Genetics is the study of variations among people that are determined by the heritable units called genes and how the variations occur and are transmitted in individuals, families, and populations.
The study of how mutations in single genes cause rare disease (genetics) is gradually being eclipsed by research on how mutations in multiple genes interact with each other and the environment to result in health and disease (genomics).
While the discipline of genetics had its origins with Gregor Mendel in the mid-nineteenth century, human genetics began in the early twentieth century.
Genomics had its origins much more recently, the term first being coined in 1986, and subsumes the study of the organization, function, and interpretation of all of an organism's genetic material. Genomics has largely been stimulated and driven by technologies that enable the sequencing of DNA and the comparative analysis of vast amounts of sequence data.