A few decades ago, the closest Gary Payne came to filling out his family tree were the little seeds of oral histories sown by his mom, Flabia Payne.

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette A DNA test Gary Payne of Penn Hills took showed he has roots from China. Click photo for larger image. Related article Chromosomes create code to countries of origin

She took him back a couple of generations to life in Louisiana, where her family originated. His father's side of the family was even dimmer. He knows they came from Greenville, S.C., but "something real bad must have happened," said Mr. Payne, 54, of Penn Hills, because nobody wants to talk about the old days.

The gaps in history bothered Mr. Payne, a retired bus driver who became deeply interested in his family's roots while a University of Pittsburgh student in the early 1970s. When he tried 1¹/₂ years ago to fill out a computer-generated family tree with his daughter, China, complete branches were missing.

It was then that Mr. Payne heard a word from on high. He heard from Oprah.

Six months ago on her talk show, Oprah Winfrey featured a segment on the company African Ancestry, which offers a DNA test that helps black Americans discover the bedrock from which they sprang.

"I have a lot of faith in Oprah. So I took the test because she took the same test," Mr. Payne said.

In her research on her family's history, Emily Davis of Point Breeze found this April 1917 article from the Union Springs Herald, Ala. It fits in with family lore: that a male ancestor left the Great North because it was too cold and returned home to the South. Click photo for larger image.

After a swab of his cheek to collect a DNA sample, he discovered results on his paternal side that were both startling and validating: His father's genetic code was more Great Wall than Great Pyramids. His father was strongly linked to the Han people, who make up 90 percent of the populace of China.

"I was shocked as hell," he said, but then again, the results filled a longtime void.

While growing up in Homewood and East Liberty, Mr. Payne was drawn to Eastern thought and tradition. He took tai chi classes, filled his home with Asian and African crafts, studied the Buddha and named his daughter China.

"It just made some stuff fit for me," said Mr. Payne, explaining that when he was born, the doctor told his mom he resembled an Asian infant. And it helps explain why his straight hair took so long to twist into dreads.

For 30 years, genealogy has been a growing passion for black Americans -- ever since writer Alex Haley wrote about Kunta Kinte and tracked the West African's lost heritage back to Gambia.

But Mr. Payne's shocking discovery puts him among the vanguard of black Americans who are now using DNA testing to find roots that were obscured by being descendants of slaves.

Last year, after attending a family reunion conference, Shamele Jordon, a computer worker from Lindenwold, N.J., convinced her family to have the DNA tests. She wanted to carry their history beyond the plantation South.

Family members all chipped in to pay for a DNA test, which was given to the grandchildren of the family's deceased patriarch and matriarchs.

"I'm just so African now," said Ms. Jordon, who got started on this craziness after a cousin, Floyd, passed the passion on to her.

Ms. Jordon is an only child in a close-knit extended family. About 200 people gather for the reunions they hold every other year. They've tracked the family through slave deeds and have what they call "plantation cousins" -- people who were enslaved by the same master. One of her "cousins" from a Georgia plantation is the Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer.

She's keeping the DNA results secret until the family's Labor Day reunion, but she does offer a clue: "I'll have to learn French."

Missing links

Gina Paige knows from whence she came because others in her family took the DNA test: Her people hail from Nigeria, Liberia, Angola and Portugal. Now, she wants others to find their genetic roots as well......So, during Black History Month three years ago, the business executive joined with a Washington, D.C., geneticist to create African Ancestry, a firm that specializes in using DNA, the cellular code inherited from one's parents that determines eye color, hair texture and skin tone, to find once-lost ancestral links.

Since it began, nearly 6,000 people have swabbed their cheeks and sent in the confidential samples that match their DNA with more than 25,000 lineages in their data bank.

Dr. Rick Kittles, the Ohio State University geneticist, has collected the information from his own research in Africa over the past 12 years and through other public information. The individual's DNA is then matched, or sequenced, with more than 300 indigenous groups in 30 countries in Africa. The sequencing can track the Y chromosome that is passed from a father to his male offspring or the mitochrondrial DNA that is passed from one's mother.

Everybody has these "signatures" that are compared to those in the data base, which map common paternal and common maternal ancestors.

In February, African Ancestry got a huge boost when Harvard professor Skip Gates tracked the DNA of high-profile blacks such as Oprah Winfrey, Chris Tucker and Quincy Jones in a documentary that traced the genealogy of the stars. Mr. Tucker, a comedian, then flew "home" to Angola where he celebrated with his newfound ancestors, the Mbundu people. "It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me," he said on the show.

The tests are "transformative," said Ms. Paige, because they open up parts of history previously closed for American blacks.

One client with roots to the Liberia's Kru people, for example, began to lobby the U.S. government to help Kru refugees whose lives have been torn apart by the country's civil war. Others, she said, are traveling to their home countries, starting schools and study groups, adopting children and learning new languages.

The real surprise for many black Americans, said Ms. Paige, is that some "signatures" go beyond Africa.

"People are shocked, but they should not be," said Ms. Paige. "We have to remember that race is not genetic; it is a social construction. So we can have someone as dark as Wesley Snipes and find German ancestry and still be black."

But, pulling back the sheets on the mixed-raced ancestry can be a painful reminder that the rape of African women was part of the equation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Also, many black Americans, through oral history and shared experiences, often believe there's a genetic ancestry with American Indians. But only 3 percent of the African Ancestry tests reveal this connection.

White Americans can go to trace their specific ancestry at Ellis Island or with DNA tests available through Ancestry.com and National Geographic.

But for blacks, only African Ancestry ties them directly to a specific region on the continent.

Cost of tracing

There also is some concern that the DNA testing, because of its costs -- $299 for one test and $500 for two -- will create a hierarchy in the black community of folks who can pay to have their ancestry traced and those who cannot.

The test is costly, said Ms. Jordon, a computer trainer. And with travel, subscriptions to online sites, magazines and conferences, genealogy can be an expensive hobby.

But "it is not an elitist one," she said.

There is technology access at public libraries, and the primary research is talking to people, going to archives and getting census data. Historical societies and Web sites offer message boards or links to other information for free.

Locally, blacks can find help from the Afro-American Genealogy and Historical Society, which provides workshops and member training.

People also can hunt for grants to help with research if their family history is tied to certain buildings or communities that are trying establish history projects.

But not everyone shoveling through family roots wants the short cut with DNA testing.

Emily Davis, a former teacher, was awakened to genealogy research more than a decade ago during a summer trip home to rural Alabama. During an attempt to escape the heat, she jumped in her air-conditioned car and went to the county courthouse near Andalusia, Ala.

Her mom accused her of "digging up the dead," but amid the dust of the archives she discovered a world of ancestors who gave her a new mission: Bring their stories to life.

She believes genealogists are appointed by the family ancestors, so she continues finding family the old-fashioned way.

"No DNA testing for me," she said. "I have not gotten there yet. It's still too nice of a journey."