What DNA Can and Can’t Give Back

A test result told me something true that no record ever could. It also couldn’t tell me the one thing I actually wanted to know.

When I first got my DNA results, I did what most people do. I went straight to the ethnicity estimate, then moved to the list of matches. What I found was a list of people I didn't know, connected to me by percentages I barely understood. Looking back, those matches taught me far more about my family than the colorful map ever could.

National Family History Month runs all of October, and I want to use some of that time to talk about one of the most powerful tools that has changed genealogy research for family historians like myself, and what still depends entirely on the person holding it: DNA testing.

DNA testing does one thing exceptionally well: it confirms a biological relationship even when the paper trail may or may not survive.

Regular readers already know one branch of mine where that applies: the Beasley/Venable/Farmville line I've written about last month. For one side, the written record there ends at the Civil War, but the other has DNA matches that keep going past it, connecting me to descendants of the same Virginia property, some white, some Black, all of us holding pieces of a story none of us have full records for A DNA test cannot tell me who those people were. It cannot explain what they believed, how they lived, or how they understood their place in the world. What it can do is establish something incredibly important: we are connected.

That fact alone has opened doors that written records haven’t done to date. The reality is that DNA provides evidence, not narrative. A match is a fact, not a story.

The story still has to be built through deeds, wills, census records, military files, church registers, family Bibles, photographs, oral histories, and conversations with living relatives. Genetic testing can point researchers in the right direction. It cannot do the research for them.

The same lesson applies to the growing use of artificial intelligence in genealogy.

Not long ago, a cousin called asking for help with our family tree after first consulting a chatbot. I understood why. AI has become many people's first stop for information. Used properly, it can help organize research and identify patterns. What it cannot do is replace verification.

AI can organize what you've already confirmed. It cannot explain why a DNA match matters, what historical context surrounds that connection, or how that relationship fits into the larger story of a family. Those answers still require human research, judgment, and curiosity.

The ethnicity estimate carries its own version of this challenge. More than 75 percent of my DNA traces to the continent of Africa; testing companies break that ancestry into modern national boundaries, often identifying present-day West African countries. The problem is that many of those borders were drawn long after enslaved Africans were forced from the continent.

The map reflects today's political geography, not the world my ancestors knew.

The same is true elsewhere in my family tree. Ancestors who lived in Norman England did not know the modern England we recognize today. Other branches trace into places that have changed names, borders, governments, and identities many times over the centuries.

DNA maps answer a modern question. Many people mistakenly believe they're answering a historical one.

There is also a more difficult reality that deserves discussion.

Many descendants of enslaved people discover DNA matches connected to families that once enslaved their ancestors. I've encountered those matches myself.

Some of those connections have helped answer questions that no surviving document could resolve. They have filled gaps left by courthouses, census takers, and generations of incomplete records.

None of that removes the emotional weight of those discoveries.

Some connections are uncomfortable. Some raise questions that have no easy answers. But I've learned that refusing to look because a truth is difficult can sometimes close the only remaining path to understanding a family's history.

For anyone beginning genealogical research this month, my advice is simple: treat a DNA test as a starting point, not a conclusion.

Take the test.

Study the matches.

Follow the records.

Talk to relatives.

Visit the archives.

Let the DNA provide the clues, then do the work required to understand what those clues actually mean.

CLOSING TAKEAWAY

DNA can prove a connection. Only research can explain it.

It still takes a person willing to do the work to turn that fact into a story, and a map honest enough to admit it's describing today's world, not the one your ancestors actually lived in.

WORTH NOTING

If you missed it, I wrote about the Hampden-Sydney College genealogy research program for descendants of the people enslaved at Slate Hill and the surrounding properties. If you're sitting on a match connected to an enslaving family, and aren't sure what to do with it, that program is worth revisiting. It's a valuable reminder that difficult connections can sometimes become pathways to deeper understanding and fuller histories.

Kelly Howard
Founder and CEO, Vysyons Communications
VysyonsCommunications.com
KWBHoward@VysyonsCommunications.com

If this is genealogy research you want help with, reach out directly.