Have you heard the commercial for one of the DNA kits? It’s something funny about spitting in a “tuuuuube.” Or seen this article in the New York Times about a spit party?!
The typical DNA kit from one of the big processing outfits (Ancestry.com, 23 & me…) costs about $100 and is ordered online.
A beautifully designed kit, about the size of a Roku, arrives in your mailbox and you are given all sorts of instructions and expectations are set. You are given a tube to spit into, an envelope to send it back to the lab, an access code to where your results will populate and stories of other people who’s DNA tests gave them interesting results. It gives you hope. It gives you the chance to have something interesting in your life, that is new and unexpected.
I can’t say for sure why I waited so long to buy the kit in the first place. It felt like a silly thing to spend so much money on. But I really wanted to know so, what is $100 in the grand scheme of things? I’d gone back and forth on going through with it since I found out about kits. Heck, I would spend more than $100 on a pair of shoes, so why did finding out about my lineage make it seem like too much money? I have been curious to learn about my DNA for most of my life. I look like my mom and dad, and my uncle says I look like my maternal great-grandma, but who else? Who else has my huge forehead or gets canker sores a lot? I must look like other people. My stupid canker sores must be genetic and I’d love to tell them how I figured out how to get them to go away. I was nervous about the potential of Christmas, I’m Jewish, it’s not something I fully understand. Isn’t that silly? But it was true. I was terrified I’d have to explain why I don’t speak to my dad regularly or that I’d have to explain to someone new about my complicated relationship with him.
I was nervous about what I would find out. I was anxious and excited that I would find out I was related to Reese Witherspoon (people say she is my doppelganger) or an infamous serial killer. I was worried that I might be rejected by a family that wasn’t interested or didn’t believe me. I was scared that I would feel rejected, again, by something or someone related to my dad.
As a kid, I always dreamed of what it would be like to meet my father’s, biological family. My dream was always a TV version of Christmas with a bunch of women hugging me with the same face as my dad. The house was like Ricky Schroeder’s in Silver Spoons. The tree was enormous and had bright multi-colored lights with an all-white angel on top. Everyone was blonde like me, 80’s type skinny and super affectionate. Everyone smiled and spoke about loving being a family. Presents were plenty. I remember dreaming of piles of ripped wrapping paper, but never specific presents. I think I just wanted the affection. I just wanted to be part of a family that expressed unconditional love physically and materialistically.
My moms family had many people I don’t ever remember meeting. Growing up, my mom didn’t spend a lot of time with her siblings and my dad doesn’t have any. My parents hated each other for most of my life. I don’t remember much about when they were married. But I do remember during and after their divorce (sometimes, even still today – more than 30 years later) if I talked about one parent the other would trail off into either a long lecture about how bad the other was or would stop interacting with me and move on. I just wanted a normal family, so that is what I envisioned my dad’s biological family would provide, stability and unconditional love for each other.
In January of 2017, I finally spit in the “tuuuube” and sent in my kit. I got an email that it was received on January 13 and that it was going to be processed. They said that they had a high volume of kits to process and that they would keep me informed. I sort of forgot about it, until I got an email from them, at the beginning of March, I was super excited and then quickly disappointed because they were just letting me know that they were still processing the kit.
On March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, 2017, I found out I was 4% Irish. Ern Go Braugh (or something like that). Red hair mystery solved! Woo! End of story. — Not so fast! I am 48% Eastern European Jewish (Duh – my mom’s family claims to know their lineage pretty well), 31% Scandinavian, 13% Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and a smattering of other things, including Irish and >1% Native American. I immediately shared this with my husband and brother. Then my mom and sister. How exciting! I know my background. It felt so wonderful to have answers about why I was so blonde, had blue eyes and fair-skinned (assume the 31% Scandinavian). It was closer to actual people, I have DNA matches.
Stella’s red hair is from my dad’s side too. There must be redheads in the Scandinavian and Irish lineage.
Where Does That Red Hair Come From? 