After taking a dna test in 2006 oprah discovered that her ancestry dates back to the kpelle an african ethnic group that once lived in the country we now call liberia.
What dna test does henry louis gates use.
Calling all huffpost superfans.
The man who led her down this path of self discovery was dr.
Henry louis gates jr phd is the alphonse fletcher university professor and director of the hutchins center for african and african american research at harvard university.
Gates earned his phd in english literature from clare college at the university of cambridge.
On dna testing and finding his own roots as host of the pbs series finding your roots gates tells celebrities about their family history he reflects on his own.
Saliva samples from the celebrities were used to provide the dna which was extracted from the cheek cells found in their saliva.
Send henry louis gates jr.
Historian henry louis gates jr.
Testpromotitlereplace testpromodekreplace join huffpost today.
Dna samples were then genotyped on 23andme s customized genotyping array which reads more than one million specific points called single nucleotide polymorphisms snps in an individual s genome.