And while you’re are there, check out our other videos -  how-tos, news stories, and more!

How can we help you connect with your past?

Doing genealogy is relatively  new to me and because most of my ancestors are from Ireland, it is, at times, challenging.  But one thing sticks in my heart (another Valentine reference?) is how, back to whenever, we are all here because of 2 people

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Now, while looking for our histories, there are times when a wonderful discovery is made..a photo or a story, a document or  even a tall-tale.

And to have a place to save them is wonderful (read: GeneTree’s Family Tree, where you can upload photos, documents and write your own story..)

However, there are also times we do not find the obvious links..no photos, missing documents, no stories to share with the up and coming generations.

Those two people that fell in love left us a far more telling document of their lives and times and those of their parents, and their grandparents, and back through the pages of time.

That is, of course, their DNA.  And because it is within all of us, it’s a gift we can now easily discover and leave for future generations.

Share Your DNA

While scrapbooking, blogging, Facebooking and Tweeting  are the daily journals of our lives, DNA give us much, much more.

We can trace the very foundation of our family; where we started, how we migrated and who we are related to in real time.

And, from now until the end of February, GeneTree is offering  two very very special Valentine’s promotions – and what a significant Valentine’s Day present this would be!

Offer 1:

$30.oo off of the the regular price of a Y46 DNA kit (male) or the mtDNA kit (male or female) or the Combo kit (males only – both YDNA and mtDNA tests)

Offer 2:

When you purchase our  Full Service Consultation package, you’ll receive a 5-hour consultation consisting of in-depth research and a full written report with a DNA expert, using YOUR results,  for the prices of 4 hours !  A savings of $49.95

Offer 3: Choose BOTH!  With a combined savings of $79.95

You will need to call in and ask for the Blog Special.  Our Customer Service team will process this over the phone.  Just call toll-free 866-740-6362

This is a wonderful month to give those you love the keys to unlock their own stories..

And to one day hear, “this is what I learned about US..all because two people fell in love”

SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–GeneTree today announced its free family Web site has completed beta testing and now offers those who sign in a simple, intuitive way to regularly communicate with their extended family and to securely share and store family contact information, personal profiles, photos, video and ancestry documents. Advanced features now available through GeneTree’s redesigned graphic interface include GEDCOM file-format import for family tree collaboration, paternal line genetic genealogy and an all-new family tree building tool.

“We are very pleased to provide families with this fun and easy way to regularly connect and stay close to each other regardless of how scattered they may be geographically,” said GeneTree President and COO Matt Cupal. “GeneTree has the most complete set of features available for sharing family stories, but we go further by fully integrating genetic genealogy options for those who would like to use family DNA to search for living relatives and ancestors.”

A new Y-DNA genetic test enables individuals to research paternal line connections of a male relative, and complements GeneTree’s existing maternal line mtDNA test. Y-DNA results show ancestry and connections to DNA cousins within the past few hundred years.

The opportunity to find and connect with “lost” or unknown extended family members through the world’s most extensive correlated genetic genealogy database is a compelling GeneTree feature. “My 82-year-old mother was almost in tears when I told her we had found a branch of our family through GeneTree that we had lost touch with long ago,” said Rosemary Totton, of Auckland, New Zealand. “Now we are back in contact and I’m excited to learn one of my cousins has old family photos to share with us. In the future we may look at our family’s Y-DNA, as well. This has opened a new door for me.”

Another powerful new GeneTree feature promotes collaboration on ancestry information by allowing the upload of GEDCOM files. GEDCOM is the most common genealogy file format used by all major family history Web sites and software applications. The all-new family tree builder allows an individual to choose a preferred layout, create trees of more than 2,000 relatives and to invite others to join the network and view the chart.

Powerful photo- and video-sharing tools organize a family’s digital media into albums and allow them to be seen by others. Family members can collaborate on identifying people in photos, and photo tagging allows a person easy tracking of all photos in which they appear. Tagging photos automatically sends out invitations to people named.

A new GeneTree family news feature keeps relatives continuously in the loop. Family members update their own news daily and at the end of the week, a digest is automatically emailed to others on their list. A birthday reminder automatically sends out a birthday greeting on the morning of a relative’s birthday. In addition, a feature unique to GeneTree allows users to record a biological relative’s DNA profile as their own for purposes of searching for DNA cousins and to extend their own genealogy chart. Families can divide the cost of testing one member and then share results.

“We believe every family should take advantage of our free Web site,” said Cupal. “This is the best way for relatives to stay connected, share memories, build family trees and securely share and store documents. With GeneTree, it is easier than ever to build a lasting legacy for your own family.”

About GeneTree

GeneTree (www.genetree.com) is a free family Web site enabling relatives to easily communicate on an everyday basis; to securely share contact information, personal profiles, photos, video and other family documents; and to build family trees. GeneTree also provides individuals with the option to integrate industry-leading DNA testing into family history research for a scientific window into their ancestry and to find living relatives for whom no paper records exist. GeneTree users are linked to the world’s most extensive correlated genetic genealogy database.

