Analysis

My immediate family has or is doing DNA analysis through 23andMe. I sent off my test in February, and my results came back about a month ago. I had an almost out-of-body reaction to them. They were different-ish than the results I had received from the DNATribes test, for various reasons (analyzing mitochondrial DNA for the maternal line only instead of looking at autosomal data, etc.). My ancestry proved both more and less amorphous than before.

I am, according to 23andMe, 99.5% European: 6.1% French and German, 4.9% British and Irish, 0.8% Scandinavian, 0.7% Finnish, plus 53% "Nonspecific" Northern European; 10.8% Ashkenazi plus 0.2% "Nonspecific" Southern European; and 23% European mutt that is indecipherable as any particular group. Then there's 0.2% North African, and 0.4% "Unassigned." Curious.

I suppose that all my German jokes must cease; I cannot say that I am actually French and not German out of that 6.1%. Funny. I do feel vindicated by the 10.8% Ashkenazi, as I have written before. Although I never would have thought of myself as Jewish (being raised by Scandinavian and Irish people who told me that my background was German and Irish, which it is, at least in part), I was recognized as one by members of the tribe when I was 18. They knew, I didn't. That sixth sense of belonging?

I remember when I first contacted my brother, and I asked, "Are we Jewish?" He said, "No. Why?" And we aren't, technically, since my mother and grandmother aren't. No one had ever asked my brother if he were Jewish (maybe it's the difference in our looks, or the way I carry myself, or the different company we keep?), but we have Ashkenazi blood in our family tree somewhere. I wonder if I can figure out which ancestors.

I have spent so much of my life imagining links to unknown people, and thinking that I do what I do because of some gift bestowed upon me by an ancestor. I still believe in the power of genes, to some extent; I see genetic influence in my own biological children, all the time: quirks of grandparents or of their father and me, working themselves out in new ways in my sons (interests, intellectual strengths, expression of emotions, etc.). I am realizing, however, that there are too many variables to tease out any particular, meaningful influences. I owe biology; I owe nurture; I owe myself; I owe my friends; I owe the School of Hard Knocks.

My interest in and facility for languages, for example. My aparents are not language people, not one bit.  I have always loved languages, and began studying French when I was eight, and picked up German high school (I loved reading the Chalet School books as a girl in England, and thought that having different language days at boarding school would have been great--immersion, baby!). I added on Russian and Greek, Latin, Spanish, Irish, Welsh through the years. I mean, if you learn one Celtic language, why not attempt two, so that you can read the Mabinogi in the original? Yeah, big geek. I know.

I have mentioned before that my nmother, C, majored in French and Spanish and taught languages as her career. I only learned this when I was 28. It wasn't some "dream" that I wanted to be like her all my life. It was simply serendipitous, while it makes sense. But at the same time, I take that interest to a degree that is obsessive compared to my mother, who likes languages, but taught them as a job and doesn't choose to read books in foreign languages for personal enjoyment.

Age and friendships have also shaped whatever my genetic inheritance was. It doesn't hurt that Thomenon, one of my best friends, grew up speaking French and was immersed in French culture through the armature of colonialism. He introduced me to Trenet and Piaf, because his parents and aunts listened to them. He has helped me to think critically about Duras and Baudelaire in ways that I wouldn't on my own. He corrects my pronunciation with a raised eyebrow and loving shake of the head, having been put through his own wringer, with the nuns, chez his aunts, and at the Sorbonne. He thinks so poetically, I cannot but help to try to do the same. Now I can also add my own experiences to thinking about poetry and drama and literature, having been around the block more than a few times myself (as I've written before, some literature becomes more meaningful with age).

I began by saying that I had an out-of-body reaction to the results. This was, I believe, because I see myself as not belonging, in particular, to anyplace or anyone (except, perhaps, to my children). I may have successfully walled off my feelings and desires (or, I hope, reconciled with them), and for a moment, reaction to what I don't have flashed through the wall. I have spent too many years, though, thinking about the what ifs, or wanting to know things that might illuminate some secret part of me. I would undoubtedly have been a different person, had I not been placed for adoption, but the life I am living now is all I have.

All this to say that my DNA results mean something, something big perhaps, but are still only a drop in the bucket of understanding myself. How much of me is "nonspecified," meaning it's as amorphous as I want it to be? There is no magic key to understanding me. Only time and interest and patience.

I am all for taking some parts of DNA results as they are today with huge grains of salt: my report also said that I was likely shorter than average (nope, taller) and had a worse than average memory (nope, make me laugh!). Shoddy science, relying on only analysis of isolated gene expression and studies with a sample size of 20 or less. Humans are far too complicated to quantify in that manner. *sigh*

On the positive side, the DNA test did figure out my 35% increased risk for blood clots. LOL If only I (and my MDs) had known that five years ago. But then I wouldn't be as thin as I am today. Thank you, blood clot! /sarcasm