Genetic and DNA Resources

The following are summaries of informational articles on DNA paternity testing. For the full versions of the articles, please click on the links provided.

American Pregnancy Association
If you have had more than one partner, it is natural for you to want to know who the father of your baby is. There are different reasons to establish paternity. You may feel the need to collect support financially or emotionally, or simply for the peace of mind that accompanies knowing for sure. If you are reading this, it may be that you are unsure who the father of your child is.

Paternity testing typically costs between $250.00 and $2,000.00, depending on the area which you live in and the type of paternity testing you choose.

Adoption Reunions: Confirming Biological Relationships
For a multitude of different, very personal reasons, adopted persons all around the globe are actively searching for their birth families. Searches for birth families are often frustrating and tiresome undertakings, but for many adoptees, they result in the successful identification of long-unknown birth parents.

Once an adoptee has found and established contact with a birth parent, it’s a good idea for him or her to confirm the biological relationship through DNA testing. A family relationship DNA test is a simple procedure that can accurately--and fairly quickly--determine whether or not individuals are biologically related. For adoptees who have spent months or even years trying to track down their birth families, such tests offer the final, authoritative word on whether their searches were officially successes.

Read more at EzineArticles.com.

Paternity Information Page
The Paternity Information Page was created to present paternity information for fathers from a fathers point of view. Since "PATERNITY" is the state of being a father, fatherhood, and male parentage, a frank and revealing presentation of paternity information by and for fathers is made. Currently paternity is strongly linked to child support; therefore, child support and its link to paternity is discussed. Concerning child support enforcement agencies: keep in mind that the main purpose for creating these agencies was and is to recoup the money (AFDC, food stamps) given to a single parent family with your child or children. In almost every case, the non-applicant parent - the father - was never asked if he would want custody of his child(ren) so they would not have to be on public assistance at tax payer expense.

Paternity from Wikipedia
Paternity is the social and legal acknowledgment of the parental relationship between a father and his child.

At common law, a child born to the wife during the marriage is presumed to be the husband's child, as determined by law. This well-settled concept is the "presumption of lawful paternity", and assigns to the husband complete rights, duties and obligations as to the child, regardless of whether he is the biological parent or not. The presumption, however, can be rebutted by evidence to the contrary, at least before a court issues a formal adjudication of paternity in the husband's favor, or a duty of support is established by a decree of divorce, annulment, or legal separation. Jurisdictions differ widely on whether, when, and under what circumstances a judgment establishing paternity or a support obligation founded on the presumption can be set aside on the grounds that the husband was not in fact the father.

Paternity Leave: Why Aren’t Men Taking It?
In 1993, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) granted American men and women up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off from their jobs for the birth or adoption of a child. This period of time off is generally known as family leave or parental leave. For women, it is commonly called maternity leave; for men, it may be referred to as paternity leave.

To be eligible for parental leave under the FMLA, a person has to work for a federal, state, or local public agency or an organization that has 50 or more employees working within a 75-mile radius. He or she must have worked for the organization for at least 12 months and for at least 1,250 hours during the past 12 months. If a person meets these criteria, the FMLA requires that his or her employer continue paying for employer-sponsored benefits during the family leave and allow the employee to come back to the same or a similar position upon his or her return.

Paternity and DNA Testing Articles