When I was young, I used to sit in front of the mirror in my parents’ bedroom. It was a standing wooden-framed mirror, with a small drawer set beneath. Pre-teenage me would sit there and pull faces at myself, watching as my features transformed. For the people that know me really well, this is the way I managed to chip one of my front teeth, as one of my elbows gave way while I was busy baring my teeth at my reflection.
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Even at that age, I was already becoming curious about the question of where I came from. I grew up in South Africa, and I remember constantly scanning strangers’ and friends’ faces, searching for similarities with my own. I would watch my parents’ features, noticing that my face shape and hair colouring was similar to my Mum’s, while my eyes and lips seemed to be identical copies of my Dad’s. The question of who I was had become limited to my physical appearance at this stage, but I’d like to think that this interest was also the very first spark to what would become a bonfire-like love of travel and learning about different cultures.
It was only when I started attending school that I realised that my parents had a different accent to other parents I encountered, and that I could understand (and, at that time, speak) two different languages. It would take me a few years before I visited Poland for the first time, but I had already grown well acquainted with the country thanks to my parents.
Whether this was through them telling me stories of their own childhoods or showing me photos – some of them black and white or being impossibly tiny, with cookie-cutter decorative edges – Poland started to come alive for me well before I set foot in the country. It was a strange relationship for me, as I was born in South Africa and sounded the part too – and to this day, I still tend to refer to myself as being South African as a default.
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An obligatory photo of my sister and I in our childhood home – along with our new puppy.
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And a little later on: my wonderful family.
But when I did travel to Poland, and maybe because of those stories and photos, I felt like I could immediately connect to the country. I recognised relatives I had never met before, could understand the language and visited landmarks that had served as backdrops for my parents’ photos. I already had a love for Polish food, having eaten pierogi and other indulgent dishes every Christmas and special occasion. But one of the things that made me feel instantly connected was seeing familiar faces all around me, and seeing strangers that looked like me or other members of my family.
Even though I knew that my parents and their families had their roots firmly within Poland, there were other stories swirling in our family history. There were rumours and hints that indicated that there were a few mysteries tied to our genealogy, especially the further back we looked.
Some of our relatives had unusual surnames, so there was a rumour that there was some Swedish blood in our family. And then there were the strong connections to Russia too. A lot of this is unsurprising, if you think about it, since European borders have been fluid over the past few hundred years, where some modern-day countries were once called something else entirely or fell within a larger empire.
Some of my family members had done a little research before, especially my maternal uncle and my father (who even managed to unearth a coat of arms associated with his surname), but this had always and inevitably reached a dead end, which usually coincided with a conclusion of the paper trail.
Thanks to technological means, there was, however, another way that I managed to get a glimpse into our genetic past. Quite a while ago, I was approached by Momondo to take an AncestryDNA test, and this seemingly simple task changed a lot for me, and has definitely led to some very animated family conversations. And it continues to do so even today – but we’ll get to that later.
It all started when a neatly packaged box dropped through our mail slot one morning. I knew it would be making an appearance soon, but I still felt like there was a bubble of excitement just about to burst within my chest as I drew out the kit from its packaging.
With something as complex as my genetic history at stake, the AncestryDNA process is, thankfully, very simple. All components within the kit were clearly labelled and the information set out in simple-to-follow steps. The gist of this process: you have to send AncestryDNA a small test tube of your saliva. I completed the steps, used the pre-paid postage packaging included in the kit and dropped it all off at the postbox in my neighbourhood.
Fast forward a few weeks, and an email arrived in my inbox, telling me that my results were finally ready. I would love to tell you that I responded to this news in a totally breezy and nonchalant way… but I would be lying. Instead, I put it off for hours, waiting until I returned home from work in order to fully absorb myself in whatever those results would be.
And what were those results? Well, that’s where things get rather interesting.
