ancestry

Whether you're a CRI Genetics customer or not, we're here to reveal the top 7 customer portal features inside the vault.

Imagine a world bursting with color. Spanish settlers climb Aztec ruins to reach a cathedral for mass. Cobblestone streets fill with indigenous people from the Americas, including soldiers joining the Spanish cause, Africans, both enslaved and free—some of the first conquistadors—and Asians who have traveled on Spanish galleons, some by choice, others in bondage. It’s the first time these populations have been together in colonial Latin America.

National and global holidays abound throughout the year, each one colorful, unique, and dedicated to raising support and awareness for meaningful causes and groups. Perhaps most memorable of these global events are Heritage Months.

All right, you probably already know that genetic reports can tell you what genes you have and how they affect you. Plus, they can also shed light on your ancestry. That’s pretty standard stuff. But have you ever wondered where your genes came from and when they entered your ancestral timeline?

Genetic testing is a powerful tool that's transforming our understanding of who we are. It's like having a conversation with your DNA, the biological code that makes you, well, you. This conversation with your DNA can reveal fascinating insights about your ancestry, health, and even your unique traits. And the best part? Thanks to scientific advancements, this conversation no longer requires a lab coat or a PhD.

By now, mostly everyone is aware of DNA testing to reveal one's ancestry, but is there more that your DNA can do for you? Enter DNA health reports.

How Reliable Is CRI Genetics?

How far have you delved into your ancestry? If you’re like most people, you’re curious about where you come from. CRI Genetics has set out to connect these missing pieces for people through their ancestry genetic services.

Reynolds Farley writes that "we may now be in an era of optional ethnicity, in which no simple census question will distinguish those who identify strongly with a specific European group from those who report symbolic or imagined ethnicity.

Imagine (or remember) that fateful day... An email in your inbox that says "your results are ready!"

This is a frequent question that pops up among takers of Ancestry DNA tests...

I'm sure you've been to a museum where an ancient artifact caught your eye and inspired your imagination...

Let's start with an exercise... Close your eyes (after you read this sentence!) and remember a time when a parent or grandparent or other older relative told you a captivating story about your family's past...

While you may know of CRI Genetics as a DNA testing service, the company was founded with the goal to continue deepening mankind's understanding of the human genome. Today, we're excited and proud to share some of our latest findings on a fascinating aspect of DNA called ultra-conserved noncoding elements (UCNEs).

Privacy and security concerns continue to play a role within the DNA testing industry, especially, when it comes to buying behavior. We’d like to raise this questions for all DNA testing companies, but we’ll start with our most pressing question: Can CRI Genetics be trusted?

While knights jousted their way through medieval Europe, the Swahili civilization was making a name for itself on the East African coast. In coral-stone towns, this unique society flourished and established vast trade networks across the Indian Ocean. But the question that has left experts debating for over a century is: who exactly were the Swahili people, and what role did outsiders play in shaping their civilization?

Ludwig van Beethoven’s relationship with his father has always been known to be far from perfect.

If you’re looking to uncover the secrets hidden inside your DNA, a DNA test kit from CRI Genetics can help. The insights you’ll discover are invaluable and timeless.

Human history worldwide is very complicated.

Rosalind Franklin was a chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work led to multiple Nobel Prizes for other people...

This may be a surprising fun fact: 98-99% of all human DNA is "junk."

The rapid advancement of technology in DNA analysis has made it so more research is happening faster than regulators can even think to keep up with it.

Much is known about the genetic history of Scandinavia before the Viking Age of history...

Few things can fascinate history buffs more than ancient Greek cultures...

British ancestry is already a complicated affair...

The holidays are officially well-underway and so is the stress that comes with them...

You probably know whether you are allergic to dogs…

Hang around CRI Genetics long enough and you’ll probably see us refer to DNA as a “blueprint for your body” at some point…

I have a surprise revelation for you…

One thing about knowing how to drive a car is that almost no one is willing to admit they’re a bad driver...

When you hear the word "hypnosis," what comes to mind?

Are you drowning in a sea of social blunders?

You don't need me to tell you that stress is a normal part of life. Everyone feels it, no matter how relaxed they may appear to be... Although you also don't need me to tell you that some people do indeed feel it more than others! I'm feeling a bit stressed right now. How about you?

In many ways, a DNA test is like a time machine…

Stubbing your toe might suck, but it may be a bigger deal for some people than others. Are you really being a crybaby about your latest papercut, or could there a scientific reason behind all the fuss? Scientists have been making breakthroughs regarding pain threshold, or the intensity of how you perceive pain, for the last couple of decades. One of the most interesting discoveries is how your DNA influences your susceptibility to pain.

