DNA is Interesting

This past spring  I decided to send off my saliva to Ancestry.com, who for a price were willing to analyze it with a view to where my DNA was from.

Off it went, and when the results came back I was astounded.  Look--my father was Mexican, which means an amalgam of Spanish and Native American, right? He impressed that idea on me when I was young; he said nearly all Mexicans had Indian blood, so don't get any high falutin' ideas. Also, you've heard the saying, "Scratch a Spaniard, find a Jew."  My dad's family came over in 1740, and I believe though  never was told that they were conversos who became Catholics to save their lives. I thought Sephardic Jew was a large part of my DNA.  I also thought, "Scratch a Spaniard, find a Moor," because the three groups lived in a fairly liveable truce for many years in Spain.

My mother's roots are English (the Temples and the Proctors, etc) and Scotch-Irish (The McClearys and the Dickeys).  So there you go, my DNA...half Spanish, half British Isles. Apparently it's not so simple.

When my results came back, I was astounded by them.  Sixty plus percent---Greek and Italian! What?
About 20 percent British Isles...OK, that.
Another largish percent...Iberian Peninsula (I guess that means the indigenous people or just a mix of all the above.)
And a little scrap of Native American and Jewish (by which I think they mean Ashkenazy, Sephardics are never mentioned), and a little scrap of African.

Greek and Italian? I was astounded. Where did those guys get into the woodpile? I couldn't believe it. So I went looking on the Internet, which is the library of our days.  

Well, it seems to be like this. The Romans were in Britain (the main time, there were other intrusions)..from about 45 AD to about 409 AD.  When they were called home and expelled from the cities, there were some who did not want to go, and went to--Ireland.  I am sure there were others who went to other places in the British Isles.  But sure it is from the bunch that went to Ireland that came my mother's ivory skin, brown eyes, and black hair. Anyway, so my Roman genes got into the British Isles but managed to stay kind of pure, pure enough to be recognized in the year 2014 by Ancestry.com.  And those Greeks? Well, many Greeks were enslaved by the Romans and I am sure, conquerors being what they are, managed to get their DNA into the line too.

So, good. From those genes comes my classically tragi-comic face and expression of pain which has made even dentists stop in mid-drill and ask, "Am I hurting you?"  No, I say, that's just my face.  Nothing erases it but smiling, which works well when I think of it.

So, as I get it, and I am not sure I have it, for Ancestry did not explain anything much, our genes are our very own.  If each of my four sisters got their DNA done by Ancestry, each might come out different: there's a huge tub of genes for our Maker to choose from.  I urge my sisters, who have been hanging back hoping they would not have to send in the seventy dollars and vial of spit, to get their DNA done, so we can see what each one got from the barrel. Interesting, no? It is to me.