Throughout human history and prehistory, events have occurred that have wiped out all but the most hardy or most lucky. Some of these events were natural, such as glaciers, drought, or disease, while others were entirely manmade, such as the capture of black Africans and their transport to a new continent, where they were impressed into service under often extreme conditions.

Not everyone survived. Those who did were exceptional in some way, faster, stronger, more clever. Those of us alive today are descendants of the survivors. We have our own different challenges now which could cause our lineage not to survive, but our ancestors were the strong ones of their day, under their circumstances, and we can be proud of them. It was after all their survival that gave us our existence.

Various tools provide us with the means of knowing more about them. Understanding who they were and what they endured gives us insights into our own character and strengths. As Matt Ridley says in his well-researched and eye-opening book The Agile Gene, a great deal of who we are is in our genes. This is a book well worth reading for anyone interested in understanding just how much impact our ancestors have on us genetically.

The tools for knowing our forebears fall into two categories: research tools for uncovering our lineage, and DNA testing for tracing the pre-historical path.

Research tools include many services that provide raw data about our forebears over the past several hundred years. These include such excellent resources as Ancestry.com for internet searches, and Family History libraries, found in most cities and provided for general public use by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). The information from Family History libraries is now available online at http://familysearch.org.

DNA testing is currently limited to reporting your mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which shows your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s line back 200,000 years. If you are a man, it also shows your Y-chromosome lineage (father’s father’s father’s father’s line), over a shorter but more detailed path.

A software tool for recording your research discoveries can be found as a free download at http://familysearch.org.

Free DNA testing is available at http://smgf.org. This foundation will send you a test kit, which requires a cheek swab, and will do your mtDNA and Y-chromosome at no cost in exchange for basic information about 4 generations of your direct-line family members, or in other words you, your parents, your grandparents, and your great grandparents. For more information of the purpose of this project, carried on by the Sorenson Molecular Genetic Foundation, please visit their website.

Commercial DNA testing is offered for a fee at several sites, which you can find with a quick Google search.

Getting started is as easy or as difficult as writing down what you remember, then picking the brains of relatives who know and remember previous generations. Memories are tricky, so backing up the clues from relatives with hard facts from FamilySearch.com or Ancestry.com is a must. Even the old family Bible, a wonderful find for anyone doing research, can contain misleading information. Verifying everything is a good rule of thumb!

Talking to relatives is a good place to start for everyone, and finding what documents you can online is also a great way to start. The next step is to record them in your family-tree software.

But what about special challenges or benefits that African-Americans experience when they try to trace their ancestry?

For the most part, we are talking about a population of Americans who did not arrive on the shores of North American through their own volition. Captured from their homeland and sold somewhere in one of the pro-slavery regions, they came with family memories that in most cases died with them. African-Americans today, descendants of these slaves, have unique challenges for uncovering their ancestors.

This is not to say that the task is unsurmountable. First, everyone has some work to do to get back to slave-holding days, which ended by law in 1864. That is a date within the lifetime of people who are 5 generations removed from today’s 40-year old. This is the place for everyone to start.

Once a person with African ancestry has 4 intact generations (counting himself or herself), the next key step is to order the DNA kit from http://smgf.org. The report from this test will take about a year to arrive, so getting it underway as soon as possible will get you closer to understanding your African origins.

African-Americans are fortunate with respect to the DNA information they will receive on their African lines. Because everyone on Earth today is descended from Africans, the DNA map of Africa contains a great deal of detail of the origins of a given family. Whereas Europe has one or two main lines from early migrations, Africa has about 20. Each one of these locations has its own characteristic DNA, a somewhat unique ‘haplotype’. Once you know your haplotype, you can narrow down the area of Africa you’re from.

If you would like more details, which are extensive, you can find numerous articles, many of them technical, on Google. Search under: African mtDNA haplotypes. You might also enjoy an informative animated overview, including maps, that you can find at http://bradshawfoundation.com/journey.

Of course you cannot find names with DNA testing. That information, at least for now, must be considered lost. But once your ancestors from Africa made it to North America, some records began to be kept, and can be used to bridge the gap between the date of arrival and your great grandparents. Records and other instructions of this type can be found at http://afrigeneas.com.

Many North Americans have African heritage, and the resources available are extensive. Why not get started today?