Does DNA testing hold a key to your past?
JIM GILCHRIST

WITH its fluctuating peaks and troughs, the read-out we're scanning in a Glasgow laboratory could be from a cardiograph or a seismograph. But these wavering coloured lines are not recording a coronary patient's fight for life, or a distant earthquake, but charting the genetic profiles of a man, woman and child in order to settle a paternity issue.  The recent advent of genetic profiling is impacting on forensic police work, medical research, paternity testing and even animal pedigrees. But, says Dr John Gow, founder and technical director of Crucial Genetics, they could revolutionise genealogical research over the next few years. Our DNA can help tell us exactly who are and who we have come from as much as archived paper records.

Based in Glasgow University's department of neurology at the city's Southern General Hospital, and formed just over a year ago as a spin -off company from the university, where Gow remains a senior lecturer in clinical neuroscience, Crucial Genetics' credentials were reinforced last month when it became the first Scottish company to be officially accredited for DNA profiling work such police and military investigations.  The company already keeps busy with paternity and kinship testing, as well as animal pedigree analysis More recently its venture into the field of genealogy sparked off a flurry of headlines about "tartan DNA" and "swapping genes for kilts", but Gow makes it clear that we're not talking gimmickry here.

And he stresses that DNA testing is not here to put traditional genealogical researchers out of business, but to work in parallel with them in tasks such as scientifically verifying the accuracy of documentary evidence, or succeeding where documentary evidence has failed.  There may have been some semi-frivolous things going on up until now, with ancestor research companies doing DNA tests for "Viking genes", and the like, but, he says, "This is serious stuff." The chances are that most people in this country have some Viking descent," he observes. "Most people in the UK are a mixture of races."

While genetic profiling for family research is already underway in the United States, with at least one company there working with clan societies to build up genetic profiles, no-one in Scotland, or Ireland, says Gow, has attempted anything like a "Celtic genetic database". And that is what he and his company are working on at the moment, contacting clan chieftains and asking each for a DNA sample. "Some of them are willing to do it, some aren't. The idea is to get a reference sample to which other people can be compared, to see if they are related or not."

What really interests Gow, however, is the prospect of possibly gaining DNA traces of long-dead clan chiefs, to investigate lineage and kinship across the centuries. He points to a framed lock of hair sitting on his desk. It belonged to Lord Nelson, and from it, Crucial is attempting to create a DNA profile of the hero of Trafalgar. The owner of the hair wanted a DNA profile in order to match up the lock with other artefacts associated with Nelson, thus proving their authenticity (not to mention vastly increasing their value).

DNA molecules, says Gow, can stay relatively stable fro a long, long time, so long as they are kept dry. Old clothes, razors, and in particular combs can provide useful sources of antique DNA. "They can DNA-profile Egyptian mummies nowadays."

DNA testing can help determine whether two people with the same surname are indeed related and whether they share an ancestor, it can identify the genetic descent of the male family line and may often confirm ancestry when traditional documentary research has failed.

However, the business of DNA investigation is a complex one, he stresses, as he flicks through books of tables which provide in numerical form the different frequencies of genes and their variants, as they occur in different racial backgrounds. The Y-chromosome DNA test can define male lineage although the female-line mitochondrial DNA, being less precise, is not so generally useful for genealogical investigation. Then there is also what he calls biogeographical ancestry, for which autosomal (non-sex) chromosome pairs inherited from parents indicate a person's genetic mixture, as divided into major population groups such as- Indo-European, East Asian, Native American and sub-Saharan African.

"So again, this can give you a handle on your genetic background, going back a good number of generations," says Gow.

Crucial genetics is not offering this it as a service yet: "It's still an academic research project so far as we're concerned. What we want to do before we go public is build up this Celtic data base.  "What we can offer just now is if somebody thinks they have a familial relationship wit someone, is kinship analysis anyway. That's no problem." Another service Gow hopes to offer is DNA storage, looking to our distant descendents rather than our ancestors: "Although it may be difficult for us just now to trace back our ancestors 300 years, if we can take your genetic profile just now and store some of your DNA, it means that 300 years from now, people will have your entire DNA profile." Within a year, Crucial plans to launch a joint-venture offering ancestral tourism packages based on both genetic and traditional genealogy, in partnership with the Scottish Roots genealogy consultancy in Edinburgh and the Lanarkshire-based 1745 Trading Company, which develops and markets Scottish products such as the game Scottish Quest. In the meantime, Gow is seeking financial assistance from Scottish Enterprise to give Crucial "another pair of hands" to help with the genealogical side of their work, "because there is so much potential there, not just for the company but for economic spin-off from tourism in Scotland."

