How do you define yourself -- ethnically, culturally?
As my friend & fellow writer Natasha Oliver says in her post on the Holiday Blog Tour: We might believe we're different, but we're more alike than we realize.
As a Christmas gift I bought my parents each a 23andMe kit, the same test that's featured on the PBS program Finding Your Roots hosted by Professor Henry Louis Gates. It's also the same test that the FDA is trying to shut down because of the health information component. But we were mainly interested in our recent and ancient ancestry.
Oh, we thought we knew ourselves.
The boundaries of how I had defined myself culturally are an
illusion. That we are different is an illusion. My world got bigger and smaller at the same time. How amazing that our skin, our blood contains this crazy treasure map of history.
I feel the endless stories that brought me to my own. I am spinning in the vastness of possibility.
1 comment:
A social climber I know was researching her genealogy searching for important ancestors. She finally did the DNA test and found out she was probably descended from slaves.Her son found it hilarious. She gave up on genealogy. Problem with genealogy is that it assumes that every woman tells the truth. DNA doesn't lie!
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