I felt slightly creepy as I stole into the bathroom at work to scrape the inside of my mouth — for the second time that day.

With the tiny foam scraper provided by my Genographic Project test kit, I stood by the sink for the 60 seconds required as I scraped each cheek, watching the door through the mirror, ready to explain that I was about to get my DNA tested to any colleagues who entered. No one came in, and I hurriedly dipped my cheek scrapings into a test tube, spitting out pieces of the scraper that had fallen out in my mouth, and sealed it up. Ready to go.

After a little bit of reading on the Genographic Project’s Web site, I figured I pretty much knew what the path of my maternal ancestry would look like: a world map with a red trail that starts in Africa, the birthplace of the woman from whom we are all descended, who anthropologists like to call “Mitochondrial Eve.”

My trail would head up north, out of Africa, and then eventually west-ish, ending up probably around France and Scotland, to where my grandmother has traced some of her roots.

Weeks later, when I retrieved my results from the project’s Web site, my map did look similar to my amateur guess, but I had little understanding of what those lines really indicated.

I am a member of Haplogroup H, the dominant group for women, with about 40 percent of European women descended from this group, a National Geographic researcher explained.

My ancestors moved from East Africa to West Africa, before venturing North about 50,000 years ago when the African Ice Age began to wane. Melting ice made the Sahara livable for a time, and it was then that my ancestors made their way through newly green lands and traveled north, eventually leaving the continent.

They likely crossed the Sinai Peninsula and present-day Egypt to go into the Eastern Mediterranean region, my genetic history report said. They continued to the Near East, including present-day Turkey, before moving on to Western Europe.

The fact that my grandma’s ancestors eventually came to Virginia and the southern United States is irrelevant to this map, as that “trail” of my DNA goes cold there in Europe about 15,000 years ago.

But the Genographic Project researchers aim to eventually extend that trail further into the recent past.

“The hope here is that as we get more people involved, as we work with indigenous and traditional communities around the world, we’ll be able to refine this even more,” said Alex Moen, National Geographic vice president of strategic initiatives.

The project, a partnership between National Geographic and IBM, aims to collect DNA samples from 100,000 indigenous people to create a picture of the “genetic diversity of humanity,” the project’s Web site says.

Though the map did not necessarily add to my sense of connection to my own history — ancestors who I could picture and imagine reflecting my curly hair or wide feet — it certainly added to my sense of a shared connection with all of mankind, however Kumbaya that may be. I’m eager to follow the progress of this research.

Who knows? Years from now perhaps my DNA sample — along with thousands of others from people who choose to participate in the project — will help researchers pinpoint with even greater precision the paths traveled by our ancestors.

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