Tracing Lineage With DNA

Dec. 4, 2007 — -- "Where are you from?"

It's one of the first questions we ask one another. But even though national identity has been used to divide people for generations, nationalities may be more closely connected than we ever imagined. Genetic science is beginning to create a new understanding of human ancestry.

Scott Woodward, chief scientific officer of Sorenson Genomics in Salt Lake City, is now giving people the chance to trace their lineage by using their DNA.

Formerly specializing in paternity testing, Sorenson spent $40 million building the largest DNA database in the country. Over the last seven years, it's collected 100,000 samples of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, considered the purest form of genetic inheritance because it barely changes through the generations.

New samples are continually being added to the database, which was conceived by 86-year-old entrepreneur James LeVoy Sorenson. He doesn't give interviews, but "Nightline" spoke with his son James Lee who is in charge of the company.

"Dad is a man of faith. He believes in God. He believes that we're all brothers, that we all share connections," James Lee said. "He believes that there is a genetic Adam and Eve that we all descended from."

Sorenson researchers have collected DNA from 172 countries — more than 90 percent of the world. From Austria to Australia and almost everywhere in between, the company's global research is recorded on video.

"Just recently we sent a team to Mongolia. Mongolia is a very important part of the world. If you look during the period of Ghengis Kahn and all the parts of the world that came under his subjection, we collected 3,000 samples with genealogies there. We are in the process of getting 600 samples from Iraq right now: 200 Shiite, 200 Sunni and 200 Kurd," James Lee said.

I asked what prompted Sorenson to spend millions of dollars putting together a DNA database.

"I think the hypothesis was that if he could get any two people in a room, and through this database show them how they were related and where they came from and how they belonged … that this would change the way they would feel about each other. That instead of animosity perhaps they would feel a connection and that would lead to a more peaceful environment," James Lee said.