Rather than exchanging photos, music and cellphone numbers, as many of the 100 million members of MySpace.com do, participants in Ms. Wong’s online community share Y-DNA markers and mtDNA Haplogroups.

The neuroscientist is president and chief executive officer of Genetrack Biolabs Inc., one of the country’s largest DNA testing labs. Recently the Vancouver company broadened its focus beyond paternity suits and other legal testing to capitalize on the emerging field of genetic genealogy.

With a swab of the mouth and access to Genetrack’s site DNAancestryproject.com, clients can trace their lineage for possible connections to famous figures of the past, such as Marie Antoinette, whose DNA has been preserved in a locket of her hair.

The farther back in time, the wider the family connections. For example, researchers have found that one in five men in the northwest of Ireland carry the DNA of the great Irish king Niall Noigiallach, who ruled in the early 5th century. And they estimate that 2 per cent of New York’s European males today also share the royal chromosome.

Turning back the clock to prehistoric times, the website lets participants track the migratory paths their distant ancestors took out of Africa and even connect with people of related groups today.

Amazing. We spend time researching our family history through our blogs and genealogy discussion groups, but imagine a social networking group whose sole purpose to to connect you with your DNA relatives.

The idea behind Genetrack and DNAancestryproject.com is to help those researching their family history through their DNA find common ground and make connections beyond the gene pool. According to the company president, Ms. Wong: “Everybody in the project is connected to everyone else.” Which makes this social networking project even more amazing and wide spread.

Genetrack’s DNA testing kit has been sold online, but just recently started appearing in a few retail sale in stores in Canada, the US, and other places in the world. According to Genetrack, it is most popular for the 47-54 year old age group, but many young people are starting to get into digging into their past. I’d love to walk into a store and buy a DNA testing kit, wouldn’t you?

What makes this new social networking trend fascinating is the new relationships that could form because of this. The concept of “family” has been changing for a long time in the United States and elsewhere as we move farther apart from our blood relatives and turn friends into “family members”.

DNA social networking groups could reverse that trend, turning strangers into blood relatives, allowing us to meet up with family members long separated by time and distance.

In my own family history research, I’ve been able to make connections with long lost family members through genealogy research and resources online, meeting in person family descendants from the 17th and 18th century. I’ve only recently started exploring my own DNA history and expect to make contact with family members separated even farther back.

Each person I connect with brings with them some history and information about their family’s lives as well as their own that helps me fill in the missing puzzle pieces of my own. Answers from the past often help answer questions in the present.

DNA social networking is destined to become a powerful Web 2.0 type force on the web. Would you participate? How would you use such a social networking service? How would it benefit you?

One recent ancestor discovery in the news is a bit shocking, depending upon your perspective of the world around you. However, it is appropriate and not surprising when you have a better perspective on the world around you.

Discovery News announced “Mummy’s Mom Was European” (print version) based upon DNA and genealogy technology research by scientists recently on a child mummy child born between 30 BC and 130 AD in Egypt’s Roman period, about the same time of Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

The baby mummy had a European mom, and likely came from a wealthy family. But where he lived and why he died — and at such a young age — remain a mystery. The mummy, exhibited for the first time Thursday at the Saint Louis Science Center, has been the year-long focus of an international team of investigators. The museum said it may be the most extensive research project ever undertaken on a child mummy.

…The challenge was boring into the mummy, which had petrified, to get three samples of degraded muscle, tissue and bone. She succeeded by inserting a thick needle into the chest and shoulder. After that, she extracted DNA using routine methods. Tests showed the boy’s mother was European. She plans more tests to determine his father’s ancestry.

Bowcock said it was amazing to get anything at all from 2,000-year-old DNA.

The surprising part is that they found enough DNA to make any determination. The not-so-surprising part is the parentage of the mummy child as European.

Many of today’s Arab royalty have “white” wives. Some are European and there are even a few Americans. Today’s King Abdullah II of Jordan had an English mother. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is married to Suzanne Saleh Sabet whose mother was Welsh. Former President Anwar al-Sadat’s second wife has an English mother. Another Egyptian ruler, Khedive Abbas Himi, who ruled from 1892-1914 married a Hungarian Countess. In ancient times, many of the Ottoman royalty married French, English, and other European women as part of agreements and pacts to maintain peace and economic trade, using women as property and bargaining chips.

According to Egyptian Consorts by Egy.com, Cairo’s Recollections and History:

Except for Queens Farida and Nariman all of the above consorts were of mixed or foreign ancestry.

