SOMERS — For African-Americans, unraveling a family’s true roots can be daunting, but it also can be life-changing for individuals whose familial identities were stripped away by slavery and seemingly forever lost.

After submitting DNA samples for genetic analysis, five University of Wisconsin-Parkside students, a faculty member and a staff member now know their maternal family roots, with six of the seven being able to confidently say their families hail from specific locations and peoples in Africa. They learned the results Wednesday night at Parkside through Gina Paige, president and co-founder, with Rick Kittles, of African Ancestry.

The company claims the industry’s largest, most comprehensive database of more than 25,000 indigenous African samples to determine specific countries and ethnic groups of origin with accuracy and confidence, while estimating having helped more than 100,000 people reconnect with the roots of their family trees.

“Our mission is to transform the way people view themselves and the way they view Africa. We have to go back and reclaim our past so we can go forward,” Paige told about 20 people who attended the event sponsored by Parkside’s Black Student Union.

She noted Americans of European origin trace their roots to specific peoples and countries through birth records, marriage certificates, family Bibles, newspaper obituaries and other traditional sources. But slavery walls off the past before the 1860s for most African-Americans because similar records aren’t available to them.

“There has been a large group of genealogists tracing their family roots, and they hit a brick wall. DNA breaks down that brick wall,” Paige said. “We lost our religion, our families and some of us lost our lives. But we didn’t lose our DNA ... If I can unlock that code, I can unlock something about your ancestry.”

While DNA sequencing can’t pinpoint actual family origins to the square mile or even a certain country because borders shift over time, the company claims 99 percent accuracy in finding ancestral matches via its African lineage DNA database, drawn from 30 countries and more than 400 ethnic groups. What people experience when they learn their lineage can be profound, Paige says.

“I would say everybody is overwhelmed in a positive way because for most it’s information they thought they’d never know. And it’s transformative,” she said.