DNA is an essential blueprint of the human existence.
If you are trying to expand or understand more your family and genealogy and your link to past generations, you can go forth with a certain testing known as paternity test.
In a standard test like this, it will involve the child, the father as well as the mother.
This is called a trio.
In testing for paternity, a laboratory examination is done on the DNA.
16 areas of the DNA samples are analyzed.
We call these areas the loci or locus if pertaining to one.
Essentially, an individual will have 2 copies of each chromosome and that means 2 readings for each will be analyzed.
After the testing is done, a comparative analysis will be done on each loci.
There will be readings for each individual and they will be represented by 2 numbers.
For a match to happen, one of the numbers should match the mother's and the other number should match the father's.
For example, if mother has X and V while the father has W and Y, the child ideally should have X-W, X-Y, V-W or V-Y to be a match to both parents.
For each match, a paternity index will determined.
This index will determine how frequently a particular match will happen at a certain populace.
In short, it is to see the possibilities that the father is indeed the father determined by the loci.
It is necessary to do testing on 16 Loci of the DNA since each of these will have its own index for paternity.
If the results on all 16 match, the indices are merged and a calculation for probabilities is done.
It is a very precise and very tedious task.
Understanding and testing each loci can reveal more and more the possibilities of the father being the actual father of the child or not.
If there are any discrepancies in the loci, then there is a chance that the father is not the biological father.
If there are 4 or more mismatches, then the father could not possibly be the natural father of the child.
This kind of testing is used by many who have doubts that they are not the father of a new born child.
DNA testing is also done to find their long lost fathers and families.
It is a very interesting how much powers a small DNA sequence can offer.
The power of the DNA is really undeniable and further research will certainly be necessary to understand more the accuracy and nuances of paternity testing and other forms of DNA tests.