, it’s hard to know who you are,” she said. “It’s a basic human psychological need to know where you’re from.”
“I believe that,” she added. “Across the Black community. We have varying levels of understanding of our history as a people, and that impacts us on a daily basis . And so I think curiosity comes out of what you’re not taught , what you are taught , how you’re treated in society, how others view you, all of that contributes to a desire to want to know exactly where in Africa you come from.”
Source: African Ancestry
The test helps add specificity to the stories of adults and children. “We hear countless stories from parents about how this empowered their child in a multicultural classroom,” said Dr. Paige.
Paige teamed up with Dr. Richard to co-found African-Ancestry.com . “He had been doing the work of genetic ancestry tracing, which is the research of a person’s family history using biology,” she explained. “He wanted to know where his family was from in Africa.”
“Inevitably, Black families hit a wall, not every single one, but generally speaking, they hit a wall at 1870,” said Dr. Paige. “We often want to know where we come from in Africa. And the records won’t tell us that information.”
Blending Body And Soul
Genetic ancestry tracing can be helpful in making wellness decisions because it adds context. “It’s important to know what people in your family suffered from so that you can be proactive and preventative,” said Dr. Paige. “We also know that there are diseases that disproportionately impact people of African descent. Personalized medicine is extremely important. Understanding your family health history is important; understanding your personal genetics is important so you can prevent or manage the disease better.”
Celebrating Self-Discovery
The company also facilitates unique travel experiences designed to help people discover their homelands. Dr. Paige said, “We hold African Ancestry family reunions as hosts; these are birthright journeys.”
“We’ve had six family reunions in Sierra Leone,” she continued. “We’ve had two in Cameroon. We are adding Nigeria in January, and we are adding Senegal,” she added.
Many people considering genetic ancestry tracing have privacy concerns. Dr. Paige asserts that the company’s values include a commitment to protecting their clients’ information. “One of the things that makes us stand apart from other companies in the industry, is that we don’t sell or share our customers DNA. We never have,” she said. “That’s where companies build their wealth is through monetizing their customers’ DNA, and we don’t do that, that’s very important.”
Learn more about AfricanAncestry.com here.
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