Genographic Project
citizen science project
The Genographic Project, launched on 13 April 2005 by the National Geographic Society and IBM, was a genetic anthropological study that aimed to map historical human migrations patterns by collecting and analyzing DNA samples.
The final phase of the project was Geno 2.0 Next Generation.
Upon retirement of the site, 1,006,543 participants in over 140 countries had joined the project.
Project history
Beginnings
In 2005, project director Spencer Wells created and then led the Genographic Project, which was a privately funded, not-for-profit collaboration among the National Geographic Society, IBM, and the Waitt Foundation. Field researchers at eleven regional centers around the world began by collecting DNA samples from indigenous populations.
In the fall of 2012, the Genographic Project announced the completion of a new genotyping array, dedicated to genetic anthropology, called GenoChip. GenoChip was specifically designed for anthropological testing and included SNPs from autosomal DNA, X-chromosome DNA, Y-chromosome DNA, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The design of the new chip was a collaborative effort among Wells of National Geographic, Eran Elhaik of Johns Hopkins, Family Tree DNA, and Illumina.
The autosomal admixture analysis developed by Wells and Elhaik classified individuals by assessing their proportions of genomic ancestry related to nine ancestral regions: Northeast Asian; Mediterranean; Southern African; Southwest Asian; Oceanian; Southeast Asian; Northern European; Sub-Saharan African; and Native American.
In August 2015, a new chip was designed as a joint effort between Vilar, who was the Genographic Lead Scientist, and Family Tree DNA.
In the fall of 2015, Miguel Vilar took over leadership of the Project.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Genographic Project” is citizen science project. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Genographic, Project and citizen, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “citizen science project” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q585511. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005, 2012 and 2015.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Genographic Project”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Genographic Project primary sources, Genographic Project archive and Genographic research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Genographic Project”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Genographic Project” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.