Friday, January 2, 2009

DNA Illusions

Recently, I had my DNA tested through www.familytreedna.com -- I’m not really sure why. Sid asked me that same question when I got the results: How was my life different now I had this information? I’m still not sure. I guess I went into it with the same sense of longing to belong that led me to my intensive searches to find my father. All I can really do at this point is repeat that famous comment by the perplexed and cautious—the process has been very interesting.

The test itself was easy enough. Family Tree sent me three tubes and a scraper to wipe down the inside of my cheek for 60 seconds. That surprised me because on the cop shows on TV they just take one swab. Not here. They wanted repeated wipes and even then said that sometimes the test had to be repeated. I dutifully swapped my cheeks sore and put the results into the tubes. Then I mailed it back and waited. They said it would take six weeks, but it took only three. Then I was sent a printout of lines of data, which presumably were some of the building blocks of my physical existence. They were all as incomprehensible to me as the fact of my existence among a world of so many possibilities. Why me? The DNA strands they reported held no answers.

Where things became interesting was in the comparisons to other people. They have 250,000 results in their database and the number grows daily. They sent me 73 names and e-mails of people sharing my genetic code, all of whom had agreed to be contacted. These people turned out to be primarily in Germany, Scotland, and England, with an admixture of French, Polish, Irish, and Swedish. Some of this made sense: my parents were strongly Scots and English so I expected that. Germany and France didn’t really surprise me either, given the pattern of invasions of the British Isles. But as it turned out, all the conclusions I jumped to were completely wrong. The movement of people was not towards England, where I was born, but spread throughout Europe of which England was only a part.

In my egocentric way, I initially used this list of national origins to bolster romantic illusions of my being unique. If I had not sprung whole from the thigh of Zeus then certainly I imagined that I was related to the Scythians, whose women warriors I once wrote about, whose people swept across the Steppes and forced their wills on the original people of Europe. Without DNA, I was free to imagine whoever I wanted to be.

Then I read the material that came with the results. Back down to earth. I belong to Haplogroup H, which means that I am descended from Helena, one of the so-called daughters of Eve—the seven women from whom most modern Europeans are descended. She is said to have been the most genetically successful of the women and her descendants, including me, can be found throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe. Well, I guess you can add the Americas too. She lived about 20,000 years ago on the borders of France and Spain, her people having migrated from the Middle East. In fact, she has been so successful genetically that nearly forty percent of modern Europeans are descended from her. So much for being unique. I am child of Europe, with all the wars and conflicts and achievements that entails.

I think what I’ve learned most from doing this test is a renewed sense of wonder that one woman can be the common ancestor of so many. Despite all the famines, diseases, and wars, her genes survived. That makes us all survivors, because what are the odds of our existence anyway?—and to be carrying within us the genetic inheritance that traces back to single individuals is amazing.

Now that I think about it, I think I'll tell Sid that rekindling the sense of wonder is maybe worth the whole process.

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