Researchers Develop DNA GPS: Pinpoint a Person’s Geographical Origin Going Back 1,000 Years

DNA testing and use just keeps getting better for genealogists. I found the following article at Gizmag.com:

Researchers develop DNA GPS tool to accurately trace geographical ancestry

By Chris Wood

An international team of scientists has developed a process that allows them to pinpoint a person’s geographical origin going back 1,000 years. Known as the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) tool, the method is accurate enough to locate the village from which the subject’s ancestors came, and has significant implications for personalized medical treatment.

The new tool was created by Dr. Eran Elhaik from the University of Sheffield and Dr. Tatiana Tararinova from the University of Southern California. Whereas previous methods have only been able to trace the origin of a person’s DNA to within some 700 km (435 miles), the new method can track worldwide populations back to the islands or villages they descend from, with a 98 percent success rate.

GPS focuses on genetic admixture, a historically common occurrence in which previously separate populations begin to interbreed, creating new gene pools in the process. The new tool models this process by looking at more than 100,000 DNA signatures, known as ancestry-informative markers (AIMs) that are typical to specific geographical regions. The GPS tool uses autosomal chromosomes for analysis rather than mitochondrial or Y chromosomal DNA, as they provide a more balanced picture of an individual’s genetic makeup.

“We were surprised by the simplicity and precision of this method,” said Dr. Elhaik. “People in a given geographical area are more likely to have similar genetics. When they also have genetic traits typically found in other, distant regions, the geographical origin of those traits is generally the closest location where those traits can be found.”

Excerpt only, click here to read the full article!