The DNA Testing Guide

The market for paternity DNA testing can be broken into roughly two sections (Legal testing, Home testing) and the category of paternity test you should choose depends on what you intend to use the DNA test results for. If you are collecting paternity test data for use in official legal situations (e.g. obtaining child support), then obviously you need results from a Legal DNA test. However, if you need the test results only for private comprehension, a simpler Home test is your cheapest option.

Home DNA paternity tests

The home DNA test options available today are numerous, and if you don’t need to use the results for legal applications they are fairly reliable and convenient (albeit often slow to deliver back your results). You should only consider taking a home paternity testing option if you are going to use the answers it delivers firmly for your own knowledge. I’ll expand on this in the final paragraph of this article but suffice it to say that doing the testing yourself without the appropriate official oversight means that the test results can’t be used in legal situations.

You are probably familiar with the ease and simplicity involved in pregnancy testing with results available in minutes. This is not yet the case for DNA tests, and the time from obtaining the test kit, to getting the results can take weeks. Unfortunately the technology to perform these tests has not yet reached a stage where you can get a result in minutes.

In a home DNA paternity test, the parties involved usually collect a DNA sample by themselves. The upshot of this is that the collection can be done at your convenience, over as long a period of time as is required to assemble samples from everyone involved. Most of the major home testing companies with an online presence (I won’t link to them here as this is an unbiased article, not a paid review) offer the option of ordering a collection kit online and having it sent to your home. From here it’s a simple “paint by the numbers” affair to collect a DNA sample, most commonly from saliva or a swab from the inside of your cheeks. Generally the collection kits contain a stabilizing solution that you place your DNA sample into to preserve it and prevent it from being contaminated by DNA from other sources. Next you ship the sample back to the company and they examine the samples and compare them to determine if there is a conclusive match between the mother, father and child. As I said the collection is quite simple and the test kits usually arrive promptly. However the analysis phase of the DNA testing process can take a considerable amount of time, on the order of weeks. It’s worth reiterating that if you are considering taking one of these tests you should plan ahead as much as possible.

Legally recognized DNA paternity tests

The major difference between Home paternity DNA tests and those that you can use in courts of law lies in the method of sample collection. As we’ve covered, with Home DNA Tests the parties involved collect their own samples whenever it is convenient. By contrast, legally admissible DNA tests need to maintain a chain of custody (and the documentation to verify this) that ensures that the results are defensible. It sounds complicated but it’s a transparent process that you don’t need to conduct yourself. Most companies that offer a legally recognized paternity test will require you to set a sample collection appointment, at which point the sample collector can complete all the documentation to validate chain of custody requirements. Of course the major drawbacks to this whole process is the requirement for all the parties involved to travel to a specific location to have the collection performed. Though it varies, this will almost certainly cost you more than a home paternity test.

DNA Test Subjects

A regular DNA paternity test uses DNA from three people: the child, the mother and lastly the alleged father (Combined this is referred to as a trio).

Clearly, in most cases, the identity of the mother is not in question. So why do you need DNA from this parent? Well this all boils down to how we inherit our DNA from our parents. At the simplest level, we inherit half of our DNA (our genetic material) from our mother and half from our father. Hence in paternity testing if we can examine the mother’s DNA we can then use this information to exclude half of the child’s DNA measured by the test. All that’s left after this process is DNA that the child has inherited from the father. It’s information from this part of the DNA test that is compared to the alleged fathers sample.

However, it is possible to conduct a paternity test without a DNA sample from the mother. It’s not as straightforward as the trio analysis above, and requires a more detailed analysis and depending on which company you chose, this may cost you extra and may also take longer. Nevertheless if you deal with a reputable company (i.e. accredited) the results are definite with or without a sample from the mother.

Interpreting DNA test results

DNA paternity testing determines one of two things: either the man is the biological father of a child or he is not. We all inherit the DNA that we have from our biological parents, hence everyone has a unique profile that can be used for identification. A DNA paternity test compares the DNA pattern from the alleged father with that of the child to look for patterns of markers that highlight this inheritance pattern. When the tests are conducted correctly, this is the most authoritative proof of a relationship that we can scientifically determine.

The results from having your DNA paternity tested are simple to understand: Exclusion (meaning it is not possible for the alleged father to be the biological parent), or inclusion (the alleged father is definitively the biological parent). The tests in use today are pretty good no matter what company you go to. When looking around for company to test with, then they should be offering at least two basic things: A generic paternity test that has at least 99.9% accuracy in determining inclusions AND 100% certainty of exclusion.

DNA test regulation

To wrap this up, a final note of caution about the validity of any test you might be considering. No doubt you may be tempted to take the results from “off the shelf” test kits as gospel, given that the packages are usually plastered with reassuring claims about their accuracy. For the most part this is true. Provided you collect the samples according the manufacturers instructions the paternity DNA test.

In the USA the AABB regulates the DNA paternity testing industry. If you are seeking DNA test results for admission in legal cases then it is a requirement that they be produced by an AABB-accredited laboratory. Currently, test results obtained outside of the AABB’s purview are not considered admissible in courts of law. The same consideration applies for using test results in cases where submission to welfare offices, authorities that deal with immigration (e.g. USCIS) and United States embassies overseas where DNA is needed to bolster immigration petitions. And of course this AABB accreditation is also required to do DNA Paternity Testing that is submitted to government agencies (e.g. in cases of child support, and custody).