In principal the intermarried members of the Mohammed Ali clan were of Turco-Balkan stock. Countess May on the other hand is up-and-down Hungarian. And while Queen Nazli is of French-Greek extraction through her maternal grandparents, both Ikbal Hanem and Sultana Melek were imports from the northern Ottoman provinces. Princess Neslishah meanwhile is the result of a six-century bloodline of imperial Sultans and Khans.

Of Egypt’s four post-monarchy First Ladies, Tahia Abdel Nasser is the daughter of a humble clerk of Iranian origin…On the other hand First Ladies Jehan Raouf and Suzanne Sabet came from educated middle class backgrounds. Both sets of parents were almost carbon copies of each other. Both their paternal grandfathers came from Upper Egypt and both Jehan and Suzanne’s respective fathers pursued medical studies in the United Kingdom while in their twenties opting for British brides.

With all the intermarriage of European women into Arab royalty, why is there so little history of European rulers marrying Arab women? They must have, but I can’t find much. Have you?

Still, why is it surprising that this child mummy had a European mother? Many of today’s Arab royalty come from such mixed blood families, it isn’t surprising that the trend started hundred’s of years ago.

The advancement in DNA to research our family’s ancestors brings with it a lot of surprises and a lot of “well, of course” with it. Aren’t you fascinated by all of it?

One of the focus areas for some prototyping we plan to do in the near future is an effort to allow users to explore timelines of their ancestors that combine a richness of data into an easy to understand format. This is really hard to do. To give you an idea, here is the type of content we’d like to pull together automatically for any random ancestor a user would like to learn about.

Timelines are critical to help you understand your ancestor’s lives in relationship to chronological events.

Personally, I’d love to see timelines built directly from GEDCOM files for easy insertion into web pages or blogs. This way, I could see how a single member of my family’s life intersects with other members of the family during their life time. For instance, how old was Sally West when her brother was born? Or how old was she when her mother or father died? When did her family move? All those things play an important role in the life of a person and how they reacted, responded, and survived the events.

I’d also love to see a way to integrate current events at the time in the area or country in which they were living. Wars, plagues, massive immigration, all play important roles in people’s lives whether or not they were directly affected. And maybe they were. Maybe they didn’t go off to war but they lost friends and neighbors to the war.

Timelines are very important and currently there isn’t an easy way of including them on web pages. They can be created manually, but there is little software to assist you. I see this as an invaluable tool for genealogy and family history sites on the web.

Don’t you?

What would you use a timeline for on your family history blog?

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today announced that the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded the Library of Congress a $2 million grant for a program to digitize thousands of public-domain works, with a major focus on at-risk “brittle books” and U.S. history volumes.

The project, “Digitizing American Imprints at the Library of Congress,” will include not only the scanning of volumes, but also the development of suitable page-turner display technology, capability to scan and display foldouts, and a pilot program to capture high-level metadata, such as table of contents, chapters/sections and index. Past digitization projects have shied away from brittle books because of the condition of the materials, but “Digitizing American Imprints” intends to serve as a demonstration project of best practices for the handling and scanning of such vulnerable works.

Books and collections to be digitized include:

• “Brittle books” from across the Library’s General Collection.
• American history
• U.S. genealogy and regimental histories from the Civil War period
• Six collections of Rare Books including the Benjamin Franklin Collection, selections from the Katherine Golden Bitting and the Elizabeth Robins Pennell Collections of Gastronomy, a selection of first editions from the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division, selections from the Confederate States of America Collection, the Henry Harrisse Collection of Columbiana, and selections from the Jean Hersholt Collection of Hans Christian Andersen.
• Books covering the technical aspects of photography and the artistic publications and biographies of photographers

Check the article for more information and links to the event.

Don’t plan on avoiding copying fees in some Brown County offices by using your digital camera.

The Brown County Board will consider an ordinance banning the use of digital cameras or any recording devices in sensitive or private areas of county buildings.

The ordinance would allow department heads to decide on the extent of the ban in their offices. It’s part of a growing trend toward regulating digital cameras on cellular phones in sensitive places.

During my visit last year to Wisconsin researching our family history there, some of the staff warned me that this was coming. The threat appears to be towards camera cell phones violating privacy and copying birth records and other vital records to be used illegally.

Sad days for family history researchers.

A skull found in a cave in Romania includes features of both modern humans and Neanderthals, possibly suggesting that the two may have interbred thousands of years ago.

…The skull bearing both older and modern characteristics…was found in Pestera cu Oase - the Cave with Bones - in southwestern Romania, along with other human remains. Radiocarbon dating indicates it is at least 35,000 years old and may be more than 40,000 years old.

We may be getting even closer to learning the truth behind our oldest ancestors.