Your Own Personalized Home Page
After logging in to your account, you will be sent to your new personalized homepage. The home page consists of a newsfeed that will track what you and the people in your network have been doing at GeneTree. It will post on your newsfeed when someone has added photos or videos, posted a message, or made a change to their profile.

On the right of your homepage you will see a column with quick action links. This allows you to go anywhere you need on the site easily from your homepage. In this column you can also invite your family and search for your friends on GeneTree. Sign in today to see your personalized homepage.

Updated Media Tools
You are going to LOVE the updated Media section! We have updated the format so that it is more user and viewer friendly. Sharing your photos and videos has never been easier! You can also add descriptions and tags to share the details of your precious moments with your family and friends. Don’t forget, you can also visit your family and friends’ media rooms to comment on their photos and videos. Log in and start uploading your photos and videos.

Fabulous Forum
Do you have questions about different aspects of family networking, DNA testing, or just genealogy in general? Or do you have wisdom to share with others on one of these topics? We need your questions, comments, and knowledge to be shared on the new and improved forum. Visit the forum today to start sharing your comments.

Don’t Forget! Birthday Reminders
The GeneTree system will automatically send you an email reminding you of the birthdays of all your family members that you have added into the Family Tree Builder. This makes it easy to remember even extended relatives birthdays. So make it easier on yourself, upload your entire family to your GeneTree family tree, then leave the remembering to us. We will give you a heads up when the time comes. Click here to start adding family and their birthdays.

Visit www.genetree.com today to see the changes and use the new capabilities.

Participants in the Foundation’s DNA Database, the World’s Most Diverse Collection of Correlated Genetic and Genealogical Information, Can Receive the Mitochondrial DNA Profiles from Their Submitted DNA Samples for an Introductory Price of $19.50 Through GeneTree

SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–GeneTree, a DNA-enabled family history-sharing Web site designed to help people understand where their personal histories belong within the greater human genetic story, and the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF), a non-profit scientific organization currently expanding the world’s most diverse collection of genetic genealogy information, today announced a special offer that enables participants who have contributed DNA samples and genealogical pedigree charts to the SMGF Database project to receive deeply discounted DNA profiles in order to take advantage of the resources available on the GeneTree family history social networking site.

“SMGF has not been able to provide individual DNA results back to study participants,” said Dr. Scott Woodward, executive director of SMGF. “The collaboration with GeneTree allows us to return results in a compelling, confidential way and we’re pleased to be able to offer this exceptional opportunity to those individuals who have participated in helping build the SMGF database. Many SMGF participants have expressed the desire to make greater family connections and collaborate on family history research using DNA tools; SMGF’s arrangement with GeneTree enables this.”

In order to be eligible for this special GeneTree/SMGF offer, participants must have ordered an SMGF participation kit prior to October 23, 2007 and returned the properly completed DNA kit, postmarked no later than December 31, 2007, to SMGF.

SMGF participants who meet these criteria will be able to access their mitochondrial DNA profiles (genetic information passed from mothers to all of their children) along with their SMGF-submitted pedigree information through the GeneTree Web site, generally within two weeks of their request. These profiles can be used to search for and connect with potential genetic relatives on the GeneTree site.

In 2000, SMGF began collecting DNA samples to build the Sorenson Database, the world’s most comprehensive and diverse collection of genetic information correlated with genealogical records. Currently, the database contains nearly 100,000 DNA samples and over six million corresponding genealogical records from participants in more than 170 nations throughout the world, and the Foundation continues to accelerate the growth of the database.

The GeneTree site, launched October 23, 2007, has licensed the SMGF database to further the family history research and social networking purposes of its members. A basic GeneTree membership is free. In addition, GeneTree offers cost-effective mitochondrial DNA tests. A $99 GeneTree test provides genetic sequence information collected from one of three major mitochondrial regions; a $149 test provides information from all three regions.

“GeneTree’s DNA testing services are extremely cost-effective, but we wanted to reward the people who chose to participate in the SMGF project before the advent of GeneTree, to help them take advantage of all the opportunities for social networking and collaborative family tree building available on that site,” said Matt Cupal, president and COO of GeneTree. “Providing participants with their genetic profiles for only $19.50 is the best way we could think of to say, ‘Thank you for participating in this project to connect the world’s individuals and families.’”

Additional information and instructions for obtaining SMGF DNA profiles for participation in GeneTree is available at www.genetree.com/dna/unlock_smgf

Here are links to the stories if you’d like to go see them.

Click here for “Know Your Roots Part 1″

Click here for “Know Your Roots Part 2″

Not signed up for GeneTree yet? Sign up now!

Watch

By MARTIN BASHIR
Dec. 4, 2007 —

“Where are you from?”

