Comedian Izzard traces ancestors back to Africa

Senior News Reporter

Friday 15 February 2013

COMEDIAN and actor Eddie Izzard has traced his ancestors back more than 200,000 years with the help of Edinburgh University scientists.

Custom byline text:

brian donnelly

A new BBC documentary – Meet the Izzards – will reveal his genetic past, tracking his ancestors from across the globe.

Working with experts at the university and genetic databank BritainsDNA, he used a simple saliva test to trace his origins back to Africa.

Izzard said: "Some time after 70,000BC a small group of people detached themselves from the Central African communities of hunter-gatherers and began to walk northwards. When they reached the Red Sea, perhaps near modern Djibouti, they crossed."Once they gained the farther shore, this tiny group populated the whole of the rest of the world. All non-Africans are their descendants."Dr Jim Wilson, of Edinburgh University and BritainsDNA, said: "Meet the Izzards is a wonderful exposition of how the science of genetic genealogy can trace our ancestral journeys across the globe as Eddie retraces the footsteps of his and our ancestors from Africa to England."Izzard added: "It takes us back 200,000 years, with our genetics, and as you go further back, it's not my genetics, it's not the family genetics, it's all of our genetics."And we all come out of Africa, and we come from the same people. So we were a small group of 10,000 people and then we've turned into seven billion people on the planet."If we want to trace a family line through the generations, there are two ancestral lineages we can learn much more about than the others, that of the father's father's father and the mother's mother's mother."The fatherline is traced using the Y chromosome, a block of DNA a bit like a surname or a family crest that is handed down from father to son, and the motherline is tracked using a piece of DNA which is passed from a mother to her children, and it is known as mtDNA."Meet the Izzards airs on BBC1 on February 20 and February 21.

Contextual targeting label:

Families

Commenting & Moderation

We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.

Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.

Comedian Izzard traces ancestors back to Africa

Commenting & Moderation

MOST READ

SPONSORED LINKS

MOST COMMENTED