Credit: National Geographic Maps

“We’re all effectively members of an extended family, and the story of how we’re related is written in our DNA … we’re 99.9 percent identical at the genetic level.”

– National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Spencer Wells

Narrated by Kevin Bacon,

The Human Family Tree Premieres Sunday, August 30, 2009, at 9 p.m. ET/PT

Video: Mapping the tiny, random changes in our genetic code unlocks the mystery of who we are and how we got here.

Video: By collecting DNA from countless people around the world, the Genographic Project aims to help us understand more about ourselves.

Press Release: Regardless of race, nationality or religion, all of us can trace our ancient origin back to the cradle of humanity, East Africa. But that was 60,000 years ago. What did our collective journey look like, and where did it take your specific ancestors during that time - At what point in our past did we first cross paths with the supposed strangers living in our neighborhood – Now science helps shed light on these very questions with a bold experiment: On a single day on a single street, with the DNA of just a couple of hundred random people, National Geographic Channel sets out to trace the ancestral footsteps of all humanity, and reveal through this diverse community just how interconnected we really are.

Narrated by renowned actor, musician and philanthropist Kevin Bacon, who is the subject of a pop culture trivia game based on the concept of “six degrees of separation,” on Sunday, August 30, 2009, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, National Geographic Channel (NGC)’s The Human Family Tree travels to one of the most diverse corners of the world – Queens, N.Y. – to demonstrate how we all share common ancestors who embarked on very different journeys. In this quintessential melting pot, approximately half of the 2.2 million Queens residents come from foreign shores, and more than 150 languages are spoken. Now, in The Human Family Tree, they’ll find out that connections go much deeper than a ZIP code, and their differences may only be skin-deep.

Here, geneticist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Spencer Wells and the Genographic Project team are collecting DNA of these Queens neighbors to track their ancestral lineages to the ends of the earth: the first inhabitants of the Americas; the Europeans; and the Southern Asians, among the first people to step out of Africa. We travel back thousands of years via CGI to witness how their ancestors persevered and migrated, and then fast-forward revealing each of their personal journeys to where they are today – living busy lives in the same neighborhood, on the same block in New York City.

“Queens is really a microcosm of the world. You’ve got people from all over the planet walking around on this one street,” says Wells, who directs the five-year landmark Genographic Project – led by the National Geographic Society and IBM – to map how humankind populated the planet. With simple cheek swabs taken at a street fair in Queens, we open up the DNA history book, showing that all humans today descend from a group of African ancestors who — starting about 60,000 years ago — were likely forced by climate change to set out upon diverse paths around the globe. Their descendants now live and work within blocks of each other. And the results are surprising and eye-opening.

“It kind of breaks all the molds on race and what people think about where they came from. I can’t wait to bring it home and show my parents,” comments resident Dave Reed, an African-American actor/model, who is surprised to learn a small part of his lineage is actually European.

The Human Family Tree joins the Genographic team as they take samples from some 200 New Yorkers, sharing their anticipation of discovering their ancient lineage, to the final revelations and a “family reunion” weeks later. Using a selection of these first-person experiences – from a waitress, a teacher, a fashion designer, a councilman, a musician, an actor/model and a mom – we see how this kaleidoscope of people are actually related, while shedding light on the story of humanity: who we are, where we came from, and how we got to where we are today.

Fashion designer Alma Mujezinovic’s family escaped ethnic cleansing in war-torn Bosnia when she was 9 years old – a trauma that has left her clinging to her Muslim ancestry. She says, “When you find out that, for example, you may actually be from the same ancestors, and you’ve been killing each other and hating each other because of certain differences; I’m hoping that [the project] will open people’s eyes and that it will make us more tolerant of each other.”

Many of the Queens residents are also surprised to learn their apparent ethnicity does not necessarily reflect their ancestral roots. We discover that as our ancestors populated the world, they adapted to different and changing climates, resulting in distinct physical variations that continually progressed as they migrated around the globe. Puerto Rican-American teacher Michelle De Jesus exclaims, “we’ve always speculated, saying, I wonder if there is a little Asian in there somewhere, and there is! Apparently there is!”

As we gather the entire group together in a New York City park, their results are revealed in a demonstration using colored flags to differentiate ancestral groups and trace their migrations through the centuries. Each person literally walks their ancestors’ migration across the “world map” laid out in the park. “I never thought that I would be standing with the Europeans and not with the Africans,” says resident Reed, as he follows his migratory path in the demonstration.

Ultimately, no matter where we’re from or how different we appear, if we look back through the generations at the roots of the human family tree, we find we are all connected. Mujezinovic says, “I think all the issues we create for ourselves – racism and differences in religions and skin tones – that stuff shouldn’t matter anymore because we are all from the same place. It’s almost unbelievable, you almost feel closer somehow.”

Over the past four years, Spencer Wells and the Genographic Project’s international team have traveled to every corner of the world, collecting and analyzing DNA samples from diverse human populations for their groundbreaking research. With several more years of study to go, over 350,000 people around the world have participated so far, resulting in the most comprehensive picture of human anthropological variation ever created, shedding new light on our genetic and migratory history and helping us to better understand the connections and differences that make up the human species. The project is encouraging direct participation of the general public in this real-time science research project via the purchase of a Genographic Public Participation DNA kit through the Genographic Web site, nationalgeographic.com/genographic, where people can also choose to donate their genetic results to the expanding database. Proceeds from kit sales support the field research and a Legacy Fund for indigenous and traditional community-led language revitalization and cultural projects.

The Human Family Tree is produced by National Geographic Television for the National Geographic Channel (NGC). For National Geographic Television, producer is Chad Cohen. For NGC, senior executive producer is Char Serwa, senior vice president of production is Juliet Blake and executive vice president of content is Steve Burns.

For more information, visit natgeotv.com/familytree or nationalgeographic.com/genographic.

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