How DNA testing has unlocked the secrets of the past for thousands of people

Kyle Betit helps people uncover their pasts through travel

Kyle Betit helps people uncover their heritage through AncestryDNA tests (Stock) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Growing up in Juneau, Alaska, Kyle Betit recalls how his fascination with genealogy grew from watching his own grandmother research ancestors and contact relatives from all over the world in their local library.

At the age of nine, Betit began to make his own revelations and research - which eventually led him to pursue his hobby as a career.

And after experiencing his own moment of learning his own ancestral origins, and previously unknown family members, Betit found that he wanted to help other people discover the same things.

So 15 years ago, Betit joined other genealogists in founding ProGenealogists. Now a branch of Ancestry, AncestryProGenealogists allows clients to dig deeper, with the help of experts, and use their AncestryDNA findings to complete the picture.

“We wanted to provide them with a personal, on the ground experience of where their ancestors lived and what their ancestors were like - in addition to our traditional research report," Betit told The Independent.

In order to decipher the secrets of the past, on behalf of his clients, Betit leads families on heritage tours based on the results of their AncestryDNA tests and historical research - where they journey back to their homelands.

Using a combination of AncestryDNA test results, which compares DNA to the Ancestry database of more than seven million people, and historical records, Betit and his 100 colleagues are able to “trace ancestry and find out exactly where their ancestors lived.”

“We wanted to give people the opportunity to actually go there,” Betit said of the heritage tours.

Betit takes travellers on European tours utilising their AncestryDNA test results (Betit)

From his own experience, “it is quite a moving experience to stand in the place where your ancestors lived or go to the church they attended or find their graves. Or find living cousins still living there.”

“It is similar to a time-warp or a time-travel experience where you are standing there now but you can imagine what it is like 200 years ago because we have discovered the exact places that they went so you can go visit them.”

And when you are able to reconnect this broken loop, it can be an amazing adventure.

While all of the heritage tours are special, Betit, who focuses on Ireland and Eastern Europe, recalls one that stood out.

“The visits I did with a family in Switzerland last year were quite amazing because we were able to find a lot of extraordinary things,” Betit told us.

As finding the answer to the puzzle is part of the thrill of heritage travel, this particular journey was one of the most thrilling of them all.

Betit helps families uncover the graves of their ancestors (Betit)

“It was a culmination of many years of research. But we were eventually able to trace their records back to a town in Switzerland. And everyone in the world with that surname comes from that town,” Betit recalled.

In addition to finding the town, the family was able to track down the records which revealed “the one person that took that surname in the 1400s and when they changed the name and what the story was.”

“The family also found their living cousins and had a big family reunion in the town where their ancestors lived and everyone connected and made life-long friendships,” Betit said. “It was much more than I expected to happen. To have the explanation of why the name even started in the first place was amazing even after having done this for thirty years.”

For Betit, this thrill of the chase and the eventual answers make the years of research all worth it.

“It is like a detective story - like a puzzle. Getting to the answer is very exciting for me,” he said.

In addition to heritage tours, AncestryProGenealogists also run group ancestral tours and an upcoming cruise, where people curious about their history can find answers.

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​Kyle Betit is an employee of Ancestry