Friday, 6/22

I finally have my answer. I now know why I look the way I look.

You may remember that a couple of months ago I spit in a tube and sent it off to Ancestry DNA, so I could find out a couple of things about myself, mainly why I have a dark complexion for someone with Irish and Scandinavian roots (two peoples not usually know for swarthy skin). The complexion comes from the Irish side of my family, so I was able to come up with three theories as to what might have caused it--

-I had some kind of Mediterranean blood that I didn't know about.

-It came from the Moors, a north African people who conquered part of southern Europe and traded a lot (including DNA) with the Irish people.

-That I was just a freak, and that a genetic mutation overruled the fair skin with which my ancestors had been born.

The test results came back yesterday, and they were quite interesting. Among the things I discovered? Four percent of my DNA comes from the Iberian Peninsula, which Ancestry defines as Spain, Portugal, and the north African country of Morocco, right across the Straits of Gibraltar from Spain. The three peoples share the same DNA profile. So part of my DNA comes from a swarthy culture. We can rule out theory “C”, which means I'm not a freak.

And I'm guessing that comes as a surprise to a LOT of people.

8-)

The source of my darker complexion doesn't necessarily rule out either theory “A” or theory “B”. The DNA could come from the Moors; after all, they ran the Iberian Peninsula for centuries, where they both traded and warred with the Irish. Their heritage lingers, too, in that a large chunk of the population of both Spain and Portugal have Moorish blood in them. That's where theory “B” comes in.

But in doing some digging into theory “A” I've also discovered that the sinking of the Spanish Armada by the British a couple of centuries ago could be the blame. You see, Spain was a world naval power for hundreds of years, and liked to war with its neighbors quite a bit, as well. The neighbors got fed up, and the English finally sunk the Spanish Armada—hundreds of ship and thousands of sailors—off the coast of Ireland. Many of those sailors swam to shore and, instead of going back to Spain, made homes in Ireland, where they had families and passed down their genes.

That's why theory “A” could be true.

I honestly don't know which of the theories is correct, and in the end I don't think it matters. What's important is that I found our the origin of my complexion, and had that question answered. That's why I did the test in the first place.

Isn't science wonderful?

On that note, have yourself a great weekend. Hopefully, if you ever have a question about yourself or why you are the way you are, your answers come with something as simple as spitting in a tube!

(jim@wmqt.com)