Andrea Hanson anticipated her journey to Africa to be reworkative. She didn’t anticipate her transformation to start earlier than she even left JFK Airport.
A graduate pupil in social work, Hanson was headed to Ghana final December for a analysis internship. She was the one Black particular person from her college on the journey, however nearly everybody else boarding the airplane to Ghana that day was Black.
“To see a complete space on the airport crammed with Black folks — I had by no means skilled that earlier than,” she remembers. Her preliminary response was certainly one of confusion. “It simply felt so international.”
Hanson is of West African descent, which she found by way of Ancestry.com’s DNA testing program. After a yr of deep private losses — her grandmother, mom, and brother had all not too long ago died — this journey to Ghana had private in addition to educational which means for her.
“In my household, your elders usher you into being an grownup,” she explains. “I didn’t have my elders. However my household believes we stroll with our ancestors — that they’re with you. So going to Ghana felt like not only a return for me however a return for them too.”
Arriving in Africa woke up in Hanson an amazing sense of connection to her roots — one she had craved however by no means skilled so intensely.
“I can’t clarify the sensation of seeing all these individuals who appeared like me,” she says, reflecting on the uncommon expertise of not being in a minority. “I felt secure. I felt like I used to be simply ‘Andrea,’ not ‘a Black lady.’”
A New Period in Ancestry Journey
Hanson’s response to arriving in Ghana is widespread for folks of the African diaspora returning to Africa, says Gina Paige, PhD, cofounder and president of African Ancestry. For 20 years, the group has used DNA testing to assist folks hint their household lineage not simply to common areas however to present-day African nations and particular ethnic teams.
“Time and time once more I hear folks say, ‘I instantly felt like I used to be house,’” notes Paige. “The sentiments and the experiences are visceral.”
African Individuals have been returning to Africa for generations. Within the Nineteen Fifties, Henderson Journey Service, the primary Black-owned worldwide journey company catering to African Individuals, deliberate journeys for shoppers who wished to go to the continent. The company relied on a chartered airplane to take its first group to have fun Ghana’s independence in 1957.
The expertise of ancestry journey is completely different for African Individuals than for Individuals whose ancestors hail from, say, Europe.
“Black individuals are the unique victims of id theft. We don’t know our names, we don’t know our languages, we don’t know who our ancestors are,” explains Paige. “So, in contrast to an Irish one that is aware of that their household lived in this village and loved this life-style, and who can search for data within the native archives, we are able to’t do this due to slavery.”
All the identical, Paige believes touring to Africa is usually a profound expertise.
“That is why what we do is so essential and impactful: We inform folks the precise county and tribe they got here from,” she says. “Heritage journey is highly effective for Black folks as a result of it fills a void. It tangibly connects us to misplaced traditions, cultural practices, values, and spirituality.”
Welcoming Their Youngsters Dwelling
In 2019, the federal government of Ghana launched an initiative to ask African diasporans house to Africa. Referred to as the 12 months of Return, this system commemorated 400 years for the reason that arrival of the primary documented enslaved Africans within the United States.
“Ghana is taken into account the gateway to West Africa,” Paige explains, and for many individuals returning to Africa, the journey begins there, the place so a lot of their ancestors’ journeys into slavery started.
On the top of the slave commerce, Ghana was the “level of no return” for a lot of stolen Africans; greater than 40 “slave castles,” the place African folks have been bought to merchants and despatched throughout the Atlantic, lined the nation’s shoreline. Ghana’s ongoing Past the Return marketing campaign seeks to maintain the momentum of the 2019 program.
Hanson didn’t go to Ghana to take part in an official returning, however she nonetheless skilled a sense of return with every place she visited and every particular person she met.
“The primary time I went to the water, I received actually emotional,” Hanson remembers. “I don’t know if folks perceive how significant it’s to see the Atlantic Ocean from the opposite facet, to acknowledge there’s somebody inside my lineage who by no means received an opportunity to look from this attitude once more.”
Hanson says her go to has perpetually modified the way in which she seems at her ancestors, and at herself.
“I bear in mind standing in one of many slave castles and feeling unhappy, after which offended — after which I simply had this large feeling of gratitude,” she remembers.
“I noticed I’m not just a few little Black lady who got here from slavery. My story is huge and large. I considered my ancestors, and I noticed you’ll be able to’t survive one thing like this and never be manufactured from magic.”
Hanson intends to return to Africa together with her husband and youngsters, and he or she’s contemplating doing DNA testing by means of Paige’s group to be taught extra about her household’s lineage.
“There’s nonetheless a lot unknown,” she says. “I don’t have names. I don’t have photos. However I do know that is the place our story began.”
Have DNA Outcomes, Will Journey
The kind of DNA assessments you would possibly think about will rely upon the extent of genetic data you’re looking for to enhance your ancestry journey expertise, explains Kyle Betit, senior genealogist and travel-program operations supervisor for ProGenealogists, the skilled companies division of Ancestry.
“The AncestryDNA check is an autosomal DNA check, which suggests it’s your entire chromosomes — your entire ancestors in your mom’s facet and your father’s facet of your loved ones tree,” Betit explains.
Autosomal testing gives a snapshot of your ethnicity indicating areas of the world the place your ancestors have been dwelling prior to now 1,000 years. Most autosomal testing companies supply an inventory of dwelling family members who’ve additionally examined with that service. AncestryDNA, for instance, maintains a database of twenty-two million folks, enabling you to search out family members and make connections.
“The opposite two sorts of assessments which might be generally used are the Y-chromosome check, which seems at your father’s father’s father’s line, and the mitochondrial DNA check, which seems at your mom’s mom’s mom’s line,” Betit says.
Particularly, Y-chromosome testing for these assigned male at delivery identifies the Y-chromosome haplogroup, the traditional group of individuals from whom your patrilineage descends.
Mitochondrial DNA assessments hint your matrilineal ancestry by means of mitochondria, that are handed from moms to youngsters. African Ancestry makes use of these assessments to determine the nations and tribes of their shoppers’ ancestors going again so far as 2,000 years.
After all, you’ll be able to get pleasure from a significant expertise visiting the lands of your ancestors with out taking a DNA check or doing family tree analysis. However the extra you understand about your great-great-greats and past, the extra you’ll be able to uncover about not simply them however your self.