Perfect pitch is not Major League Baseball’s way to describe Nolan Ryan’s once-famous fastball. It’s also not a polished presentation by a salesman at your front door for a Kirby vacuum cleaner.

News flash: being healthy involves working out in some way, shape or form. Never heard that one before, right? What if you want to get in shape, but the gym gives you the heebie-jeebies? Maybe it’s because you’ve had an unpleasant experience with one too many sweaty gym benches. Or maybe you’re sick of lifting weights next to those certified gym bros.

Have you ever been out jogging and then suddenly started cramping up in your legs or feet? For those lucky enough to not be familiar with this experience, it doesn’t feel great. In fact, it feels like your body hates you. You want to exercise to help your body, and it repays you with cramps? The audacity!

Do you have red hair? If you do, consider yourself special. Just 1 to 2 percent of the total world population has red hair, making it the rarest hair color in the world. Have you ever wondered about the science behind redheads? It all boils down to a combination of chemical pigments and genetics.

In early 2021, the rise of “faux freckles” went viral. Suddenly, Instagram and Facebook feeds were swamped by makeup gurus and beauty influencers posting pictures and videos of their faces covered in “DIY” spots. Some drew freckles on their faces using eyebrow pencils, while others went for a longer-lasting version using henna.

Eyes are the windows to the soul, or so some people like to think. However, it’s kind of true. Your eyes are one of the first things other people notice about you. And your eye color is one of the most prominent physical characteristics that people observe when they meet you.

In humanity’s earliest poem, Sumerian king Gilgamesh spent much of his life searching for a magic herb that would grant him the ability to live forever. In 200 B.C.E., the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, sent his subjects on an obsessive hunt for an “elixir of life”. Meanwhile, French nobles in the 16th century drank cups of gold to try extending their lifespans.

All of us know a picky eater. It may even be YOU. Picky eaters don’t have a problem listing their favorite foods because the list is usually narrow. It is likely they are equipped with a small arsenal of go-to orders at restaurants, and anything that doesn’t make the cut will certainly not be on their plate.

What do potato chips, pretzels, and miso soup all have in common? They all (usually) contain a hearty amount of salt. Table salt (NaCl) is a common ingredient that can have a large impact on the flavor of your food. And get this: not all people taste salt the same way.

It’s funny how the sun, located around 94 million miles away from us, can still inflict damage to our skin. You’d think that with all the distance between us and the sun’s rays, we’d be safe, but without the protective layers of hair that once covered our ancestors’ bodies, we’re – for lack of better words – cooked.

If you’re thinking about getting a DNA test, then you clearly have questions…

DNA Testing has taken the world by storm over the past few decades. In the 2000’s, DNA tests cost about $1,000, but now they’re a fraction of that price thanks to companies like 23andMe, Ancestry.com, and CRI Genetics, who’ve brought at-home DNA test kits to your front door. A 30-second cheek swab and you’re gifted with ancestry and health insights that are so extensive they may seem like they’ve come straight out of a science fiction film. DNA testing has blown the door wide open when it comes to self-discovery, but with so many DNA test kits now on the market, how do you know which one to choose?

A little over 400 years ago, in an English port known as Plymouth, 102 eager passengers hopped aboard a merchant ship known as the Mayflower. With hope in their hearts and the glorious tales of a new world etched into their minds, these passengers began their journey.

To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. -Henry David Thoreau, Walden Loneliness isn’t the condition of being alone, rather it’s the gap between someone’s desire for company, and reality. People living in remote locations may be perfectly content with their situation. Others might tell you that they’ve never felt more alone than when they were with the wrong person. So how do you explain why people can feel lonely? Genetics can help.

With the fitting abbreviation “SAD”, Seasonal Affective Disorder is a mood cycle that usually begins in the autumn and lasts through winter. It usually means people feel down in the autumn and winter, and better in the spring and summer. The name refers to a change in “affect,” a psychology term meaning any experience of feeling or emotion. Not to be confused with “effect,” which describes a change that results when something happens.

Woah there, reader! Before you dive in… Here’s what you’ll learn about in this blog: Why women can’t take Y-DNA tests… unless? How Y-DNA tests work What a woman’s DNA test shows The mystery behind the female paternal haplogroup How YOU can discover your own paternal lineage One of the most thrilling parts about taking a DNA test is uncovering your ancestral lineage.

“When we know about our ancestors, when we sense them as living and as supporting us, then we feel connected to the genetic life-stream, and we draw strength and nourishment from this.” — Philip Carr-Gomm

I’m glad you asked.

If you have German ancestry, your DNA is rich with stories of migrations, successes, and tribulations. While the World Wars and Otto von Bismarck are certainly integral to recent German history, there’s a lot more to your story than just the last century and a half.

If you have Irish ancestry, you probably learned that from your parents, who learned it from their parents, who in turn, learned it from their parents… Okay, you get the idea.

