A lot of us have heard the wise tale “we are derived from such and such tribe, nation”, and always thought that what we were told was the absolute truth. Then as you tell others the same story that you were told as a child, the listeners would respond with “are you sure about that?” Which would lead to arguments, discussions, and in my case (among other factors) to do research about my family lineage.
As I put in the welcome on the about this site page, I am an amateur genealogist. What put me on this path to discovery were a host of multiple unknowns, including the one I mentioned in the opening paragraph. I was also curious about the origins of my family, on both sides, paternal and maternal. Another reason was being fascinated in finding out which continents/countries I have blood ties to.
The origins aspect is real big with me as I have no known knowledge of anyone on the paternal side of my family. My father passed when I was an infant, after that there was lost contact with that side. I wondered “well, I have a whole side I know nothing about, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents that I’ve never met”, that’s a feeling that has always gnawed at me.
I informed my mother about it, and she was in favor of my decision, she said “there are millions of people, who are in your place and never have the insight to do what you’re doing”. She also was the one that told me the “we’re derived from here” story. After she said that, my curiosity wanted to solidify the statement, and also to see what else was there to be found.
First place I went to embark on my journey, was DNA Consultants, a dna processing company that offers several types of ancestral tests. I submitted a sample, using their DNA Fingerprint Plus test, and the results were wondrous and informative to me. I found that I’m connected to peoples from 5 of the 7 continents, only ones I didn’t connect with were, Australia and Antarctica (for obvious reasons). Reading the well explained breakdown of the report piqued my curiosity of what more there is to my family lineage. Since the first test, I have taken several other autosomal tests to compare the information.
The tests didn’t differ in the alleles matching, but the nationalities didn’t always match. I wondered why were some of the countries of origin not matching each test. With a little research, I learned that not each company has access to the same ethnic dna samples, so armed with that knowledge I came to narrow the focus to the four general ethnic groups of African, European, Native, Asian.
Because I’m a seeker and distributer of knowledge, I have shared my research and information with others, (as I am with you the reader), sometimes with glowing support, and other times individuals would recoil. It’s that latter crowd that I’m trying to reach more, because there is a fear that if the mind is expanded to see that they are closer to others than they believe, it would change their viewpoints greatly.
I heard once, that all people originated from one place and then migrated to the rest of the world. If you believe this, then it is a fascinating idea to imagine that a simple saliva sample can connect us. Shouldn’t that be the goal, to be closer together than further apart? We are all family in one way or another, and speaking of finding family.
In my research studying about dna and what family ties I may have in the world. I have been able to come across 3rd thru 6th cousins, which without this pursuit I’d have never known. They may not be close relations, but were related somehow none the less, that makes it very exciting to converse with people, and try to find out where we have a mutual ancestor. That’s the type of joy this project brings to me, to discover family I never knew.
I will continue this exciting journey, and I’ll share my results, and proclaim that there is nothing to be afraid of, when learning your origin story. Why not substantiate the stories of “where are you from” that you heard as a youth? Why not dig a bit deeper and see if you’re related to royalty somewhere in the centuries long past? You never know until you take that leap and start your own journey. Jump on that ancestry train and travel to all the possibilities.
By Christian Parker
