Dec 19 2009
Determining Legal Paternity Through DNA Testing
Using DNA for legal paternity testing has been around long enough for us to take it for granted today. However, such precise scientific methods for determining legal paternity have not always been available. People pretty much had to be taken at their word or the matter settled in court by a judge.
Legal Paternity Testing The Old Way
The most popular way for determining paternity was a judge standing a child (sitting or lying) next to an accused father, taking a good hard look and then making a determination. The coincidental fact that each person may have the same hair and eye color, the same shaped face and other similar facial or body characteristics and may not necessarily be related to escape the entire equation. In fact, it was only a little more than 100 years ago that person's eye color was used by judges as a determining factor.
Modern Legal Paternity Testing
Today, the science of DNA has disproved this ancient paternity determining methodology and is now the benchmark method used for all legal proclamations concerning paternity issues. Furthermore, incredible advances in DNA science have led to testing becoming a lot easier and affordable during the last few years.
Popularity of DNA Legal Paternity Testing
Over 200,000 DNA legal paternity tests are carried out every year by legal authorities and the government in an effort to solve issues related to child support, welfare issues, and inheritances. Many people don't realize they can conduct legal paternity testing on their own at home.
Conducting Legal At-Home Paternity Testing
Paternity testing at-home is legal as long as an AABB (American Association of Blood Banks) - accredited DNA test is acquired. Testing can be accomplished even without a mother sample resulting in 99.99999 percent accuracy.
Highly Accurate Results
This translates into the fact that you have one-in-one million odds that your results will be incorrect. Most testing companies provide free home kits for you to place samples and send it back to the lab with the appropriate accompanying fee.
Collecting DNA
It might not always be practical to get a blood sample for DNA analysis, especially in young children. When blood is not available, mouth swabs are perfectly acceptable for legal paternity testing. To obtain DNA in this manner, all you have to do is massage the cheeks and then swab the inside of the mouth to collect cells for analysis.
Mother's DNA Not Needed
These are then sent to the testing lab for analyzing. It takes at least 16 genetic markers from the child node to match these to any suspected father. Children receive half of the genetic markers from each parent. Therefore, legal paternity testing is always accurate even without the mother's DNA information. Labs specializing in DNA testing usually provide 10-day turnaround times with fees as high as $300 for a basic test.
How else is a DNA test used?
Test kits are available for analyzing a number of different familial relationships including siblings or establishing grandparent relationships and even determining cousins. DNA testing is used to determine the zygosity for twins (fraternal or identical relationships). It is also used to verify a person's ancestral origin as well as put to use in many cases to verify Native American ancestry for participation in many government-sponsored programs.
It has even been used by suspicious and anxious parents to make sure that they are leaving the hospital with the correct baby.
There are occasions when fathers are not sure if the child they claim is his own. This is when legal paternity tests come in handy to test the DNA features of the child that matches his. This will reassure the father if he has come to father a legitimate child. Or you can try dna testing.
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