INUVIK - As they each scraped the insides of their cheeks with tiny plastic sticks, a lineup of Inuvik residents sought to answer one question: "Where did I come from?"

Inuvik resident Thomas Lavoie swabs his inner cheek to submit a DNA sample to the Genographic Project, which aims to map the lineage of humans around the world. Lavoie said he was interested in learning about his family history. - Katie May/NNSL photo

In their quest to trace their ancestral roots, men and women filled out family tree questionnaires and took DNA swabs of their saliva to become part of a worldwide project that aims to map out the lineage of the human race.

Theodore Schurr, an anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is travelling the Beaufort Delta region to collect the DNA samples for The Genographic Project, a non-profit five-year research effort put forth by National Geographic, IBM and the Waitt Family Foundation.

The Gwich'in Tribal Council and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation invited Schurr to Inuvik, where he stayed for two weeks collecting data before moving on to Aklavik Aug. 12. From there he'll move on to Norman Wells and southern regions of the territory.

Owen Allen, who took part in the study with his wife, Trish, said he was curious to know more about the mixed bloodlines in his family lineage.

"I'm just interested to find out more about my ancestry," he said.

Ruth Wright joined the project to recruit participants in hopes the study would lead to a greater understanding of Gwich'in culture. The Inuvik resident said the majority of people she encountered were open to finding out more about their family history, but some people didn't want to provide DNA samples because they were afraid the government would abuse the data to try to disprove aboriginal land claims. Wright said she heard a wide variety of excuses for not participating in the project.

"'I don't want to find out I'm related to my spouse.' That was one of them," she laughed.

Schurr said the response he received from Inuvik residents was "generally quite enthusiastic." Information collected from NWT residents could play a significant role in the findings of the global project, he said.

"It will help us understand the history of the Inuvialuit and Gwich'in communities, the history of Inuit groups, the history of circumpolar populations," he said. "Ultimately, we want to know what happened on a global scale - the history of humans as we dispersed for thousands and thousands of years. We're linked in some fundamental way but also we're actually pretty different in other ways, and that, too, interests us to tell that kind of a story."

Aside from offering up saliva swabs, participants answered questions about their birthplace, the birthplace of their parents and grandparents, and which languages their relatives spoke.

The data Schurr and his research team collect from participants is confidential and he said the DNA samples will be destroyed after one year unless a participant specifically allows researchers to keep his or her sample for 10 years. In about four months, researchers will share the results of their studies with the participants.