The Scotsman - S2 Wednesday

I am, after all, my father’s son. A man who single-handedly designed and built a house in Ireland to which I contributed little more than a few days’ labour, barely enough to raise a solitary blister. The answer to our divergent approach to shopping at B&Q, I have now discovered, is in the genes. Not mine. Hers. And not her genes, per se, but her mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). For Lori, it now appears, is an old soul. A very old soul. If you were to consider a piece of her mtDNA, as you would a telescope peering into the past, you could see as far back as 45,000, perhaps even 65,000 years. The mtDNA allows us to track Lori’s ancestry back to a single female, her great-great-great (insert roughly another 3,000 greats) grandmother whom scientists have called Ursula.

Lori is in possession of the mtDNA type U5, the oldest type in Europe, which first raised its human head around Delphi, in Greece, between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago. These people, in turn, were the successors of the first modern humans, who originated in southern Africa 130,000 years ago and who slowly migrated north, eventually populating the entire world. The staggering truth, confirmed within the last 15 years, is that everyone on Earth, from prime minister to peasant, can be traced back to a single woman, dubbed "African Eve", who lived on the savannah between 130 and 200 millennia ago. Ursula, a distant great, great (etc) grand-daughter of "Eve", then spread through her daughter’s daughter’s daughters etc across the great plains of Europe, up the Russian steppes and into Norway and Scandinavia. The ancestors of the European U type were the first anatomically modern humans - or Cro-Magnon - who settled in Europe some 40,000 years ago.

And how, you may ask, does this connect with Lori’s ability to bang a nail into a wall? Well her mtDNA is obviously swimming with the genes of those harbingers of Aurignacian culture, the first successful wielders of tools. She was born for it. The news that Lori’s maternal line can be traced back so far has had an unusual effect on her. That, she believes, explains why as a child she dressed as a cave-woman for fancy dress parties and insisted her parents take her to visit Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, the location of the discovery in 1903 of a 9,000 year-old skeleton, dubbed "Cheddar man". She was visiting family. He too has been analysed and found to possess mtDNA U5. A curious side-effect is her new, regal outlook. A fierce defender of the pound, she’s now pro-Euro, on account of her ancestors populating the place. "It’s made me feel a bit despotic," she explains. "I’ve started to think if it wasn’t for my tribe and its fertility none of you lot would be around. I now think I should get an award from Europe or at least a hefty discount or a free Hertz car when I go abroad."

If Lori turns into the next Napoleon, intent on reclaiming her "Motherland", then Roots for Real will be held responsible. The company, based in London, began operation in February and for a £195 fee will analyse a person’s mtDNA and reveal, where possible, their origins. It’s the next step for all those people who’ve managed to trace their family tree back a few hundred years to a farmer in Somerset. The company was founded by Gavin Heys, a businessman who was inspired both by the birth of his first child and by a BBC documentary, Motherland: A Genetic Journey, that allowed black Britons to retrace their roots to Africa. "I wanted to be involved in a business that helped fill a genuine emotional need and there is a growing desire among people to know their history," explains Heys. A competition in the New Nation, dedicated to Britain’s black community, gave three winners the chance to have their mtDNA analysed. The results found that two of them were related, sharing the same maternal line a few generations back.

The actual analysis is performed by Dr Peter Forster, a geneticist at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, who has built up the world’s largest database of mtDNA samples, gathered from 22, 000 individuals through-out the world. In many ways this is still a small sample for the study of mtDNA is scarcely 20 years old, but as the database continues to expand, the results will become more exact. To date much of the database has been compiled from forensic studies and specialist publications. In a number of cases the database has been swollen by mtDNA samples taken by the police during the investigation of a crime. Although the samples are not yet evenly spread across Europe, with a greater volume of samples from some countries than from others, it does provide a rough map of where a person’s ancient ancestors would have wandered.

The system works as follows: as the descendants of African Eve (or "mitochondrial Eve") populated the entire globe, they left natural mutations in the mtDNA at regular intervals, wherever they went. Between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago they moved into north Africa, the Middle East, India and to Papua New Guinea, and in each location they founded different genetic groups, known as haplogroups, which dominate those areas today. As the tribes split up they took their haplogroups to different corners of the world. Roots for Real take a sample of your DNA using a cotton swab rubbed along the inside of your mouth. This is then analysed to reveal which haplogroup you belong to, in Lori’s case, U, which can be then sub-divided once again to U5.

