BENGALURU: When she was growing up in Downingtown, Leslie Bernand (name changed) wondered whether she might someday locate a blood relative in India, from where she was adopted as a baby.
But she never expected that her journey towards finding would confront her to hundreds of ‘DNA search angels’ on social media who would work like ‘detectives’ to reunite her with her family which is supposedly in India.
“These are volunteers on Facebook who are helping people from many countries including the USA, The Netherlands, China, France etc to find their roots in India through genetic genealogy. Though I am yet to trace my family in India I have found many ‘angels’ who are helping me towards this,” Leslie explained.
Speaking to TNIE, the administrator of one such group ‘DNA India Adoptees’ Mirjam Bina said, “In our site on Facebook we are for and by Indian adoptees who are forever connected with India because of their DNA. Here we share our stories and then it is taken forward by the ‘angels’ who are part of this group and many such groups and work towards finding clues to hunt for
the families.”
In Bina’s case she was found alone at Chatrapathi Shivaji terminus in Mumbai and was later moved to the Netherlands. Recently she found one such DNA ‘angel’ from Mangaluru, based in UAE who told her that
her ancestral family was from a Mangaluru Catholic community.
Her search for her family still continues but through her DNA detective on Facebook she was connected to Dr Niraj Rai, Scientist and group head, Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP) in Lucknow.
He explained to The New Indian Express that he has collected more than one lakh DNA samples and he also has ancestry data of more than 100 ethnic groups. He has helped several ‘angels’ from various social media groups who work as DNA detectives to help people across the world to trace their families.
“I have helped many. Confidentiality of the ‘detective’, as well as the samples, is maintained. I have collected DNA samples for my research. We work with many other genetic genalogists too,” he added.
Meanwhile, the group ‘DNA Detectives’ on Facebook which is a closed group, helps people with advice about how to use DNA to track down biological family. Also, a non-profit organisation ‘Searchangels.org’ also claims to have many volunteers from India who work towards finding birth families. “In our group the volunteers are skilled at finding the adoptee’s birth family through both traditional search and genetic genealogy.
However, no legal documents for the same will be provided. Ours is one of the largest social media resources for people interested in conducting their own searches,” said their website. Many volunteers on different such groups have made many Indian contacts who now work towards helping people who they have never met to discover the most intimate details about their origins.
AncestryDNA, the ancestry testing service, 23andMe, Living DNA, Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage, National Geographics’s Geno 2.0 and several others have many customer bases connected to India.”