Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Social Genetics
Via Blaine Bettinger comes word of the official launch of a website that combines genetics and social networking: GeneTree. The company, which describes itself as a "family networking site," is part Facebook, part 23andMe. Users can create their own profiles, naturally as well as wiki-type profiles of relatives and ancestors. Users can connect to each other and build out extended family trees through their ancestors.
What makes GeneTree unusual is its integration of these social tools with DNA testing. Members can pay for DNA tests of mitochondiral DNA and y chromosomes--genetic elements used to determine maternal and paternal ancestry, respectively--to branch out, find other, more distant relatives from wherever they may be scattered.
In theory, the service aims to let users develop bigger, deeper, more engaging pictures of their family history--both in creating interesting, nuanced stories of relatives as well as the literal sense of knowing one's family genetics.