DNA Provides Legal Paternity Testing Today

Using DNA for legal paternity testing has been around long enough for us to take it for granted today. However, such precise scientific methods for determining legal paternity have not always been available. People pretty much had to be taken at their word or the matter settled in court by a judge.

Legal Paternity Testing The Old Way

When it came to determining legal paternity, the judge often sat the child and named father side by side and gave them a hard looking over to see if they looked related. He would then have to make a legal ruling based on his assumptions. No power was given to the fact that the same eye or hair color and shape of face could be totally coincidental. Nor was credence given to the fact that a father and child could bear little resemblance to each other. At one time, legal paternity testing amounted to little more than comparing eye colors.

Modern Legal Paternity Testing

Thankfully, those days are gone and today we have an accurate scientific method to determine legal paternity, DNA testing. DNA is now the accepted test for all legal proclamations regarding paternity issues. DNA legal paternity testing has advanced in recent years to the point where it is affordable and easy.

Thousands of DNA Legal Paternity Tests Performed Yearly

Each year, more than 200,000 DNA tests are conducted by legal institutions and governments meeting the information to sort out child-support, welfare and inheritance issues. Few people neither realize nor are willing to conduct their own at-home legal paternity test.

Testing For Legal Paternity At Home

You can do your own legal paternity testing as long as it is a test that is accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks. These at home tests are accurate to 99.99999 percent.

Odds Against Failure

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

Testing companies are fully aware that there’s a great deal of discomfort drawing blood from children to get a DNA sample for legal paternity testing. Therefore, buccal (mouth) swabs of the inside cheeks are always accepted as alternatives. The process is to massage the inside of the child’s mouth gently so cheek cells can be collected.

Mother’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?

DNA testing has many related uses in determining familial relationships. For example, DNA tests can detect siblings, grandparents, and cousins. It can differentiate between identical or fraternal twins. It can determine ancestral origin and be used in genealogy. DNA testing can also verify Native American ancestry in order to qualify for various government programs.

DNA genetic testing can even be used to determine legal paternity in cases where parents are worried their baby was switched in the hospital. Legal paternity testing has come a long way over the years and has evolved into a precise science with many useful applications.

There are occasions when fathers are not sure if the child they claim is his own. This is when legal paternity test comes in handy to test the DNA features of the child that matches his. This will reassure the father if he has come to father a legitimate child. Or you can try court ordered paternity test.