Footnote is an impressive resource which launched last week that allows users to access and annotate millions of historical documents online for the first time. Interested in the Civil War or perhaps the Bureau of Investigation? Just look it up on Footnote and within seconds view digitized copies of the original documents including photographs, signed documents, letters, case studies and more. Footnote has also established a partnership with the National Archives providing access to millions of historical documents for viewing online. Around 4.5 million documents have already been added to the site and apparently millions more to come. I’ll admit, I wasn’t one to raise my hand during history class, but it’s pretty neat being able to view transcripts that George Washington wrote back in 1775 for the Continental Congress and the signature of John Hancock. I’d imagine Footnote to be a prime attraction for genealogists, historians, public libraries, school systems and history buffs in general.

On top of viewing original documents online, Footnote encourages users to share their knowledge by uploading images, annotating documents and maintaining member pages. Users can also download any image on the site and add it to their account gallery.

Adobe Flash Player is required for viewing the images. The annual membership for looking around at the documents is free. Some images on the site can be viewed and downloaded for free, but member subscriptions are required for other areas and access ranging from USD $1.99 per image download to $99.99 a year.

The letters tell of his determination to get there, and of his faith that he would make it, then finding he’d lost the race and then facing the reality of his impending death as he and the remainder of his crew struggled to get back.

Knowing he was days from death on a tragic trek back from the South Pole in 1912, Capt. Robert Falcon Scott wrote to his wife that “we are in a very tight corner and I have doubts of pulling through.”

However, he assured Kathleen Scott, he faced his end without regret. “How much better it has been than lounging in comfort at home,” Scott wrote in the letter, recovered the year after he and his companions died of cold and starvation.

Scott’s courage in facing his doom — following the bitter disappointment of losing the race to the South Pole — burnished his stature as a national hero, and was an inspiration to generations of British youth.

…Scott’s private correspondence was recently donated to the institute by Philippa Scott, widow of the explorer’s only child, Sir Peter Scott, who died in 1989….

The letter was found along with the explorer’s body and his effects several months after his death, 11 miles from his supply camp. Kathleen Scott was on her way to New Zealand to await his return when she received confirmation of his death.

Captain Scott was a hero during the end of the 1800s and start of the next century as the last bits of the planet were being explored. Not just explored but those findings being written about in the news and budding media, not just letters home.

His first book, “The Voyage of Discovery”, was about his first journey into the great unknown ice world of Antarctica from 1902-04. The best selling novel, combined with the news reports, inspired imaginations and generations of explorer-wannabes, mountain climbers, and travelers.

I remember some older family members recalling how exciting it was to hear their parent’s debate about the race between Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Captain Scott to be first to the South Pole, and arguing over who would win. Amundsen arrived nearly a month before Scott, both both had a rough trip getting there. Only Amundsen returned alive. Still, the challenge and adventure was so exciting, even for the bystander.

Scott’s journal published in 1913, “Scott’s Last Expedition” doesn’t share these whole letters, but does describe the Antarctic as “This is an awful place, and terrible enough for us to have labored to it without the reward of priority.”

Having lost his team, his last letter shares his final moments:

“Dearest … cherish no sentimental rubbish about remarriage — when the right man comes to help you in life you ought to be your happy self again. I hope I shall be a good memory; certainly the end is nothing for you to be ashamed of and I like to think that the boy will have a good start in parentage of which he may be proud.

“Dear it is not easy to write because of the cold — 70 degrees below zero and nothing but the shelter of our tent — you know I have loved you, you know my thoughts must have constantly dwelt on you and oh dear me you must know that quite the worst aspect of this situation is the thought that I shall not see you again.”

“The inevitable must be faced.”

You can read more and see the images of Scott’s team and the letters from Yahoo News about Scott’s final letters.

According to Rubin, the sequences provide the beginnings of a “DNA time machine” that will help update anthropological inferences about human and Neanderthal populations. Among the lingering questions is whether the two populations intermixed after humans migrated out of Africa and encountered Neanderthals in Europe 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. (Just this month two studies, from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Chicago, suggested that indirect evidence from human DNA indicates intermingling occurred.) Both Rubin and Pääbo report finding no evidence of mixing. “We don’t exclude it,” Rubin says. “Clearly, as we go further into the future and read more, we may see evidence of that.”

Erik Trinkaus, a physical anthropologist and lead author of the Washington University study, believes Rubin’s and Pääbo’s results do not preclude his hypothesis. He says that there are two different questions regarding population mixing: Did it occur 40,000 years ago? And, do 21st-century Europeans carry distinctively Neanderthal genes? “They are attempting to answer the second question and make a statistical inference back to the first question,” Trinkaus explains.

Fascinating! We get so caught up with the idea of DNA testing being important to family history, but the doors it can really open lead much further back in our past.