Citizen of the World
Have you ever wondered how you got where
you are? Have you ever wondered how your people arrived where you are now? Have
you ever wondered about your ancestry? Your heritage? Your lineage?
I adopted their ancestry. Many adopted children grow up to be adults that want to find their birth parents.
I don’t blame someone for wanting to do that, to find the parents that gave birth to them. But it is not for me.
I have seen many shows on television dealing with ancestry, finding links throughout the world through DNA, (Deoxyribonucleic acid), the building blocks of life.
Since
seeing these shows, I have wanted to do this myself.
This year for my birthday one of my
sisters gave me a voucher for a DNA kit. The company in question divides the
world into 5 regions (instead of the 7 continents.) The final results would show me
what countries had matches for my DNA, based on those 5 regions. I entered
the information for the voucher online; a few weeks later I received my kit. I
followed the instructions, swabbed the inside of my cheek, sealed the samples
in an envelope, and sent them back to the company. A few weeks later I now have
my results.
Going in, I thought Ireland would be the
top of the list for a DNA match. I was told that the name of my birth parents
is Irish. I love Irish music; it speaks to my soul like no other. I would have
bet money that the number one country match would have been Ireland. That’s
not what I found out.
I received an e-mail today that my
results were ready. I went to a website, logged in, and saw my results. I saw
that there was a list of top country matches in each region, and how my DNA
matched (or did not match) other countries in the same region. I mainly
concentrated on the top 5 countries, the countries with the strongest match.
Here then are my results. My DNA was
found in the following countries:
Greece-Afghanistan-Honduras-Rwanda-Australia
Seeing these results makes me think back
to the time of Pangea, the immense continent that once contained all 7
continents. With that image in mind, these results make sense. We were once all connected. We are all connected still.
I don’t know which of the 5 countries or
regions has the stronger link. I don’t know which country is my country of
origin. It could be one of those 5, or another country all together. (If I want
to do one, I can do an ancestry test, also using DNA, to find my actual country
of origin. But, the test is $100; I probably won’t be doing that.)
I don’t know where my ancestors came
from, or how they came to the U.S. It is understood, being an American, that
other than the Native American Indian tribes, everyone else came to this
country somehow. As my President said, the U.S. is “…a nation of immigrants.” Our
ancestors came here. Somehow. It’s
the same for you. Some way, somehow, we all got where we are now.
I knew that I was American and something else
too. But I did not know what. Now I know-I am American, Scottish, Irish, English, Grecian,
Afghani, Honduran, Rwandan and Australian!
We were once all connected. We are all
connected still. It is the same for all of us. I am just like you.
I am a citizen of the world.
© Esperanza
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