A few years ago, a London-based Mongolian restaurant offered a free meal to diners whose DNA purportedly connected them to Khan. The scientific data have been sketchy, at best, provided by Oxford Ancestors, a lab that once erroneously claimed to have traced the warrior's bloodlines to a 48 year-old Florida accountant. The fact that Khan's body never has been found makes such claims all the more spurious.
Many scientists, though, including a foundation in Utah, have set out to more meaningfully study the genetic and genealogical links among distant populations. Photography from the Utah group's most recent work in Mongolia is on display through March at the Main Library in Salt Lake City.
The Sorenson Media Genealogical Foundation, founded in 1999 by the late James LeVoy Sorenson, travels the world gathering DNA and oral histories to provide reliable data "to correlate genealogy and genetics," says foundation director Scott R. Woodward.
Woodward points out that there was a period of time, 800 years ago, when a huge portion of the world's population, "from the Far East to the middle of Europe, came out of Mongolia."
So Miss America: Woodward is slightly apologetic when he explains that the purpose of the foundation can sound "so Miss America - world peace and everything. But what we were aiming for was the possibility that if only we could tell people how they were truly connected, then we might have an impact on breaking cultural barriers."
The library exhibit focuses on the foundation's most recent trips to Mongolia and includes 30 photographs, mostly taken by group leader Edgar Gomez-Palmieri, of the tribes and ethnic groups he and his colleagues encountered during their monthslong treks.
Gomez-Palmieri, director for international outreach for the foundation, is not a trained photographer. Many of the photos are backlit, making some of the faces difficult to see clearly.
But the purpose of the photos, he said, is to give a face to data the SMGF collected from far-flung and almost unimaginable populations.
An unexpected bonus for Gomez-Palmieri, who traveled with a Canon 5D camera and a portable, battery-powered printer, was that the individuals he met were eager to get copies of their own photos.
"The pictures we made of them were highly valued," Gomez-Palmieri said, adding that many of them ended up in traditional ancestor shrines.
As for connecting anyone in Utah to Genghis Khan, Woodward wants hard data gathered over time to make a connection, if there is one.
In the meantime, Genghis Khan is enjoying an image makeover in Mongolia. Gomez-Palmieri likes to tell the story of driving along in a Russian jeep and seeing "rising out of a flat landscape, all of a sudden this thing that is huge, many stories high, made of metal." It was Uncle Khan, back and better than ever, says Gomez-Palmieri, "so surreal."
Experience the expedition
* "From the Land of Genghis Khan: Photographs from the Mongolian Genetic Genealogy Collection Expeditions of the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation" is on exhibit through April 1 in the Lower Urban Room of the Main Library, 210 E. 400 South, Salt Lake City.
* The exhibition will open simultaneously at the National University of Mongolia in Ulan Bator.
* On March 21 at 6 p.m., the executive director of the SMGF will offer a lecture and discussion in the Lower Urban Room. The discussion will also include Gonchig Ganbold, consul general of the Mongolian Embassy in Washington, D.C,. and Malan Jackson, honorary consul of Mongolia in Utah.
* For further information about the exhibit and the lecture, e-mail hayes@sorensoncompanies.com or call 801-284-7017.
