DNA: Genographic Sets Sail to the Dominican Republic

AlterEgo

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Genographic Sets Sail to the Dominican Republic

?The Dominican Republic has it all.? That phrase is not just the slogan that tourists see when visiting the beautiful Caribbean nation, but it is also what a team of geneticists and anthropologists are hoping to show as they embark on a one-of-a-kind study across the eastern half of the island of Hispa?ola.

Drs. Theodore Schurr and Miguel Vilar, two Genographic Project scientists, recently visited the Caribbean country to help launch an ambitious project that intends to map the diversity and ancestry of the people of the Dominican Republic, and by doing so better understand the history of the region. The project is being led a team of Dominican researchers and is part of a collaboration between La Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) and La Academia Dominicana de la Historia, both in Santo Domingo, and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Over the course of the next several months, researchers and students from UNIBE will visit most provinces in the country and meet with people from at least 25 different communities. They hope to enroll some 1000 individuals and analyze the DNA samples and demographic histories collected from them.

?Visiting the remote communities really shows us the great diversity of our country, the culture, the idiosyncrasies of the inhabitants of the various provinces, and the richness of what we are,? explains Dr. Robert Paulino, lead researcher and UNIBE professor. ?We are the instruments of mother Africa, the nobility of the indigenous Taino, and the European adventurer. That mixture is what makes us Dominicans.? Once completed, this project will be one of the most comprehensive studies conducted in a single country during the Genographic Project?s 10-year history.

With keen interest in Caribbean history, in 2014 Vilar and Schurr published an article on the genetic diversity of Puerto Rico explaining how the DNAs of modern Puerto Ricans show patterns of both historic and prehistoric (pre-colonial) importance. And just last month the two scientists teamed up with Dr. Jada Benn-Torres of Notre Dame University and indigenous leaders from the islands of St. Vincent and Trinidad on a new publication that shows how the genetic patterns in those Lesser Antillean communities inform us about early Caribbean migrations, as well as colonial practices and hardships of the last five-hundred years.

?We?re really trying to connect the dots and understand the migration, the flow of people in and out of the region,? said Schurr. ?Each island seems to have its distinct history.? To learn more about this and other work of the Genographic Project work visit www.genographic.com.

http://voices.nationalgeographic.co...new-ancestry-study-in-the-dominican-republic/
 

DRob

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Aug 15, 2007
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More people collecting more people?s DNA... Hmmmm

Lol, so you post on a public board about your privacy concerns? Interesting, and entertaining.

Back on topic: I'm looking forward to seeing the inevitable paper.
 

4*4*4

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Or better yet!! One of DR1's most prolific posters may turn out to be a relative!!! Fingers and eyes crossed!!!
 

CristoRey

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Lol, so you post on a public board about your privacy concerns? Interesting, and entertaining.

Back on topic: I'm looking forward to seeing the inevitable paper.

My privacy concerns have nothing to do with the collection of other people?s DNA.
No more off topic post from me here.
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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This seems to be a more complete and better-funded extension of the program that was doing similar work. Lynn Guitar of the PUCMM was involved.
It was reported that some 20% of Dominican women show some Taino DNA.

Mine would be funny, with Mayan and Cherokee, jejeje

HB
 

wrecksum

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Wish somebody would pay me to travel around the world and collect saliva samples....

(I'll actually do it for free if they pay the expenses!)
 

windeguy

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Jul 10, 2004
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"They" are not going to like that :


SANTO DOMINGO. The Dominican population owns 39% of DNA of European ancestry, 49% African and Pre-Columbian 4%, ie Tainos, confirming its complicated genetic ancestry and implies that the mulatto prevalent among Dominicans.

Thus establishes a study by the Dominican Academy of History, the National Geographic Society and the University of Pennsylvania, with the collaboration of the Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) research is part of the Genographic Project developped in 140 countries worldwide (https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/).

"The investigation took saliva samples from the oral mucosa were taken at 1,000 Dominicans in 25 sample points, both rural and urban country, and in each 40 volunteers agreed to be taken their DNA samples," says one communication media of the Dominican Academy of History.
 

mofongoloco

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Feb 7, 2013
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Five percent Taino is like a 3rd or 4th great grandparent. A fourth generation grandparent is 1/64 of who we are. It is absurd for me to claim Native American heritage with a 1/32 percent shinnecock tribe genetic make up. Absurd.
 

