The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journey—where we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity’s genetic journey through the ages.

With a cheek swab sample of your own DNA submitted to the lab, the Project will test either your mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down each generation from mother to child and reveals your direct maternal ancestry; or your Y chromosome (males), which is passed from father to son and reveals your paternal ancestry.

Results reveal your ancestry along a single line of direct descent (paternal or maternal) and show the migration paths they followed thousands of years ago. Results also place you on a branch of the human family tree.

Interesting.