By Benedict Perez

While today, we don't give a second thought to determining legal paternity through DNA testing; at one time it wasn't even possible. There was no scientific form of legal paternity testing and people had to be taken on their word. Eye witnesses were used as back up proof whether they had high moral standing or were misguided.

Paternity Testing in the Past

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.

Legal Paternity Testing Today

Today, the science of DNA has disproved this ancient paternity determining methodology and is now the benchmark method used for all legal proclamations concerning paternity issues. Furthermore, incredible advances in DNA science have led to testing becoming a lot easier and affordable during the last few years.

Thousands of DNA Legal Paternity Tests Performed Yearly

Over 200,000 DNA legal paternity tests are carried out every year by legal authorities and the government in an effort to solve issues related to child support, welfare issues, and inheritances. Many people don't realize they can conduct legal paternity testing on their own at home.

Testing For Legal Paternity At Home

At-home legal paternity testing is legal as long as the test is accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks. These tests are determined to be 99.99999 percent accurate.

At-Home Tests Are Accurate

This translates into the fact that you have one-in-one million odds that your results will be incorrect. Most testing companies provide free home kits for you to place samples and send it back to the lab with the appropriate accompanying fee.

Collecting DNA With Mouth Swabs

It might not always be practical to get a blood sample for DNA analysis, especially in young children. When blood is not available, mouth swabs are perfectly acceptable for legal paternity testing. To obtain DNA in this manner, all you have to do is massage the cheeks and then swab the inside of the mouth to collect cells for analysis.

Mom's DNA Not Needed

For a confirmed match to be made, a child and father must have 16 genetic markers that match. A child gets half of his markers from his father and half from his mother so DNA legal paternity testing is accurate even without comparing it to the mother's DNA. A basic legal paternity test will cost around $300 and you can expect the results to be returned in about ten days.

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.

About the Author:

0 comments