Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

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June 4, 2005

Ethan Zuckerman and I: Long Lost Cousins?

As many of you know, I've been actively involved for the last six years in using DNA research to learn more about my genealogy. I was one of the very first customers of FamilyTreeDNA.com, one of the earliest commercial outfits to offer low-cost testing of a person's Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA to learn more about their paternal and maternal lineages respectively. Back in January 2001, US News and World Report did a cover story on my DNA being matched with a guy in Philadelphia, thanks to a Y chromosome test. There was enough similarity between our DNAs to suggest that we had a common ancestor within the last several hundred years.

Since then, my "extended family" of DNA cousins has grown to a pool of around 45 men, each of whom has had their Y chromosome tested and matched with mine. We even set up an email list to share genealogy info with each other. Most of the men's family origins come from eastern Europe - Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Belarus and Russia in particular - though we have few interesting connections to families in Spain, Greece and the Isle of Rhodes.

Because DNA testing for genealogical purposes has become somewhat popular, the number of people using the same company I used has grown significantly in the last year or two. This means that it's become more common for me to get an automatically generated email from them saying that they've made another Y chromosome match between me and another guy. So far they've all been distant strangers, living in places ranging from Seattle to Denmark - until now, that is.

In one of the latest emails from FamilyTreeDNA.com, I was told that I had yet another Y chromosome match. Then I read the name, which appeared as "Ethan Zucherman." What an odd coincidence, I thought; I know a guy named Ethan Zuckerman, spelled with a CK rather than a CH. How funny would it have been if it had been the same guy?

I then looked at his contact information: his email address used the domain name ethanzuckerman.com -- spelled like my colleague Ethan Zuckerman. I couldn't believe it. Apart from the minor spelling mistake by the DNA testing company, they were one in the same. Ethan Zuckerman had been matched as one of my DNA cousins.

Ethan Zuckerman: see the family resemblance?

So who is this Ethan Zuckerman anyway? If you don't know him already, Ethan is one of the leading thinkers and pioneers in the realm of information technology and global development. Ethan founded one of my favorite organizations, GeekCorps, which places highly skilled technology workers into volunteer jobs in the developing world. Ethan is now a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center; he helped test out my mobcasting blog during last January's Berkman conference on blogging and journalism. Ethan is also one of the leading minds behind Global Voices, a Berkman initiative to raise the profile of bloggers around the world, particularly in places that are ignored by the media and where free speech is curtailed.

So in an absurd number of ways, I've always seen Ethan as a kindred spirit and looked up to his work as an inspiration to many of the things I'd like to accomplish myself. Needless to say, this whole DNA connection threw me for a loop, and surprised Ethan as well. Does this mean I'll be subjecting him to family barbeques the next time my relatives assemble here in suburban Boston? I think I'll spare him if he'll extend me the same courtesy. But it's certainly given a whole other subject to talk about, and has proven yet again that the world is a small place indeed. -andy

Posted by acarvin at June 4, 2005 11:28 AM

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