African Ancestry
Founded in 2003 by geneticist Rick Kittles and businesswoman Gina Paige, African Ancestry does something none of the mass market kits attempt: it names a present day country and ethnic group for a single lineage. MatriClan reads mitochondrial DNA for the maternal line, PatriClan reads the Y chromosome for the paternal line, and each retails around 299 dollars. Comparisons run against a proprietary African Lineage Database built from tens of thousands of indigenous African samples.
Aimed squarely at descendants of the transatlantic slave trade, for whom paper records stop at a plantation ledger. The trade off is scope: one test covers one line, there is no cousin matching and no overall percentage breakdown, and results sometimes come back non African for that lineage. Samples are destroyed after analysis and results are not stored, which is a genuine privacy advantage.
Pros
- Names country and ethnic group of a lineage
- Reference database of indigenous African samples
- Separate maternal and paternal tests
- Sample destroyed after testing
- Two decades of focused expertise
Cons
- Around 299 dollars per single lineage
- No cousin matching or ethnicity percentages
- Each test covers one line only
- Results cannot be transferred to other sites
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