Thursday, 4/19

I think I'm gonna take the plunge.

Over the years I've written in here about someday wanting to definitively find out about what exactly is my ethnic makeup. I've babbled in here about taking one of those DNA tests and getting back the report, finally putting to rest questions like just how much of a mutt am I, and why do I have such a dark complexion?

So I'm gonna spit in a cup and find out.

I have no ideas what answers I'll be finding out, and in a way, that's kind of exciting. I mean, I know I'm part Irish, part Swedish, part Finnish, a big chunk German (Prussian, actually), a slightly smaller chunk English, and, if stories older relatives told me are accurate, a little Scottish and French, as well. Are those stories true? A DNA test would tell me. A DNA test might also narrow down from where in a particular country my ancestors came. Maybe the English chunk of me is Welsh or Cornish. Maybe my German/Prussian ancestors didn't actually come from what we now know as Germany, but from another part of the Prussian empire, like Poland or Lithuania. So one of the things the test might do is confirm, narrow down, or revise what I already know.

And then there's the stuff I don't know. I have an awfully dark complexion for someone whose relatives came in part from Ireland and Scandinavia. In fact, I got my skin tone from my dad and his mother, who came who came from the Irish/Swedish part of the family. So how do people who descend from among the fairest skinned on Earth end up so relatively dark? I have two theories about that. There's either a missing chunk of family heritage no one knows about—could I be part Italian or Greek? Or could I have dark skin because 1,000 years ago, when the Moors took over a big part of Europe, they were trading partners with the people who became the Irish. Maybe, among all that trading, they also traded (ahem) DNA. If that's the case, I could throw Mediterranean/Northern African into my background, as well.

Or I could be wrong about both. Maybe there's a third option I hadn't even considered. Or, just maybe, it's a random genetic fluke, passed down among generations, of a darker-skinned clan living among a fair-skinned population group.

It wouldn't be the first time I was out of the ordinary, after all.

That's why I've been thinking about taking the test. I've heard stories and have been told tales, but you don't always know if they're true. The one thing about science is that science doesn't lie, so once I have this test done, I'll know for sure if the tales were true. But more to the point, I'll then know which ingredients have been added over the years, over the countries, and over the generations, into the stew that eventually became me.

I can't wait to find out.

(jim@wmqt.com)