Lynne Cadenhead, founder of the 1745 Trading company, has carried market research for the venture at Highland gatherings and festivals in the United States: "When we asked people what they think about the idea of determining definitively what clan they came from, using DNA analysis, you could just see their eyes light up."

While genealogists may roll their eyes at the prospect of genetic testing impinging on their archive-dominated domain, and others express disquiet at the advent of do-it-yourself online family research, Tony Reid the co-founder of Scottish Roots www.scottishroots.com, this year celebrating its 20th anniversary, regards these as exciting times for his profession:

"We've just got to think on our feet and do different things." So far as genetic testing is concerned, he regards it as still in its infancy, but with great potential if used in partnership with traditional genealogy: "The two are complementary to each other. I'm in no doubt about that. While on one level DNA testing is great for checking paternity – just the one generation, at another, it is very good, or will be, for looking into ancestry."

Professional genealogists like himself, he reckons, "are under a bit of pressure just now because of the likes of Scotland's People [the online archive of the General Register Office of Scotland's]. But there's no point in taking a Luddite approach. This is progress., and we've got to live with it, do different things, and this DNA aspect is one of them." But the arrival of DIY genealogy is also paying off for professionals called in to "rescue" amateurs venturing into more difficult or specialist areas of family research, or who have lost themselves down a blind alley. "I sometimes feel a bit like the electrician you call in when you've got a problem and they purse their lips and say, ‘And who did this botched job?' "We find we are getting quite a bit of work from people who have got stuck or who have in fact gone down the wrong route." Back at New Register House and General Register House, Edinburgh's twin hub of family history research, Duncan Macniven, Registrar General for Scotland, doesn't see DNA testing particularly impinging on his territory. "I see the future as simply getting a wider range of records on the web," he says, while his colleague, George MacKenzie, Keeper of the Records of Scotland, stresses the importance of developing an education resource that will alter the demographic of the growing numbers of Scots taking an interest in their forebears.

Over the past 18 months, the National Archives of Scotland have launched a series of archive resource packs which, he says, have met with a very positive response. "Building on that, we're now looking at developing a resource pack which shows school pupils how they can research their family history A limited amount of research has suggested that pupils react well to this when shown how, rather than their teachers being shown.  "That's a key challenge for the future, to bring family history to a wider audience."

A step by step introduction to tracing your family's history: 5. Widening the search Extracted mainly from Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors: The Official Guide, published by The National Archives of Scotland with Mercat Press (www.mercatpress.com)

AS WELL as the wills and testaments available on the Scotland’s People website (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), the National Archives of Scotland hold a vast and sometimes bewildering array of other Scots legal documents concerning property ownership and inheritance. There are full details about using these resources, such as Registers of Tailzies or Sasines, or Valuation Rolls, in Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors.  It is likely, however, that your ancestors were tenants rather than owners of where they lived. Since 1855, the Valuation Rolls, kept by the NAS, record the proprietor, the tenant and the occupier (but not other residents) of properties in Scotland. Before then, no consistent record was kept of tenancies. Also those that have survived are largely of farms.  If your ancestor ran into debt or was of a disputatious nature and sufficiently prosperous, he probably became involved in litigation. Some courts – the Court of Session, the Privy Council, the Admiralty Court and the Court of Exchequer – heard cases from all over Scotland; others were restricted to particular administrative areas, such as the sheriff, burgh, Justice of the Peace courts. Cases involving marriage were heard by the Commissary Court of Edinburgh until 1830 and thereafter by the Court of Session, but if the matter was relatively minor, you are best to start with a local court. Records from all these courts can be found in the National Archives of Scotland (www.nas.gov.uk).

If your ancestor was a criminal, information about misdemeanours will be found in records of enquiries into the case, records of the various criminal courts, and in prison records. Many of these can be found in the NAS's West Search Room in West Register House, in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square.  Principal sources to look at in the first instance are precognitions – the written report of evidence made before the trial, (hardly any of which survive before 1812) and the records of the High Court of Justiciary, the supreme criminal court in Scotland.

Until 1707 criminal cases might also be dealt with by the Privy Council, the registers of which are in the NAS, but if your ancestor was not tried by the High Court, the next most likely would be one of the sheriff courts, the commonest crimes to come before it being theft and assault, while minor offences might have come before a local court. So far as prisoners are concerned, information can be found in prison register preserved among the Home and Health Department records at the NAS.  It is an irony of ancestor hunting that you are more likely to find information about one who committed a crime than if he or she was a law-abiding citizen. There are a myriad other sources amid which you may track down your forbears, and, as dealt with earlier this week, Scotland’s tradition of exporting its people can make the search even more difficult.  Resolve and patience are prerequisites in tracking your family history, but beware – as any genealogist will warn you, the process can become addictive.