Talk of The Town

At FamilyTree DNA, it’s all relative

By: PAM GIBBENS

Greater Houston Weekly

  Max Blankfield (left) and Bennett Greenspan's

  Houston-Based Firm is the Largest

  Genealogical DNA Testing Company

     in the World.

Today, genealogists and rank amateurs are discovering that their own family trees, with deep roots and expansive canopies of branches, twigs and leaves, are much more complex than they ever imagined.

Thanks to the Internet and the innovation of two Houston entrepreneurs, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to be a genealogist.

Meet Bennett Greenspan and Max Blankfield, owners of Family Tree DNA. Housed in one of the buildings they own, just off of the North Loop West, Family Tree DNA has been profiled in The New York Times, Newsweek and made the cover of U.S. News and World Reports in January of 2001.

Since then, their budding business has blossomed into the largest genealogical DNA testing company in the world, generating $5 million in sales in 2005.

"Last year we tested 20,000 people," said Blankfield. "In the first five years of business, altogether, we tested 50,000. This year alone, in the first two and a half months, we have already sold 7,500 kits. If this keeps up, we're probably on our way to testing 30,000 to 40,000 people this year."

A roomful of mail and returned test kits attest to the success of Family Tree DNA.

"This is just the mail we received from Saturday and Monday," Greenspan said, smiling broadly. "Some people think genealogy is for old fuddy duddies but it's not true. It's the second most popular hobby in America and there are millions and millions of people who are interested in it."

With only 12 employees, processing the latest DNA deliveries takes five hours or more.

The genetic kits consist of a cheek scraper and a collection tube. Once a sample is obtained, the results are processed, compared and stored in a secure, confidential database, identified by bar codes, at the University of Arizona. Once the results are analyzed, the person is notified if their DNA markers match others in the database.

Family Tree DNA can help determine a relationship with either a 99.9 percent probability of "yes" or a 100 percent certainty that no relationship existed.

"Samples are stored for 25 years," Greenspan noted. "In six years, we've destroyed only two samples. Most people want us to hold onto their sample so that if we bring out a new test to run against their kit, we'd be able to do that."

By comparing results, occasionally relatives are surprised to learn that they are not related at all.

"Sometimes we find the result of an adoption or a false paternity," said Greenspan. "We're not in the paternity business but I can't prevent two brothers from testing. The truth is, if two brothers test, the result should come back identical. There's a very, very small percentage of cases where they don't come back identical because there is some mutation between the father and his first son and not his second. But that's extremely uncommon."

Blankfield, a businessman who moved to Houston from Brazil 14 years ago, gives credit for their efficacious enterprise to his longtime friend and neighbor.

"Bennett and I, in addition to being friends, were engaged in other businesses together. The (DNA) business was Bennett's brainchild because he was deeply involved in genealogy for 30 years.

Bennett was running a really small operation almost as a hobby out of his home. He was selling maybe one kit a day and really nothing the next. I said to Bennett, 'We have a building. Why don't we make one room for the DNA business?' We hired someone to do a nice Web site so that we'd have a more professional interface with our customers. And from that point on, we started seeing the numbers grow and we knew we had a business in our hands that had full potential for growth."

A native of Omaha, Nebraska, Greenspan moved back to Texas in 1980. He is a graduate of the University of Texas and received his M.B.A. from Rice University.

Pointing to an elongated paper history of his family tacked to the wall in his office, Greenspan said he began working on his own ancestry 30 years ago.

"I'm listed here and my mother is listed here," he explained. "Her father, whose last name was Nitz, was from the Yalta peninsula. They actually moved to the United States from this area in eastern Europe. After I had done the genealogy, I did some Internet searches and I found this girl in Argentina who had the same last name and basic story that we had. Her family came from the same place that we came from. We tried to determine a relationship with paper but we couldn't. It's not uncommon. Eventually everyone fails with paper."

But Greenspan was more determined than ever to find a familial connection.

"I was disappointed," he admitted. "That's when I said there's got to be another way, another solution. I really wanted to tie together the girl in Argentina with her cousins and my cousins."

Greenspan decided to probe more deeply, using a newer, more scientific method: DNA testing.

"I contacted an American cousin and the woman in Argentina who didn't speak much English. She took her uncle's sample and compared it to a sample of my cousin's (male) relative out in Culver City, California, and they matched. What that told us was that they shared a common male ancestor. In 2001, about a year after we proved we were related, I visited her family in Buenos Aires."

By examining a male's DNA, specifically the Y chromosome, researchers are able to determine if another male is a direct descendant from their paternal line (Mitochrondrial DNA is from the female side).

"The Y chromosome passes from father to son to grandson almost unchanged with very few mutations," said Blankfield. "So I can find out if I'm related to someone who lived 300 years ago if we have common ancestry."

Quite often people are of mixed heritage, said Greenspan. "They might be a combination of Native American, Caucasian or African descent. We'll work with them to try to sort that out genetically. We don't do genealogical research. We work with the DNA aspect of it."

When asked if he shared any traits with Alan Greenspan, the famous former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Greenspan quickly shot back, "If I could get his DNA and test it, I would. So far, I've had no success in that area."

Both Greenspan and Blankfield believe that Family Tree DNA is perfectly poised to take its place at the helm of genealogical and anthropological research.

"We all have a storybook within ourselves," said Greenspan. "The real challenge is figuring out how to read it. We really don't know where this is going but I'm convinced because of the scientific teams we work with, that wherever this leads, we will be at the forefront of the next cutting-edge revolution."

For more information about Family Tree DNA, visit www.familytreedna.com or call 713-868-1438.

April 3, 2007