Testing For Paternity Through Your Child's Potential Grandparents
When the alleged father of your child is not available for paternity testing, you may still be able to prove parenthood through your child's potential paternal grandparents. Although this testing method is often less accurate than parental testing, it can still provide meaningful results and be used to seek child support or other parental rights in court. Read on to learn how a grandparentage DNA test can provide an answer on your child's paternity even when the father is not present.
Understanding How DNA Trickles Down Through Generations
When two people combine their genetic codes to form a child, approximately half of each individual's genetics is passed on to the baby. This means that each of a child's grandparents can expect to have contributed around 25 percent of the child's DNA. Because there is only a .1 percent difference or so in the genetics of all human beings, the farther removed one person is from another, the more difficult it is to conclusively establish a family link. The validity of your grandparentage test results will largely be determined by how much of the child's genetics can be accounted for from others to narrow down paternal genes.
Obtaining Consent From Both Parties
Any paternity testing conducted on a child must be done with the consent of his or her legal guardian. Preferably, you will also consent to genetic testing yourself to be included in the results; this helps rule out the genetic markers you have passed on to your baby, leaving only the paternal half of the child's genetic code for analysis. Similarly, you can dramatically improve the accuracy of your results by testing both paternal grandparents instead of just one, which with your cooperation would then account for all of your child's DNA.
Analyzing the Grandparentage Test Results
DNA tests analyze a person's genetic code for markers that tend to be inherited along family lines. If enough of these markers match up between two people, it is likely that they are directly related. The more markers a test looks for, the more accurate its results will be, so choose a provider that offers the most comprehensive testing possible to avoid a false positive or negative. This is especially important for grandparentage tests where one grandparent is not available. Once the results are in, you should be given a probability of paternity, ranging anywhere from a conclusive no to a probable yes. Depending on how much genetic information you were able to gather for testing and how certain the results, you may be able to use them in a paternity case, or they may simply provide peace of mind and closure for you and the paternal grandparents of your child.
For paternity cases, contact a law firm such as Law Office of Shelli Wright Johnson.