"THANK YOU! It is truly amazing to have the ability to establish this relationship, several generations later. I am giddy about the promise of genetic analysis. Glad I/we lived long enough to enjoy the results of your work personally."

March 2010

"I have been researching my family history for several years now. My father and grandparents were born in Barbados. With some tremendous effort I was able to trace my grandmother’s ancestors through documents back to sugar plantation slavery in Barbados to around 1817. Before then records of slaves were not typically kept, so the paper trail ended. Still, I could be reasonably sure that at some point their ancestors would have been brought to Barbados with the transatlantic slave trade. I hoped that a mitochondrial DNA test of my father’s DNA would reveal where in Africa my genetic cousins are living today and where in Africa my genetic ancestors were from. I discovered that Roots For Real team conducted the DNA tests for the BBC documentary 'Motherland' and also for an equivalent documentary series for PBS called 'African American Lives' in the USA. The Roots For Real test is more comprehensive and yet more affordable than many others. So I arranged for my Father to take a mitochondrial DNA test which simply involved rubbing two swabs around his mouth. The results are quite simply amazing. That my grandmother’s maternal ancestors were African in origin I had deduced. I really had not expected to 'discover' 41 people with exact DNA matches located in 27 places in Africa. Putting this into context, these 41 people, in 27 places and who knows how many more, and my family all shared the same mother up to 10,000 years ago. Simply mind-blowing. I could not be more satisfied. Science has taken over where the family history paper trail ended. Up to 400 years ago an ancestor was taken from Africa to Barbados, 200 years ago I found them in paper records. So the next time I am asked 'How far have you got your family tree back to?' I can answer '10,000 years or so…' Thank you so very much."

June 2009

"Roots for Real impressed me as responsive, efficient and easy to do business with. From the outset, the analysis was conducted quite quickly, including trans-Atlantic mailings. Whenever I had questions, they were responded to in a timely and useful manner. Most importantly, I trust their scientific methodology so I have no trouble accepting the findings. Actually, it turns out that I am exactly who I thought I was because my more recent ancestors were to be found not so far away from the newly-discovered mitochondrial cousins! Mum's the word."

January 2006

“Learning that my geographical roots are in Nubia was a delightful shock. I would never have guessed that my mothers roots lay here, but to be honest I do not know where I would have guessed her origins lay. It was a delight to find that my roots are in Nubia simply because I now feel that my history is more complete. It was nice to get a geographical location from the test i.e. Nubia, because I have now learnt something new about myself and my family. We now know where our roots are and this is quite precious as many other black caribbean/minority people do not have this information obviously due to our past. The test has provided me with information that I probably would never have known or discovered and by pinpointing where I am from I now happily possess knowledge of my roots like many other cultures do and take for granted.”

January 2003

"I am very pleased with the services provided by ROOTS FOR REAL. Their presentation was superb and the results confirmed my mtDNA. The Colored Geographic Map displaying the centre for best match of my maternal ancestors is of a quality for framing"

May 2003

Of the three DNA tests that I took yours is the most graphic and impressive because you offer a map with the geographic center, latitude/longitude, nearest town location, deviation in miles, the haplogroup and actually name the countries in the best matches information. No other DNA company that I've used so far gives this detailed information. So I vote yours as the best. This is outstanding information, and I will highly recommend it to anyone I meet interested in talking about DNA and genealogy.

Anne Hart, USA www.newswriting.net
Author "How to Interpret Your DNA Test Results for Family History & Ancestry" June 2003

"We are fascinated by this customer's results. He has a quintessentially English sounding name, but it appears his mother was born in Goa. How the maternal line got from South America to Goa is a matter for hypothesis and much more investigation."

looking I will certainly recommend your service. I liked your easy to understand report and the map that you sent with that report. This is well written, easy to understand and just what a lot of people are looking for.

May 2003

I spent 13 years tracing my father’s origins. However, it was an historical moment when the Roots for Real service helped locate my maternal ancestry to Central Africa. We all should find out as much as we can about our bio history and celebrate our heritage with our children and their children.

Out of many, ONE people!

Paul Crooks, author "Ancestors", March 2003

Rachel and Matthew will be using the results of the analysis to bring something from their ancestral roots into their wedding plans: “There is a burning desire for us to make the ancestral link through blood. It's one of the most important unanswered questions in our Afro Caribbean/Black British community. The fact that we are now in the Information Age allows us to know many of these answers, giving life to the expression "Where there is a will there is a way". Our DNA holds perhaps the most intact record of our family, our lands, language, tribes, customs and traditions. It would be soul satisfying to know that our children can grow up with a strong sense of identity and heritage by being able to unravel that time, that we thought was going to be lost forever.

I highly recommend RootsforReal for anyone interested in their ancient past. I am adopted and have been searching for some connection. It was surprising and very interesting to find roots so widespread, from Europe to Morocco."

May 2003

“I was overwhelmed by the mixed emotions I experienced on receiving the maternal DNA results of my ancestry. Shocked at the results, I shed tears at the loss of a culture(s) and ancestors that I never knew I was connected to until now, but was elated and proud of my Afrikan Heritage - South Afrika, Mozambique, Senegal, Nigeria, Algeria, and surprised and puzzled by my Palestinian, Isreali, and Syrian roots.

Although I was born and raised in England of West Indian parentage, I always identified as Black British with heritage in the Caribbean and Afrika. But I never felt welcome in Britain and always had a sense of belonging to some other land when I was growing up. After my third trip to Trinidad I had a better understanding of my identity, but I always felt a strong connection to Afrika, and a longing to find out more about the missing link. My pilgrimage to Israel was another piece of the jigsaw, but I was unaware of this at the time. Afrika will be the next part of my journey, proud to embrace my heritage at the Upliftment Music Tour Gambia in June where I will celebrate my “Roots for Real” through Edutainment, Arts and Culture”.

"My own maternal line is Scottish two generations back, so I was amazed by the accuracy of the process when I first tried it - without anything more than a sample of my saliva they identified my maternal roots in the middle of Scotland"