Genetic Genealogical Methods Used to Identify African American Diaspora Relatives in the Study of Family Identity among Ghanaian Members of the Kassena Ethnic Group

Abstract

Within the phenomenon of families that were separated during the Transatlantic Slave Trade reuniting using genetic genealogy, the methods for identifying ancestral extended relatives has not been explicitly agreed upon within social sciences. Our manuscript is a methodological paper that illustrates the use of autosomal genetic genealogy to identify ancestral extended relatives within the GEDmatch database. We used a sample of nine parent-offspring dyads residing in Ghana along with AncestryDNA, GEDmatch, family-based phasing, and identical by descent (IBD) segment sharing to identify African American ancestral extended relatives of our Ghanaian participants. This method supports the claim that families that were separated during the Transatlantic Slave Trade are reuniting. Keywords: genetic genealogy, reunification, ancestral extended family, autosomal DNA, African families, African American families bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/833996; this version posted November 7, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license. GENETIC GENEALOGICAL METHODS 3 Genetic Genealogical Methods Used to Identify African American Diaspora Relatives in the Study of Family Identity among Ghanaian Members of the Kassena Ethnic Group The Pikworo Slave Camp located in Paga, Ghana is associated with both the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the African Slave Trade as a site of bondage before captured people entered slave markets. Although elders in nearby villages still hold memories of the local slave trade, the emphasis of the Pikworo’s guided tour is on the site’s connection to people taken to the dungeons along the southern coast and eventually to diaspora locations such as North and South America and the Caribbean Islands. African Americans familiar with the site regard it as being of great historical significance to their own ancestry and family narratives. Genetic genealogy is used to identify African American extended relatives of the local village’s residents, thereby supporting the claim of biological relatedness and ancestral family reunification between the Kassena people and the African diaspora. Pikworo Slave Camp is located in the Nania neighborhood of Paga, Ghana, with Paga being a border town with Burkina Faso. …