Tuesday, 11/20

I guess my DNA is a gift that keeps on giving.

Those of you who read this regularly may remember that earlier this year I finally sent some spit into Ancestry to find out why my skin is darker than the average white person (refresher, in case you don't remember--I'm apparently part Iberian/Moroccan). One of the things the website does is update the findings as they get more data in and can refine the results, so when I received an e-mail from them telling me my results have been updated; well, you can imagine just how fast I clicked on it.

And even though the change only affected part of my heritage, it was still interesting.

The update actually deals with my maternal grandfather's side of the family, the Schwemin side. When I received the results earlier this year I was in no way surprised that I was 17% German/Prussian/ European East; after all, I knew my grandfather's grandfather had come to the UP from Germany. But the update has narrowed that down a little bit. It now appears as if 9% of my DNA comes from “Germanic Europe”; specifically, what is now Northeastern Germany, while 8% comes from northern Poland or the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia), all places that were part of the Prussian empire in the 17 & 1800s.

So now I know. It looks as if I had a great-great-great someone who came from the southern part of Prussia, and a great-great-great someone who came from the northern part of the empire. Isn't science wonderful?

It's also interesting in that the part of southern Prussia from which half of my grandfather's ancestors apparently hail is now the part of Germany where I will be visiting next spring. That's right; my ancestors came from somewhere in the area of the country that encompasses both Berlin and Leipzig, the two places where Loraine and I will be next April. That means I could be walking down the street in Berlin or into Red Bull Arena in Leipzig and have some long-lost 32^nd cousin unknowingly walk right past me.

How freaky would THAT be?

That's only one quarter of my family tree; with the way tests and samples are constantly refined, I can't wait to see what other interesting information pops up over the next few months on the other sides. After all, my grandmother, the woman married to the Prussian guy, always joked that she was related to British royalty. And according to Ancestry I am almost 40% British, especially on her side, so...

You never know!

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)