GENETIC tests may soon be able to help people pinpoint the villages their ancestors called home.
James Wilson of the University of Edinburgh, UK, scanned the genomes of people whose four grandparents originated from the same rural village in either Croatia, Italy or Scotland. Those from communities just 8 kilometres apart could be differentiated (European Journal of Human Genetics, DOI: 10.1038/ejhg.2010.92).
The finding could have contemporary implications once whole genome sequencing becomes cheaper. “It might be possible to take mixed urban individuals and work out which parts of their genome came from which rural places,” Wilson says.
