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Our Genetic Fame

Most of us can name our grandparents, many our great grandparents, and some our great, great grandparents. Beyond that, we enter a dark and mysterious realm known as ‘history,’ through which we can only navigate with hesitant steps, feeling our way with whispered guidance. Who were the people that came before us? What were their lives like? And why do we care about them?

With today’s technology we can try to find these answers in our genetic code, which makes us uniquely human, but also unique individuals. It is not the code itself that delivers the message, but rather the differences we see when we compare DNA from two or more individuals. These differences are the historical language of the genes.

Genetic genealogy in its commercial form is barely five years old, and most people are trying to trace down their genetic links to their direct ancestors. Yet there is an increasing number of people who are hunting for famous ancestors. In England, a favourite is William the Conqueror, or, barring that, one of his barons. In the United States, it's Robert E. Lee, in Israel it’s King David.

For a few hundred dollars, genetic ancestry tests can penetrate the fog of history in a way that traditional genealogical tools often cannot. And perhaps more important, the DNA link imbues genealogy with an authority it has never had. Learning you are the scion of kings from mildewed marriage records is one thing. Carrying around a dollop of royal DNA in every cell is something else. Suddenly, the fantasy that ancestral fame can rub off on descendants seems almost like scientific fact.

Whether the preoccupation with the power of genes to confer distinction is entirely healthy is unclear; whether it is rational, even less so. Genghis Khan, for one, who reportedly adopted orphans from conquered tribes into his own clan, might not have approved. 

The small fraction of an individual's DNA that can be used to trace a maternal or paternal lineage, scientists say, has little tangible impact on an individual descendant's physical characteristics or susceptibility to disease. But for many amateur genealogists, the psychological effect of knowing that they carry a physical artefact, no matter how tiny, of a noteworthy historical figure, can be significant.

OUR GENETIC FAME will follow people who are searching for their supposedly famous ancestors who lived thousands or just hundreds of years ago. We will follow their highs and downs in the collision of two pet preoccupations — celebrity and their own genes. 

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