Today is Saint Patrick's Day. It began as a Catholic feast to honor Saint Patrick. It has grown to be a holiday to honor Irish people in general and Irish people in particular in the US.
Who is Irish? That is a great question. The most obvious answer is people living in or from Ireland. Perhaps we could add people with Irish names. But to get a real answer, we need to get the results of DNA testing.
In my case I can trace ancestors back to the German town of Hamelin. I have been in this little town. It was made famous by the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I assumed that my ancestors came from Germany, England, Wales, and Scotland. My DNA report told a different story. I do have ancestors from Germany, England, Wales, and Scotland. I also have a substantial number of Irish ancestors. I have ancestors from Holland, Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. Elena got a huge surprise when her DNA results came back. She assumed that she would have ancestors from Italy, Spain, France, and perhaps Morocco. When the DNA results came back, they affirmed her ancestors from Italy, Spain, and France. No ancestors from Morocco showed up. What did show up was a substantial number of ancestors from Ireland. She also had ancestors from the indigenous Indians of South America.
There is a lot of controversy about DNA tests. It centers on privacy issues and the idea of who owns the information about you. DNA tests answer a question central to all our lives as follows:
"Who am I?"
No comments:
Post a Comment