Hope you have a happy Thanksgiving, if you celebrate such. It’s my favorite holiday. I so miss those huge family meals. If you get to experience such, take LOTS of photos and ask your family lots of questions about your past. Bring a written-out family tree on poster board and have people fill it in – and record the stories they tell as they do so.
Ancestry.com redid its DNA testing methods, and then went back and retested all their DNA tests on files. In their first round, I was mostly Scottish and Irish and Scandanavian, plus mixes of lots of other stuff. I was delighted. But in this next round, it says I am 73% English.
Oh, the disappointment. Just English. Nothing special. Colonizers. Oppressors.
The idea of being associated with the people who have been in Ireland and Scotland for the last several hundred years thrilled me. The idea of being as much Greek and Roman as I was English thrilled me. But, wham, better science, and suddenly, I’m just English.
I wrote on Facebook how disappointed I was to be so boring, and an English friend responded:
But what IS English? We’re a complete mixture. Aside from 2000 years of trade with Europe and beyond, mixing with the Celts, we’ve been invaded by Vikings (Scandinavian), Romans (from anywhere in the Empire from North Africa to the Balkans and Germany to Spain) and the Normans (french people of Nordic origin) so actually you’re still desperately exotic, windswept and interesting!!…
Okay, maybe it’s not so bad… and the reality is that the people I thought I was descended from in Ireland and Scotland didn’t even build all the rock circles there – the people that built those were smaller, darker, and share genetic heritage with the people in Sardinia now – and, sadly, were completely wiped out by the people I thought I was related to.
The more I study ancestry, the more I see that there’s no such thing as race, that we are all mutts. All of us. And there is SO much artificial construction in what gets defined as racial groups. And, yes, people have differences in their hair, skin, builds, shape of the face, vulnerability to disease… but not mental, emotional or creative capacities.
In other Ancestry.com news, I had a hard look at a 1880 census that I’d linked to one of my ancestors. And I realized it shows that the names of the two people I’ve been listing as my great, great grandmother’s parents were, in fact, her GRANDparents. Meaning one of those older sisters of hers is, in fact, her mom. Later documents, including her death certificate, call those two people her parents and, yet, looking at the ages and the earliest document, I know it’s not true. I know the 1880 census is very likely the truth, given the ages of those involved. I seem to be the only person among family on Ancestry.com that’s noticed… other family trees have all gone with the later info. I’ve wondered if this is why my great-grandmother – who I knew – was oh-so-tight-lipped about her family history: maybe she knew her older “sister” was, in fact, her mom.
Ancestry doesn’t make this kind of thing easy to incorporate. I had to delete an entire line of ancestry and start over in order to change a sibling to a parent.
I’ve also realized that my now great, great, great, great grandmother (there’s now an extra “great” in there) is not from Ireland. My Mom told me that once upon a time, and there is someone with that name and around that time on Ancestry, but it’s not her. That’s something I wish someone had told me early on about doing genealogy: no matter how archaic and unique you think an ancestor’s name is, you have to remember that, back in the day, there was very likely at least one person with that same name, living at the same time, and often, very nearby.
But the lines I want to know about most – my paternal grandmother’s Dad’s family – remain dead ends. I knew my great-grandfather, and I have no idea why, when I started doing genealogy, it was his family was I was so excited to trace. But they were poor and moved around a lot. There’s just no documentation on who his people were.
What does it all mean, really? I don’t know. I’ll be frank: I don’t like the idea of people choosing their identity exclusively through their ancestry. I cringe at people making comments that their ancestry somehow makes them more “in tune” with land or water, or specific land or water. Or people imply that they have a “special connection” to some kind of music because of their genetics. The culture you identify with absolutely influences you, and the culture you grew up with definitely conditions you to like, even love, certain things. So does your life experiences, which may be unique to you, different from others brought up in your culture. And as you encounter other cultures, through food, music, books, dance, movies and more, you are going to be further influenced to like, or feel a connection, to something. It’s why I love seeing a Japanese American singing Bluegrass. Or a Black American singing Italian opera.
I loved Scotland the moment I crossed its Southern border on the back of Stefan’s motorcycle. I dream of moving there. I was thrilled at the idea of being connected to the people that live there now, genetically, and I had hoped to find an ancestor who actually came from a specific town there, and visit that specific town someday. I loved that feeling of being Scottish. And now that I know I might not have any connection at all? I still love Scotland. I still dream of moving there.
My previous blogs on this topic:
Rethinking “indigenous” & DNA results
Ethnic, cultural, gender identity – good luck with your definitions
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