University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor LaKisha Tawanda David and her colleague Jailene Aguirre asked themselves one day, why should they have to pay a service to recover their family histories if certain policies enslaved her ancestors.
Instead of relying on commercial genetic tasting, David created the Family Roots Genealogy Testing Program through UIUC and African Kinship Reunion (TAKiR) project, a research project focused on helping people of African descent trace their lineage.
David and the Reparations Committee are offering free genetic test kits to Evanston residents who want to trace their family roots with support from an Illinois House bill. Illinois HR0453 says the program “provides African American descendants of enslaved individuals the opportunity to trace their roots back to their ancestral homelands, to reconnect with their ancestral heritage, and to promote their well-being.”
“It is a fundamental human need to know about yourself, to know about your place in history and time, your sense of belonging and well being,” David said.
At the April Reparations meeting, David said that about 250 free kits would be available for residents in July paid for by UIUC. Residents can grab their kits at the Health and Human Services Department, Morton City Hall, 909 Davis St., second floor or contact community health specialist Kayla Smith. In order to be eligible, residents have to be at least 18 years old and have proof of residency.
There also are events that David calls “spit parties,” where residents can pick up a kit and give saliva specimens on-site. Evanston held its first one July 3 and the next one is in Champaign.
Also, “If [residents] are not able to attend an event, they can go to the website and order a kit to be sent to them by mail, and then it’ll include a prepaid postage box in there for them to mail it back; we’ll take it from there,” she said.
By using the TAKiR array, users have access to 1.8 million places on the human genome, as opposed to other testing organizations having access to only 700,000 David said. This gives users a more refined result, she said.
Historically, the transatlantic slave trade and slavery prevented enslaved people from tracing their lineage to Africa. David said that we are currently four generations separated from the last recorded ship that trafficked humans from Africa.
“I know that that number sounds really surprising and really sort of a short time period,” she said. “They were intentional about separating people from their families, from communities, from languages, from culture and religions. So that is primarily why we have such a challenge among African Americans in traditional genealogy and in looking at the basic records.”
It’s pushing past these boundaries that motivates David to continue this work.
Because this data is sensitive, David said, the program uses two-factor multi-authentication and uses Amazon Web Services’ security hub for the database system with real-time monitoring.
In the future, David hopes to expand testing to other ethnic and racial groups.
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