A few months ago, I read about a research project being conducted by National Geographic. You submit your DNA sample, they do an analysis of the Y chromosome, and then they will tell you the route your oldest ancestors took to leave Africa. It sounded interesting to me, although I didn't really understand everything about the project, but I purchased a kit and submitted my sample.

What I didn't know until I looked into this project, is that there is a significant piece of DNA, through the Y chromosome, that is passed almost unaltered from father to son. So scientists have the ability to go back many, many generations along the male line - father, to father, to father, and so on forever. Every once and a while, a slight mutation enters the line, but that's evolution in action.

Incidentally, there are female genes passed from mother to daughter called mtDNA.

For the record, I am a member of Haplogroup I. I might be a member of subgroup I1a, but I'm not totally sure. I'm still doing research on that.

So what does that tell me? Not much. I share a common ancestor with almost every person alive today - “Eurasian Adam” - the common ancestor of every non-African man alive today (the M168 DNA marker). He wasn't the first man alive, so he's not the biblical Adam. But he's the only one with ancestors that left Africa and survived.

After leaving Africa 45,000 years ago (the M89 marker), most likely my ancestors settled in southeastern and central Europe about 20,000 years ago (the M170 marker).

I've signed up to get my genes analyzed further. Hopefully, it will allow me to find relatives in Canada that I didn't know I had. But I'll talk about using DNA to research my family tree another time.