Population genetics has transformed ethnography. In particular, mtDNA has been used to trace human ancestries over thousands of years. Some researchers have used mtDNA to examine the region or tribe of origin of African-Americans who came to the western hemisphere during the slave trade. The Atlantic trafficking in African slaves is a massive violation of human rights that lasted for four hundred years until 1870. It created and fueled persisting racism and disparities of health, education, and wealth. It continues to affect African Americans' and European Americans' perceptions of themselves, each other, and Africa. There is intense interest in reconstructing the destroyed cultural identities of individual African-Americans. Many community groups, families, academicians, and local historical societies are working on this matter. Even so, there has been little formal academic and community discussion of the feasibility or desirability of this work. The University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics is proposing the first national meeting to bring together the diverse groups working to reconstruct African American genealogies and ancestries that were disrupted and destroyed by the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The first day of the conference will discuss the importance of disrupted ancestry to the African American community and efforts to use traditional genealogical tools to reconstruct this ancestry. The second day will focus on the feasibility of using voluntary DNA testing to supplement traditional genealogy to enable African-Americans to identify tribes, ethnic groups, or African regions of origin. The proposed effort would bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines, genetics and genealogical experts, historians, civil rights leaders, and ethicists to examine the range of issues involved. The conference would be nationally advertised to the genetics, civil rights, and bioethics communities. After the conference, the P.I. will direct efforts to disseminate this material to a variety of websites and undertake the publication of papers on the proceedings of this collaboration. The publication of papers and dissemination of material over the Internet will foster further public discussion of conference topics.
