We Are All Connected

Always thought I was mostly German because my paternal great-great grandparents emigrated from Germany in the mid 1800s. But my own research, including the 23andMe results you see in the photo, show I’m more than 50% Irish and British because both sides of my ancestry had roots in what’s now the United Kingdom.

The more I learn about DNA, the more certain I am that we are all connected. There are humans living today, with whom I share DNA, in a whopping 67 of the 195 countries in the world (including China, Nigeria, India and more). Of course, the ancestors of all of the people with whom I’m connected here in the United States were immigrants. Just sayin’ for all the “immigrant haters” that might read this post.

My maternal grandmother, Laura

Today I reached out to a woman I’m connected with on 23andMe since we share 3.5% of our DNA and are considered second cousins.

It turns out our maternal grandmothers were sisters! That’s opened up a new discussion about family history that I’ve just begun to explore.

Yes, there are some geneticists debating how precise these geographic disbursed results are, but virtually everyone I’ve connected with so far prove to me that it’s pretty dang accurate.

As an aside, there is a very interesting piece over at Harvard University’s blog called “Science in the News.” The post is an opinion piece about How Science and Genetics are Reshaping the Race Debate of the 21st Century if you are at all interested in how our learning about our connectedness is continuing to provide fact-based evidence against prejudice and racism.