Prepare to have your mind blown.

I’m glad you asked…

How Far Can a DNA Test Trace my Ancestry? How many generations can you trace YOUR family back?

Have you ever heard stories about your family’s famous ancestry?

In the spring of 1846, a well-dressed man from Boston rode on horseback into a small village in Massachusetts. The man’s name was Samuel Gridley Howe, and he had set out on a special mission to create a scientific report on people who were deemed “intellectually incapacitated.” Howe ran a measuring tape around his subjects’ chests, used steel calipers to quantify the size of their skulls, and asked a great deal of questions relating to their behaviors.

What is a genetic carrier? Maybe you’ve heard the term before or perhaps it’s brand new. You may have even learned about it in school. But just like trigonometry or the War of 1812, it didn’t stick. Honestly, if genetics weren’t such a hot topic right now, maybe you’d be googling Billie Eilish or watching Facebook videos of cats falling off chairs instead of reading this article. But no. You’re here to learn.

DNA translation: Everyone speaks a language. Animals speak a language. Computers speak a language. Even your cells speak a language. And like any language, we need to understand the basic rules before we can read and write with it.

Poland is an unusual place. People have been living in it for over ten thousand years, but we only have written records from the last thousand years. Basically, prior to the 10th century, almost nothing was written about Poland. Polish people are known for their resilience. They have battled extreme weather and famine. They have been caught between many warring nations. And yet they persist.

In our previous articles focused on evolution, we talked about the mechanics of evolution. Mix selective pressure, heritable characteristics, and large populations, and you get natural selection. But natural selection can lead to some unusual outcomes.

Unlike other groups, being “Jewish” can mean different things, depending on who you ask. Some people view it as purely religious, and you are only Jewish if you practice the beliefs. Others see it as an ethnic group. Still others see it as a set of cultural beliefs and values. In this post, we’re going to treat it as all three, which means we will have to mention religious beliefs. We’ll try to remain objective throughout the post.

Have you ever wondered how you could possibly be related to your brother or sister? Well, good news. There’s a mathematical way to determine that! The same is also true for all of your relatives.

Quick! When I say mutations, what do you think of?

When people today hear about the German people, they think about Germans from recent history. They may think of the East/West German split, World War 1 or 2, or Otto von Bismarck. But German history extends much further back than the last century and a half.

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “carrier?” Do you think of an aircraft carrier? Maybe the helicarrier from the Avengers movie series?

Many Asian men like to claim heritage from Genghis Khan. This is a point of pride for these men, and it can get them some serious respect. After all, Genghis Khan conquered and ruled the largest empire the world has ever seen. The only other empires that can even compare were the Roman Empire and the Macedonian Empire. However, neither of these other empires was built in a single life time.

Genetics is complicated. Anybody who studies genetics can tell you that. There are all sorts of specific terms and phrases that fly around the room. Spend enough time in a room full of geneticists, and it can feel like you’re taking a college exam.

In the past, it was easy to trick people into buying the Brooklyn Bridge. Just have some official-looking documentation and a suit, and people would buy whatever you had to sell. After all, everybody wants free stuff. That, or a get-rich-quick scheme.

Depending on where you live, evolution can be seen as a controversial subject. But it shouldn’t be. Here’s why.

Summer is a great time for many people. People from countries around the world like to take vacations in the summer, and many children are out of school during this time of year. The sun shines bright, and the days are long.

A four letter-word should be really easy to define, right? After all, the dictionary definition is only about a sentence long.

Over one in ten Americans claim to have Irish heritage. In fact, more Americans claim to have Irish heritage (30 million) than they claim to have English heritage (24 million). Clearly, many people believe they have ancestral roots in Ireland.

DNA is an abbreviation for “Deoxyribonucleic Acid.” The name alone means a lot to people with biochemistry Ph.D’s, but what does it really mean?

If it’s been a while since you last attended science class, let’s do a brief refresher. Underlying all scientific research is a process commonly called the Scientific Method. The Scientific Method provides a framework for researchers to learn about the world in a factual way. We don’t have to guess where the sun goes at night, or where flies come from. We can find out.

A common concern that often holds people back from learning more about their genetic makeup is the cost of a DNA test, especially when they haven’t looked at all of the options. There are differences between DNA tests, as there a different degrees of DNA testing and uses for the results.

With the concept of ancestry and DNA testing becoming consistently more popular, it’s important to know what the term ethnicity really means. Ethnicity can help you understand where you come from; finding your origins might mean finding a family that you never knew you had!

Though there are many reasons that people choose to participate in genetic testing, one of the common reasons for doing so is to uncover genetic predispositions to certain health conditions. As a result, many people have asked whether Alzheimer’s disease is genetic or not.

