Kiss me, I'm...not really sure what I am

Due to some twists and turns like adoptions and closets with skeletons, I really don't know much about my biological history. My gene pool is more like a dog's water dish. I can trace my DNA to my mother, my father, and one grandma. I am certain of only six people currently walking the planet that share any of my genetics. Our family reunions can be held in a minivan.

My Charlie Brown Christmas family tree has never really bothered me, except for that time in high school when we were instructed to map our lineage. I dutifully filled out the big sheet of butcher paper with names of people whom I considered family, but it felt disingenuous since the purpose of the assignment wasn't so much family as biology. I really didn't feel like explaining my "situation" to my teacher so I forged ahead as if I shared blood with all the names on my chart. Eh, an A is an A.

The only aspect of my ethnicity that I know for sure is Scandinavian...via that one grandma. Other than that, my ethnic heritage is anyone's guess. And most people guess Italian. It makes sense, given my olive skin, dark hair, and profound love of pasta. So for years, that has been my assumption: I am probably Italian with some Scandinavian mixed in for giggles.

With a dropped hint that he expertly picked up, Rob got me a very unique and technologically mind-blowing Christmas present last year: a DNA sample kit from Ancestry.com.

All I had to do was spit in a vial (morning spit prior to any food or toothpaste was best, per instructions) and ship it off in a self-mailer to a lab across the country. There were all sorts of matching stickers with long identification numbers and a list of identity-preserving instructions. It was a lot like filling out a Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes entry. Make no mistake: the spit and ensuing results are all me.

About two weeks later, an email arrived announcing my DNA results were ready and viewable online. Finally, I would be able to own my Italian heritage with confidence! Buono!

I logged into my account, clicked on the "See Full Ethnicity Estimate" box, and stared incredulously at the list that appeared. According to my spit, I am:

30% Great British (England, Scotland, Wales)
23% Western European (Belgium, France, Germany, etc.)
12% Irish
11% Native American
  8% Iberian (Spain, Portugal)
  5% Eastern European (lots of Slavic countries)
  5% Italian/Greek
  3% Finnish/Northwestern Russian
  2% Scandinavian
  1% Northern African (Algeria, Morocco, Libya)

I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed. I am barely the one thing I knew for sure (Scandinavian)! And hardly much more of the thing I always assumed (Italian)! In fact, I have nearly twice as much Native American in me as both of those combined. Huh, what?? My greedy, politically incorrect heart sunk at the thought of all those missed scholarships. If I had only known. (Yeah, I know.  Let's move on.)

And Irish? Really? Yes, fine, I will admit my favorite color is green, the only beer I will drink is dark sludgy stuff like Guinness, and anyone who can make snakes disappear is my hero...but really? Irish? I know some at-least-partially Irish people who are fiercely proud of their Irishness. I have watched their national fervor from afar with an amused curiosity but I have never felt drawn to be a part of their clan. Are they my people after all?

And Great Britain and Western Europe. Yay. How exciting. Here I have long fancied myself something relatively exotic, like Mediterranean with a dash of Turkish maybe, since I blended in so well in Istanbul. Instead my blood is about a white bread as you can get. Brilliant.

I have been sitting with these results for over a month, trying to reconcile the reality I thought I knew with the reality according to "microarray-based autosomal DNA testing which surveys a person's entire genome at over 700,000 locations."

At first I was somewhat confused that I wasn't the person I thought I was. But after some reflection and soul-soothing spaghetti, I realized nothing had actually changed at all. Sure, I have some new information, but it doesn't change who I am, what I love, how I choose to live my life, or where I want to go on vacation.

But one thing might change.  I might have a new answer to the question "what ethnicity are you?" Maybe from now on I'll just say "all-American mutt." Hard to argue with a mircoarray of autosomes.

My people