When I speak to other people who have also taken an AncestryDNA test, we all seem to share the same sentiment: it feels like it’s a gift that keeps on giving.
That’s because, since my test all those months ago, my initial results have changed, and that’s what has prompted me to finally write this post.
As technology and testing improves, AncestryDNA doesn’t isolate the effects of these improvements to people taking their test for the first time. Instead, as more and more people take the test, the overall sample improves, and this has very recently led to an update across all AncestryDNA genetic results.
I actually had an entirely different post sitting in my drafts when an email popped up, saying that my results might look a little different the next time I logged in. I don’t see this as a bad thing in any way, however, especially as the most recent update makes a whole lot more sense than those first results!
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My very first set of AncestryDNA results…
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And my current set!
As you can see, my initial results showed an unsurprising lean towards Eastern Europe, with a whopping 88% of my genetics being allocated to this region. The rest was divided among a few other regions, with the most confusing results showing 8% to Great Britain and 3% from Ireland/Scotland and Wales. Since I had no indicators within Western Europe, my family had no clue about how/when we became connected to the United Kingdom, especially as we had never heard of the link before.
Another curiosity came from a 1% representation from a region labelled as Finland and Northwest Russia.
As soon as I had read through these initial results, I contacted my immediate family and what followed was a whole lot of speculation. Our conclusion, at that time, was that the Baltic coast of Poland would’ve seen a lot of maritime traffic, and maybe that’s where the UK connection originated.
With the most recent update, though, that conclusion has swiftly made its way out the window.
Although the vast majority of my genetics is still attributed to Eastern Europe, this big region has been refined. So I now have an almost-even split between the Eastern Europe and Russia grouping and a new group called the Baltic States. AncestryDNA then goes on to single out Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania as my strongest geographical matches.
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A new minor region for me: Norway, plus an opportunity to read more about the potential connection.
The minor regions were the biggest change in the recent update, where that initial UK result seems to have stemmed from the fact that I have European Jewish genetics, and this genetic grouping covers almost all of the European continent.
One of the biggest surprises was – undoubtedly – a 3% result for Norway, a country I’m obsessed with, both for its landscapes and its Viking history. So, those rumours of a Swedish connection? Well, maybe it was a Norwegian link instead!
I have no doubts that my results will change even more over time, and I’m looking forward to watching these numbers move as the science improves. AncestryDNA also allows users to see whether there are any close genetic matches with other people who’ve taken the test. I haven’t had any of these matches yet – so I’m hoping I’ll get to meet long-lost relatives in the future too.
For anyone sitting on the fence about these sorts of tests, I would recommend doing one like this for so many reasons. The most obvious one is for satisfying simple curiosity; if you’ve ever wondered where in the world you and your family come from (and can’t rely on written records to find the answers), this is a way to discover a few more clues. I don’t know if all readers will remember this, but Momondo did a big ad campaign where people discovered their genetic history, with a final message that finding out what we have in common with other people can be extremely profound.
Not that I’ve ever really needed a reason for travelling more – but discovering my genetic results has made me want to learn more about all of the places and cultures highlighted in my results. I’m lucky enough that I had been to quite a few of those countries already, like Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia and Estonia, but I’m hoping to visit Lithuania and more of Eastern Europe next year – and I would love to explore even more of Norway too. I’ve also made real progress in gaining confidence to speak Polish again – which I haven’t done since I was a young child!
It’s been so many years since those afternoons in front of the mirror in my childhood home, and my understanding of the question of ‘where I come from’ has become influenced by so many more factors: where I’ve lived, places I’ve had strong connections to and ideologies I uphold. But, at the crux of it all, my family is undoubtedly the most important priority in my life, and I feel very lucky that I’ve been able to begin unravelling more information about our shared genetic past.
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How about you? Have you ever done a genealogy test like this, and what did you discover? Let me know in the comments below!
The post Discovering My Genetic Heritage with AncestryDNA appeared first on Lines of Escape.