Genetic Genealogical Methods Used to Identify African American Diaspora Relatives in the Study of Family Identity among Ghanaian Members of the Kassena Ethnic Group

Within the phenomenon of families that were separated during the Transatlantic Slave Trade reuniting using genetic genealogy, the methods for identifying ancestral extended relatives has not been explicitly agreed upon within social sciences. Our manuscript is a methodological paper that illustrates the use of autosomal genetic genealogy to identify ancestral extended relatives within the GEDmatch database. We used a sample of nine parent-offspring dyads residing in Ghana along with AncestryDNA, GEDmatch, family-based phasing, and identical by descent (IBD) segment sharing to identify African American ancestral extended relatives of our Ghanaian participants. This method supports the claim that families that were separated during the Transatlantic Slave Trade are reuniting.