DNA project unites related strangers, helps science

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - Everyone wants to know who they are related to. Now more than ever people are signing up for online services that can track their ancestors. DNA.Land is a nonprofit website developed by scientists at the New York Genome Center. It's connecting people around the world.

A.J. Jacobs, an author who has mapped out his family tree to include 77 million distant relatives, said all of us are more of a mix than we realize it. He said DNA.Land told him he is related to his wife; they are 6th or 7th cousins. He also said he is distantly related to President Barack Obama. However, on this day for the first time he met Erica, his second cousin.

98 percent of the DNA.Land users have already found at least one relative within the DNA.Land community. I met one man, Adam Brown, who told me he was able to reconnect with relatives he thought died in the holocaust. He said that DNA.Land told him that he has surviving family members all over the world.

DNA.Land is not just an opportunity for relatives to reconnect but it also allows scientists learn more about genetic mutations that cause disease.