To understand whether or not identifying as "Jewish" means that you are identifying with an ethnicity, you need to know the definition of ethnicity and what it means to belong to the Jewish culture.

When we think about DNA, we automatically think of the DNA housed in the nucleus of our cells. This is the DNA inherited from our parents, half from mom and the other half from dad. The DNA in the nucleus codes for most of the proteins that bring about our traits, health, and development. As you noticed, most was italicized because DNA is actually found in two places within a cell: the nucleus and the mitochondrion.

Children and half siblings becoming more common, family trees can sometimes be quite complicated to understand. If your father has a half-brother (your uncle) who is younger than you, are his kids still your first cousins? Who are you for your sister’s step-children? What does first cousin once removed mean?

One of the first things many people do in their daily morning routine is glance in the mirror hoping the reflection peering back resembles a human. For those sprouting a healthy mop of hair, this can take quite a while depending on the state of the mop and whether or not a comb can manage the ensuing tumbleweed or if a chainsaw is needed. This desire to fix our appearance and look presentable stems from the inherent need to attract mates of a similar or greater status. In fact, studies have shown that women are more attracted to men with a full head of hair as it is historically related to virility. However, since the nature of evolution focuses more on whether a trait affects fertility and ability to reproduce, baldness takes a back seat in the hierarchy of passed down through genetic advantages. Once a species reproduces nature doesn’t have a part to play, making male pattern baldness difficult to predict and even more of a priority for those fighting the seemingly hopeless balding battle. Male pattern baldness can start as early as the late teens and usually begins with the receding hairline and thinning on top of the scalp. Female pattern baldness rarely results in total hair loss and typically starts in the middle of the back of the head. So if nature does in fact take a back seat what exactly causes premature hair loss? Well, there are actually a few factors that affect the outcome of one’s head and whether or not the shiny scalp will emerge prematurely or if it remains a hairy secret well into the later years.

Learning about your roots might trigger an incredible curiosity for your family’s history. And, while the breakdown of your biogeographical ancestry might have answered most of your questions, many more may arise.

The most common ancestry DNA kits available today are a strange mix of vague estimates and clear cut science. It is well known that everyone’s genetic code is a blueprint of who we are as people yet they are completely impossible to 100% make sense of simply because they rely on genetic markers to use as reference.

Genetics and history go hand in hand as two sides of a cryptic anthropological coin and your genetic makeup is the enigmatic roadmap of your family’s past, present and future. In fact, it is through genetics that we are able to evaluate mankind’s enduring saga throughout the ages, utilizing new information to adjust and improve life as we know it.

Your genetics are your body's blueprint. They determine how you look and how your body works from the start (then your lifestyle may take over). If you remember your biology lessons in high school, you may already know that you inherited 23 gene-carrying chromosomes from your mother and another 23 from your father. These chromosomes make up your genotype. How they get expressed, what you see in the mirror, is your phenotype.

Every generation watches the world shrink a bit more as information becomes more and more accessible and globalization creeps into the new norm. Communication technology enables interaction on a worldwide scale and still we press forward into new territory seeking answers of the past in an attempt to pinpoint the cyclical and repetitive trends recurring in the future. With these goals in mind, a broad picture of the past is better painted when the brushes are detailed with exact precision starting at a cellular level. Yes, why we are the way we are stems from socio-economic influence, geographic location, linguistics and a myriad of other cultural impacts, however, not every hand molding the clay that shapes us is external. Our genetic code provides physical, psychological, and emotional traits intrinsic to our being and untouchable.

The cost of at home DNA testing has considerably decreased as various technology advances and new discoveries in genetics are made. Starting at roughly $79, you can now join hundreds of others in piecing together the puzzle of you and your family’s ethnic past. Despite the lower price points, not all is well that decreases well and the three main companies, Ancestry.com, 23andMe and FamilyTree DNA, each claim to excel in slightly differing niches within the industry at variating prices. First and foremost, ancestry and the unequivocally enduring mystery of one’s ancient origination is one of the biggest appeals to pulling the trigger and purchasing a DNA test. Families have discovered long lost cousins, stalwart patriots have realized their nationalism a false pretense and college coeds have noticed they qualified for scholarships seeped in affirmative action, ensuing in a celebratory splurge on microwavable chicken ramen. With the newfound affordability of DNA tests capable of displaying your familial history, the ripe question “which one to pick and at what cost” comes to fruit. An important note to keep in mind is the fact that every ancestry database is different and as the reference point for genetic markers, will lead to different data. Determining ethnicity off of a human’s genetic makeup is not a mathematical equation with black and white answers. Before we plunge into the knit and grit of this process that uncovers ancestral mysteries while sometimes adding more, let’s pinpoint the definition of ethnicity itself.