Utah is renowned for its spectacular views, but one not as obvious as a national park or a snow-capped mountain is especially revealing. That view is of the future of home DNA testing – a cultural phenomenon whose roots are firmly planted in Utah and whose vistas are only starting to be revealed.
The evolution and implications of this technology are playing out here – from Salt Lake City, home of the Family History Library, to Lehi, where the massive for-profit genealogy company Ancestry is headquartered, and where MyHeritage, another industry leader, keeps offices, to Provo, where Brigham Young University educated Ancestry’s founders.
Home DNA testing has advanced to the point where, according to Pew Research, more than 16% of adult Americans have taken a mail-in DNA test. Ancestry alone has a database of 20 million genetic samples, the largest in a total field of close to 40 million. That has led us, in turn, to a tipping point where many more Americans are potentially impacted by this technology than have actually tested. Even those who are not in consumer genetic databases are identifiable to genetic kin.
Home DNA testing is also being transformed by major acquisitions. In recent months, Blackstone completed its majority acquisition of Ancestry for $4.7 billion. 23andMe just went public through a merger with a company founded by the billionaire Richard Branson, in a deal that valued it at about $3.5 billion. And MyHeritage was acquired by Francisco Partners, a private equity firm, at a reported value of $600 million.
The field’s extraordinary growth holds both promise and challenges going forward. How will DNA testing continue to transform our understanding of our own roots, and turbo-charge solutions to health problems we face? And how will the precious and private genetic information we lend to these companies be used going forward, in ways we may not even be able to anticipate?
The promise starts in Utah, because one cannot talk about genealogy in America without talking about the integral role of the Latter-Day Saints community and the Family History Library, the biggest genealogical research facility in the world. It is not coincidental that Ancestry was founded by two graduates of Brigham Young University.
The promise has been especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused many Americans to look to their roots for strength by understanding what their ancestors endured and how they persevered. The pandemic has also created an awareness of the pivotal role of science in addressing current health needs and anticipating future ones.
The challenges revolve around the use of the new information and related privacy issues. They are accentuated by the sheer volume of people who have tested – and those implicated by that testing.
Authorities in California, for instance, pushed to use consumer genetic information in the case of the infamous Golden State Killer after law enforcement databases for years failed to yield a hit on the killer’s crime scene DNA. The approach led to the arrest and sentencing of Joseph James DeAngelo, and to hundreds more solved cases — but also to questions about whether genetic DNA obtained for ancestry purposes should be used to investigate crimes.
Recent reporting by the Los Angeles Times revealed that MyHeritage’s DNA database was used to help solve the Golden State Killer case without the company’s knowledge or permission, and that FamilyTreeDNA granted database access to the FBI without telling its customers. Such revelations raise questions about the willingness and ability of some companies, at least, to protect their consumers’ most sensitive information.
The promise and the challenges are in many cases intertwined, providing revelations to seekers of information that others had hoped would remain private. This has innumerable impacts: rendering promises of sperm donor anonymity moot by revealing hidden parentage; offering adopted people access to knowledge of their birth families, and disintegrating long-held family secrets, leading to widespread intergenerational reckonings.
Millions of Americans have already been impacted by these revelations. I estimate conservatively that at least 1 million people have discovered either that the man they call Dad is not their genetic father or that they have a previously unknown half-sibling. A study last year found that more than a quarter of testers discovered a new “close relative” — a looser definition with a higher outcome.
The era of genetic reckoning is upon us. Utah will have a spectacular view as the future of this extraordinary cultural phenomenon emerges.
Libby Copeland
Libby Copeland, an award-winning journalist, is author of The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are (Abrams, 2020). The paperback edition was published in June.