For Release: 08-07-2006

Relative Genetics’ Easy, Inexpensive DNA Tests Generate Ancestry Answers for Family History Hobbyists

Once Stymied by Missing Family History Resources, an Army Physician Who Retired to Arizona and a California Writer Learn Definitively Who their Extended Family is by Having their Own DNA Tested. Like a Global Positioning System for Family History Buffs, the New Science of Genetic Genealogy is Transforming One of America’s Most Popular Hobbies.

SALT LAKE CITY (August 7, 2006) – The revolution in forensic police work and diagnostic medicine brought about by DNA testing is now well known by the general public. But fewer people know that inexpensive cheek-swab genetic tests are also transforming one of America’s most popular hobbies—family history research—through the new science of genetic genealogy, which links individuals to family trees using genetic profiles. Today, family history buffs are coming to Relative Genetics, in Salt Lake City, a genealogical company that specializes in DNA testing, looking for answers to their important ancestry questions.

More than 70 percent of U.S. adults say they are interested in learning about their family history, according to a 2005 survey by Market Strategies Inc. and MyFamily.com. But traditional genealogical techniques depend on pieces of paper, such as census, tax, court and church records. So time, negligence and historical events—such as war and catastrophic fires—easily destroy them. When paper records do survive, they often are incomplete, inaccurate or contradictory. Oral history can be helpful, but it is subjective and sometimes misleading.

Until DNA testing became inexpensive and readily available, tracing family history was often a hit-or-miss affair with many hobbyists frustrated by tantalizing, but inconclusive, family narratives or paper trail dead-ends.

Dr. Duane F. Gerstenberger, of Sun City West, Ariz., hit such a dead-end during his six-year family history research project. His personal ancestry roadblock went up when Russian soldiers in Poland in 1945 torched church papers containing family information about his grandfather. The retired physician published a 420-page book on the genealogy of the Gerstenbergers in 1993, but still could not prove conclusively he was part of the family.

San Francisco, Calif., writer Martin Marshall encountered a different barrier: he never knew his biological father’s name. After Marshall’s mother died, and with a grandchild of his own on the way, he, like Gerstenberger, sought the help of Relative Genetics, which was founded in 2001 to help others establish family relationships through comprehensive DNA testing, genetic interpretation and genealogical analysis. Marshall and Gerstenberger both took a simple, cheek-swab genetic test and discovered links to their ancestors that were more convincing than any paper trail or family story could ever be.

For Marshall, DNA test results and a subsequent search on the free Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation web site—which is the world’s most comprehensive correlated genetic-genealogy database—revealed his father was a member of the Sizemore family. An ensuing paper record search revealed that, indeed, a man named Sizemore lived eight blocks from his mother’s home in Maplewood, Mo., during 1948, the year that Marshall was conceived.

For Gerstenberger, Relative Genetics allowed him to confidently place himself in the extended Gerstenberger family and he will participate in a worldwide Gerstenberger family reunion in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 22-27, 2006, which includes a side trip to the 750-year-old village of Gerstenberg. He marvels that a simple DNA test solved his long-standing ancestry question. “When I was studying to be a physician in the 1950s,” said Gerstenberger, “researchers had just learned that Down syndrome was caused by an extra chromosome. I never dreamed then that genetics would be able to help me with my ancestry research today.”

DNA testing for genealogical purposes “is like a new type of GPS—a Genealogical Positioning System,” said Doug Fogg, chief operating officer of Relative Genetics. “Each individual carries a biological record that cannot be destroyed, which is the genetic information passed down from parents, grandparents and earlier ancestors.” High-tech genetic testing permits that DNA record to be analyzed to help reconstruct family trees and to direct family history research. “We tell people that the work they do to define their family tree becomes more valuable over time because as people get older, they usually value ancestry information more. An ancestry chart is a wonderful gift to your children and grandchildren and those yet to come. We say, ‘Your past is your present to the future’.”

About Relative Genetics
Since 2001, Relative Genetics (www.relativegenetics.com) has provided genetic testing solutions that help genealogists build the branches of their family trees. The company’s comprehensive testing services allow individuals, genealogists and family organizations around the world to establish relationships and identity through DNA testing, genetic interpretation and genealogical analysis. Relative Genetics is distinguished by its industry-leading turnaround time and its skilled staff of molecular scientists and genetic genealogists. In collaboration with its affiliated laboratory, Sorenson Genomics, Relative Genetics offers the most complete specialized genetic testing capabilities available under one roof for paternal and maternal line identification and extended family analysis.