Ecoman1949

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"They" are not going to like that :


SANTO DOMINGO. The Dominican population owns 39% of DNA of European ancestry, 49% African and Pre-Columbian 4%, ie Tainos, confirming its complicated genetic ancestry and implies that the mulatto prevalent among Dominicans.

Thus establishes a study by the Dominican Academy of History, the National Geographic Society and the University of Pennsylvania, with the collaboration of the Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) research is part of the Genographic Project developped in 140 countries worldwide (https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/).

"The investigation took saliva samples from the oral mucosa were taken at 1,000 Dominicans in 25 sample points, both rural and urban country, and in each 40 volunteers agreed to be taken their DNA samples," says one communication media of the Dominican Academy of History.

Interesting study on ancestry in the DR. Population based genome studies have different scientific objectives and islands tend tobe one of the best sites for these studies due to their locked in population base. It took ten years to complete the genome studyon the island in Canada where I live with a population base of about 550,000 people primarily made up of English, Irish, Scottish, French, and Aboriginal ancestry. Similar to the DR in some aspects. The study was done to identify genetic problems, including specific diseases in specific families. The first gene pool injection occurred when our island was discovered by Europeans and they settled to fish here and intermingled with the aboriginals. During WW2, three very large American bases were built on my island and the presence of thousands of Americans provided another gene pool injection. Like the DR Taino, the aboriginals whereI live were mistreated by Europeans. The pendulum has swung the other way now. People are proud of their aboriginal ancestry and the federal government has formally recognized them.
 

bob saunders

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I wonder what all of those friendly white folks in Gurabo think of this :cheeky:

39% European. I'm guessing it won't bother them at all. We just took a group to our teacher plus children to the rui Merengue- two buses full and the staff wondered what country we were coming from.
 

NALs

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Jan 20, 2003
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I wonder what all of those friendly white folks in Gurabo think of this :cheeky:
That's easy: where were the people of National Geographic? They say they will test the Dominican population and then avoid the second most densely populated part of the country as if it had the plague. lol

They basically missed the Cibao Valley, especially where most of the people live. lol With the exception of San Francisco de Macoris, everywhere else they went was along the coast, in Samana, and in the Central mountains. Did they not know that the bulk of the Cibao population is concentrated in the valley within the Santiago-San Francisco-La Vega triangle? What were they afraid of? On top of that, the Cibao is the only region where most of the provinces had zero contribution. More than half of the provinces of each other region had samples in the study.
They did went to Sosua. I do have to wonder if the people 'assigned' to Sosua were men... ahem, ahem. I'm sure they got to know the DNA samples very well over there. I wonder if they paid with the DNA report instead of money.

In the other regions they got most of their samples (40 per place by the way) mostly in places of high population density, which makes sense.
 
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NALs

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Another thing that is simply crazy is how can it be possible for the 'average people of' Bani to be on average more than half afro while Azua is about a quarter afro? Azua isn't quite known for being considerably light skin, while Bani is probably the whitest town of any significant size in the entire southern region.

How is that possible? Just how?

Did they actually went to Bani and Azua? Really?
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
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I bring this map from another forum.

Each black dot represent the 25 places where the National Geographic team collected 1,000 DNA samples (40 per place of people that claimed to be Dominican of two Dominican parents and four Dominican grandparents, and that had been living in the place for at least 10 years).

Mapa_RD.jpg


Larger size: https://s25.postimg.org/xm7ctathb/Mapa_RD.jpg

For the sake of making sense of it all, lets assume that the Vega Real of the Cibao Valley (the second most densely populated part of the country) was facing some disease epidemic when they were collecting their samples, because otherwise it makes no sense!

They did it right in the southern parts of the country. I wonder what happened when it was time to get a representative sample of the northern population.

In the article they also claim that this is the largest DNA test ever done in the DR, when in reality the largest was done by Dr ?lvarez Perell? in the 1950's. He had over 9,000 blood samples, not the 500-something they claim in the Diario Libre article. He says it in the article he published roughly half a century ago:

Perello.jpg


Larger size: https://s32.postimg.org/7ms163tx1/Perello.jpg
 
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CristoRey

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I do have to wonder if the people 'assigned' to Sosua were men... ahem, ahem. I'm sure they got to know the DNA samples very well over there.

Indeed, one need wonder as my DNA could have easily been (accidently) taken while
collecting saliva samples from the local women of Sosua :cheeky: