Dude. Have you written this up? You know I tend toward disdain in the mystical. But I'd love to read your story.
Re: SteveS' question, I will never submit my dna to such a service. But my adoptive sister did; and thereby found her bio-mom and bio-sisters. She always cared about that, whereas I could not care less. But I am happy for her, because she is very happy about finding them. I did sign over the rights to take, keep, and use my dna for cancer therapy. So, maybe, 6 to one, half a dozen to the other. On October 17, 2021 10:06:54 AM PDT, Prof David West <profw...@fastmail.fm> wrote: >Haven't done the DNA test, but did inherit an extensive genealogy simply >because that is what Mormons do. Nothing particularly notable (the brother of >William the Conqueror was an ancestor, the owner of most of the track across >Nevada — Ogden to Reno — was a relative). I visited most of the villages in >Netherlands, Western Germany, and the castle in England where ancestors once >lived, but none of the ones in Ireland. > >The villages in Holland and Germany, at the time my ancestors lived there, >were centers of radical / mystical Christian sects; maybe my mystical bent was >genetically inherited? > >davew > > >On Sun, Oct 17, 2021, at 10:21 AM, Steve Smith wrote: >> Barry wrote: >>> The author Isabel Wilkerson wrote two books which I’ve read in the >>> last year or two. The second one was “Caste, The Origins of our >>> Discontents.” In it, she looks at castes in three countries: India, >>> the US, and Germany. She notes the extent to which the Nazis, once >>> they had control of the government and needed to write laws supporting >>> their scourges, followed the template of the American south. At one >>> point, on the matter of who was to be considered a Jew, they looked at >>> the American definition of a negro as one having “a single African >>> American anywhere in your family tree”. For the Nazis that was a >>> bridge too far, so they stopped looking past the grandparents. The >>> American criterion was more than they thought they could sell to the >>> German people. >>> >>> The other book she wrote, “The Warmth of Other Suns” is a history of >>> the Great Migration, the flight of six million from the south to the >>> north in the US, was a real eye-opener for me. I had never understood >>> how brutal Jim Crow was. >> >> I took the plunge a few years ago for one of the ancestry DNA tests and >> was shocked but not surprised. In spite of the family >> stories/folk-geneology tracing my roots back to mostly germany/poland >> with a schosch of Scottish, the DNA test claimed 95% Scandinavian and 5% >> North African. Mary took the same test and got results much more >> aligned with her family story (Irish/English/Welsh). Her father who >> could pass for native (heavily tanned from outdoor work, very dark >> hair/eyes) wanted to claim Native Ancestry but couldn't place it in a >> family tree (generations in Nebraska). Mary's test came back as >> "clean" as Elizabeth Warren's. >> >> My mother passed recently and with her passing I received a 3 drawer >> file-cabinet of the working papers she had from when she was tracing her >> geneology a few years ago. While her mother emigrated from Germany as >> a child around 1900 with a full Polish mother, and full German father, >> her father's nameline (Graham) went back to pre-revolutionary days *IN* >> Kentucky, my great great great therefore being a contemporary of Daniel >> Boone I suppose. That line mingled with that of a Scottish sea captain >> about 1800. >> >> The 95% Scandinavian isn't inconceivable from any portion of northern >> Europe. The 5% north African was an interesting surprise. The maps >> they offer up of "North Africa" leaves room for a wide range of ethnic >> origens with anything from Nubian to Arab to Moor to Berber to >> Harrarian. I don't know that it relieves my ancestors of having >> included slaveholding. My parents were both quite proud (for >> Kentuckians) of being "damn Yankees" which might have been an element of >> "protest too much"? I don't know there is anything legitimate for me >> to feel proud or embarrassed about in my presumed 5% (less than a >> quantum?) but I felt both in passing. My parents both considered >> themselves proud "mutts". >> >> A different genetic-marker database (different company, etc.) might well >> have given me different results. I don't think these things are as >> bogus as astrology or palm reading, but I suspect that in spite of their >> scientific roots, they are more about vanity or confirmation bias than >> anything. Throwing my DNA against a few different database walls and >> seeing what sticks might provide some parallax, but I'm not sure I care >> really. >> >> While I grew up thinking my parents were very progressive about >> racial/ethnic issues, by the time my sister was dating in earnest, they >> tried to call her off her first boyfriend whose family were Mexican (we >> lived on the border and his great grandparents had been born en-situ >> *before* the area shifted from MX to US) and a later one whose father >> was African American and (deceased) mother was Phillipina. While they >> were gentle about it, I was shocked at the hypocrisy. By the time my >> father was retired, he was listening to Rush Limbaugh and my mother >> voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and probably 2020. I'm sure they voted >> (near) straight-ticket Republican most of their lives. My sister and >> her husband lived/worked in Spain and Chile through their 50s and ended >> up not much less biased. Go figure. >> >> Anyone else do the genetic heritage testing thing? We know Sarbajit's >> status. Who can claim a quantum of Native American, Neanderthal or >> Ghengis Khan? Who cares? >> -- glen ⛧ .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
