Finding yourself through DNA testing ...

In this day and age a lot of folks seem to be searching for some clues from their past that might help explain who they are today. There are widely advertised DNA searches people can buy to see where their ancestors were from.

Watch TV any night and you’ll see the woman who didn’t know who she really was, apparently, and through her DNA found that she was actually part Native American. Which, I suppose we are to infer, is why she’s surrounded herself with Native American pottery. It was just a natural thing to happen, I guess, because somewhere in her family tree is a Native American.  

I wonder when Elizabeth Warren will get tested.  

Then there’s the guy whose wife thought she married an Italian. DNA testing proved some of his ancestors were Eastern European.  I don’t know if this news put him off pasta and cannoli for a while, or made his wife reconsider their marriage, but to me he still seems a bit confused and unsure how he should act now.    

There’s also the guy who always thought he was of German extraction but learned through DNA testing his ancestors were actually Scottish. Now he wears a kilt instead of lederhosen and, I’m just guessing again, is trying to develop a taste for haggis. 

Good luck with that.

Some people obviously take this DNA/ancestor testing seriously. I’m not sure what they’re hoping to find. Maybe a link to somewhere exotic, but not too, too exotic – like someplace they’d rather not even visit much less claim ancestors from.  Like survivors of the Donner party.

I suppose this trend is an outgrowth of the “Roots” phenomenon and connecting – however tangentially – to your distant past. It may also be because people want to find some more interesting identity for themselves other than simply being an American.

For some reason now, “identity” has become important culturally and politically. 

It shouldn’t be surprising someone has made a business out of this. We have people who are clearly Caucasian yet claim to be African-American, or claim to be “part” Native American. It’s often to gain prestige or a minority preference.  Or just to be “special.”

What better way to find something interesting about yourself, what indeed makes you unique and not just another hunk of protoplasm  like the average Joe or Jane next door, than to send your spit to a company that will tell you all about your distant past. 

It’s even available for animals.  A former client sent his rescue dog’s spit to some outfit to find out what kind of dog it was. Turned out his dog was just a dog; the results were inconclusive.  I don’t know what he was expecting. I don’t think it mattered much to the dog.       

I remember a similar fad years ago when people connected with their “past lives.” Curiously, almost everybody in their past life was somebody important and interesting. Nobody ever seemed to “remember” a past life where they were a peasant, a common whore, a horse thief, or the village idiot. What a surprise.   

Years ago my mother sent me a big packet of stuff about our family history. She had all this from when she applied to and was accepted into the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). She wanted me to apply to be accepted into the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR).

I found some of the background interesting – we are apparently descended from a Dutchman named Jacobus who fought in the American Revolution. But we’re also descended from a whole lot of other people, as most people are, in the intervening couple of centuries.  Weirdly, when I showed this information to a client of mine, it appeared that we might be distantly related, too. 

Then again, isn’t everybody? Go back far enough, maybe to the Olduvai Gorge, and you’ll find some link that makes us all somehow related.

Does it matter? To me, not so much.

As best as I can determine – and I haven’t looked that hard – my heritage is Dutch, English, Scottish, Irish, German and most likely whoever else my forbears found attractive, available, or too drunk or lazy to say no. There may be other nationalities in that mix but I don’t know.    

The thing is, I don’t care.  I have zero interest in having my DNA tested to find out where my ancestors were from. It just doesn’t matter to me. 

My distant ancestors have been dead a long, long time. I didn’t know any of them personally. As far as I’m concerned, they didn’t have much of an influence on who I’ve been so far. My grandparents, parents and aunts and uncles – and my parents’ closest friends – left their imprint on me much more than someone related to me who lived and died a century or so ago.

Where my long-dead ancestors originally came from is even less relevant to me.  I’m sure it was somewhat important to them.  But then again they left there to come here, so I guess it wasn’t important enough for them to stay put.   

Now, I’m not dismissing that you can get traits passed down from previous generations. However, I don’t think an affinity for balalaika music or bagpipes are among these.  

If you decide to get your DNA tested to find where your ancestors came from, the important thing is not to read too much into what you might find.

Simply because your family tree has a Native American, or for that matter an Eastern European or someone from Scotland, in its distant past doesn’t mean much. If you are a rational human being it shouldn't have a big effect on your everyday life. Or provide excuses. 

Cultural traits don’t usually survive past a few generations unless your ancestors just kept reproducing with people from their same culture, which, this being America after all, is highly unlikely. At some point in time someone probably strayed outside their ancestral and cultural herd and made a genetic deposit somewhere else. 

That’s how most of us got where we are today, genetically.  That’s actually a good thing overall. Cultures and ethnic groups that are very insular and typically marry within their group – such as the Amish and certain groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews – tend to have higher concentrations of genetically-related disorders. Heinz-57 mutts usually do better and are healthier than overly inbred purebreds That applies to humans as well as animals. Just look at the British royal family,      

Fortunately for the rest of us we are the product of generation after generation of diversifying the gene pool. And if you go back far enough, we’re all related in one way or another. 

Who any of us are – and the traits, allergies and whatever we inherited – is more a matter of the luck of the draw than anything else. 

If you decide to do the DNA tests to determine your ancestry, more power to you.  Have fun. 

For me, I’m okay with just being who I am now. An ordinary American.