Oral tradition has been part of society since humans could utter a string of sounds with different meanings. Family Stories Month is a continuation of that but focused on one’s family. I don’t have many fun stories of my family, but I did recently have my DNA tested by Ancestry.com. It started a little weird because it first said there was a lot of Spanish ancestry. There were many people like me who had Spanish or Portuguese ancestry who later did not. Some of those people like me then had Irish and Scottish ancestry. To sum it up, I think lots of people in Europe were having lots of sex in other countries.
The DNA results on Ancestry keep changing, not because of mistakes, but because their science keeps getting better. It’s possible the numbers I’m about to share will change in the future, but for now this is what it says. 41% English and Northwestern Europe. Most of that coming from North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire according to Ancestry. 27% Scottish. 13% European Jewish. 10% Irish. 8% Norwegian. 1% Swedish. Many of my ancestors settled in the Missouri Ozarks and East Tennessee. I knew I had family in East Tennessee, so this was no surprise. I still claim some Hispanic ancestry but it’s more likely I’d be called Black Irish.
It was fun getting my DNA tested and seeing what components make up who I am. I’ll call myself a Jewish Viking from Scotland. That’s got a nice ring to it. There are other websites that took the information from my Ancestry DNA and took it a step further and listed the ancestors from the time of the Dark Ages and before. That was a fun history lesson I don’t want to get into at the moment. Anyway, that’s some fun family history of mine. Tell me about yours if you know it.
James Pack 