It’s one of the first questions we ask one another. But even though national identity has been used to divide people for generations, nationalities may be more closely connected than we ever imagined. Genetic science is beginning to create a new understanding of human ancestry.

Scott Woodward, chief scientific officer of Sorenson Genomics in Salt Lake City, is now giving people the chance to trace their lineage by using their DNA.

Formerly specializing in paternity testing, Sorenson spent $40 million building the largest DNA database in the country. Over the last seven years, it’s collected 100,000 samples of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, considered the purest form of genetic inheritance because it barely changes through the generations.

New samples are continually being added to the database, which was conceived by 86-year-old entrepreneur James LeVoy Sorenson. He doesn’t give interviews, but “Nightline” spoke with his son James Lee who is in charge of the company.

“Dad is a man of faith. He believes in God. He believes that we’re all brothers, that we all share connections,” James Lee said. “He believes that there is a genetic Adam and Eve that we all descended from.”

DNA Facebook?

Sorenson researchers have collected DNA from 172 countries  more than 90 percent of the world. From Austria to Australia and almost everywhere in between, the company’s global research is recorded on video.

“Just recently we sent a team to Mongolia. Mongolia is a very important part of the world. If you look during the period of Ghengis Kahn and all the parts of the world that came under his subjection, we collected 3,000 samples with genealogies there. We are in the process of getting 600 samples from Iraq right now: 200 Shiite, 200 Sunni and 200 Kurd,” James Lee said.

I asked what prompted Sorenson to spend millions of dollars putting together a DNA database.

“I think the hypothesis was that if he could get any two people in a room, and through this database show them how they were related and where they came from and how they belonged & that this would change the way they would feel about each other. That instead of animosity perhaps they would feel a connection and that would lead to a more peaceful environment,” James Lee said.

The company has now launched GeneTree.com, a Web site where individuals can order a DNA kit for $150. With a unique software program, analogous to a DNA Facebook, users can discover their ancestry.

Jason Kassing, adopted at birth, was one of the first to do so. As a grandfather, and the father of four children, he established a small family tree of his own. But the past remained a mystery.

“I knew my birth date and the place I was born. Nothing else. I was renamed as a baby and brought from California, by the adoption service, to Utah. That’s all I know,” Kassing said. “I don’t know what nationality. I don’t know what part of the country. I don’t know any history about my grandparents or my great-grandparents. No medical history.”

By matching his specific DNA to others within his haplogroup, those who share many of his genetic markers, Kassing quickly made connections.

“You can watch the growth of my lineage and how they moved across the world and came to the United States, and really, how I came to be here,” Kassing explained.

Eventually he found out that he originated in Europe, in the Turkish region.

“We’ve always speculated. & I have dark skin so maybe I’m Italian. Maybe Hispanic. Now I know who I am and why,” he said.

‘I Was In for a Huge Surprise’

This got me thinking about my own ancestry. I knew that both my parents were born in India and immigrated to Great Britain in 1951  but I’ve never met any of my grandparents or other relatives.

I decided to go through the process. I swished around some mouthwash, used swabs to take a saliva sample and then sent my DNA to Sorenson Genomics where research scientist Natalie Myres analyzed my samples and walked me back through my family history.

We looked at a picture of my parents on the computer screen.

“Currently this is as far as your family tree goes because this is all the information that you’re aware of,” Myres said. “So in order to augment your understanding of your history we analyzed your DNA.”

She explained that I was a member of haplogroup “m” and a member of subhaplogroup “m3.” The designations “m” and “m3″ can be thought of as ancestors of mine along the maternal line.

“Now ancestor ‘m’ lived about 63,000 years ago,” Myres said. “Somewhere between east Africa and the Persian Gulf.”

Myres showed me a map that showed my “m” ancestor had descendants spread throughout Eurasia.

I also descended from a subhaplogroup named “m3a”  that ancestor lived about 17,000 years ago probably somewhere in west northern India.

“The other population  are the Brahmans of Utar Pradesh,” she said. “Now the Brahmans as I’m sure you know are a priestly caste in the Hindu system, and also the highest cast in the Hindu social system as well.”

I told her I liked what I was hearing.

“The other group that I haven’t mentioned yet are the Rajputs of Rajistan, and they are also a major caste in India, which claim ancestry from ancient royal warrior dynasties,” Myres said.

Now we are getting somewhere!

Although I share ancestry with all of these groups, we don’t yet know whether I descended directly from one of them.

Although this royal surprise was uplifting, DNA can also cause some unwelcome shocks. Civil rights leader Al Sharpton recently learned that he descended from a white slave owner. But Sorenson Genomics is convinced that such information will only prove positive for society, making it difficult for people to support hateful ideas with notions of genetic purity, a phenomenon that doesn’t truly exist.

“To realize that perhaps this hatred and this bias that has been grown up through environmental influences, there could be a realization that could change that,” David said. “It will allow people to see that they’re related. That there isn’t a so-called pure race. That we all have common roots.”

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