Using the existing DNA database, the company can provide you with a map listing where in the world exact mtDNA matches can be found. ie: Where in the world are there people alive today who somewhere in the past 10,000 years share the same motherline as you. In Lori’s case matches were found in Russia, in places such as Saratov, Stavropol, Georgia and the Volga-Finns, as well as in Norway, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic as well as Austria, Bulgaria, Sicily, Spain and Scotland. The explanation is that because Lori’s mtDNA is so old, her ancestors roamed and reproduced almost everywhere. The geographical centre given was Kalwaria Zebrzydowska in Poland, as this spot was equidistant from all others. Lori, however, has decided to focus on her new Russian heritage. "Do you think I’m related to Potemkin?" she asks. "I must be." In the sense that we are all related to each other if you go far enough back, she’s right.

What about me? This is where it all gets rather strange. Equipped as I am with a full-body pelt, if anyone was capable of tracing their mtDNA back to the stone-age, I figured it would be me. Unfortunately I was wrong. My results were both fascinating and deeply disappointing. Where Lori’s mtDNA was a telescope with a clear view back tens of thousands of years, mine could scarcely make it back to the Romans. In fact it may not have made it back more than a few generations. Where Lori’s mtDNA is ancient, mine is super-fresh, straight from the oven. It would seem that somewhere in the last 100 generations a great-great etc-etc granny gave birth to a daughter with a genetic "stutter", a slight kink in the mtDNA that results in a repeated sequence that separates it from the old line and begins a new one. Luckily these "stutters" are found in a region of the genome that does not affect well-being, but instead creates a new branch of mtDNA.

While Lori’s ancient mtDNA produced exact matches throughout Europe, the best mine could come up with was a solitary figure in Switzerland, in the Romanche-speaking region of Grison, and in the town of Chur. Even this character, who had his mtDNA harvested back in 1993 by Dr Irmgard Pult, was off by a factor of 1 which means, although cousins, we’d have to skip back until before the last Ice Age to find a common granny. My mtDNA proved so new that Dr Forster and his team were unable even to identify my haplogroup, a situation that occurs in less than 1 per cent of cases. As the good doctor explained: "Lori’s type of mtDNA has not had a mutation in the last 20-40,000 years, where as you have a type that has had a mutation probably very recently therefore it is not widespread. It could be even a few hundred years ago and because it’s not widespread it hasn’t been picked up by a database yet. It could even have happened in your mother. We don’t know. In many ways they’re interesting results. You are both extremes, one old, one young."

Aware of my disappointment Lori utilises all her wise old mtDNA to try and comfort me. "Maybe you’re a mutant," she says. "Like in The X-Men. You can’t wield a screw-driver because that’s the past. Perhaps you’ve got titanium claws instead." I looked at my knuckles. They weren’t dragging along the floor, but neither did they sparkle with concealed weapons.

A study of mtDNA can be rather startling. Due to the paternal instincts of society a woman’s lineage is often ignored. I would describe my background as Scots-Irish, on account of my grandfather’s arrival from Donegal and my father’s recent return, yet this is simply because my name is "McGinty". My mother’s side, the Quinns, who moved to Glasgow from the south of England, has been ignored, yet it is her mtDNA that I possess and that of her mother’s mother’s mother’s mother. The identity of those women, lost along with their names on marriage, remains locked in the mtDNA. Once your mtDNA has been analysed you can’t help but look over your shoulder and ponder those who’ve trodden before.

This has been all the more moving for Lori, who sees in her attempts to lay parquet flooring and build a bookcase, the natural extension of her ancient ancestors’ attempts with bone tools. If she pondered the subject for too long, she got quite teary. I just got confused. The experience may not have unveiled my ancient ancestors but it provided an excellent excuse to leave Lori with the DIY.

• Roots For Real can be contacted on 0845 450 0180 or www.rootsforreal.com