DNA Provides Legal Paternity Testing Today
Posted on : 19-12-2009 | By : Matt Taylor | In : Data Recovery
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Most of us today take for granted that paternity testing can be proved through scientific means. This has not always been true. There once was a time when a lie could not be proven false or true and eyewitnesses motivated by high moral standings or in the depths of personally guided misspeaking were taken as gospel truth.
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
Thankfully those outdated methods of determining legal paternity are nothing more than a humorous look at the past. DNA testing has become the benchmark method for all legal proclamations when it comes to paternity issues. DNA testing itself has evolved over the years and it is a much simpler process than it once was. Legal paternity testing today is easy to do and accurate beyond dispute.
Popularity of DNA Legal Paternity Testing
Each year, more than 200,000 DNA tests are conducted by legal institutions and governments meeting the information to sort out child-support, welfare and inheritance issues. Few people neither realize nor are willing to conduct their own at-home legal paternity test.
Testing For Legal Paternity At Home
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
Another way to look at is that you have one in one million odds that you will get an incorrect reading with your at home test. A lot of labs that conduct these DNA tests will even provide the home kit to you for free. You simply collect the DNA samples and return the kit back to the lab with the testing fee.
Collecting DNA
Testing companies are fully aware that there’s a great deal of discomfort drawing blood from children to get a DNA sample for legal paternity testing. Therefore, buccal (mouth) swabs of the inside cheeks are always accepted as alternatives. The process is to massage the inside of the child’s mouth gently so cheek cells can be collected.
Mom’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.
DNA legal paternity testing can even help put nervous parents at ease if they have suspicions their child was switched at the hospital. DNA testing has come a long way and has become the standard for determining legal paternity as well as being useful for many other applications.
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 court ordered paternity test.
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