The Casanova gave me one of those DNA tests from a personalised genomics company that you have to provide 10 Sex Pistol gigs worth of spit for, enough spit to clean an entire child in fact, and then post away to Ireland. The spit, not the child.
DNA is huge right now. These are boom times for consumer kits. Twenty-eight million people have taken a genetic ancestry test already. It's a great reverse diaspora, hauling ourselves hand over hand along a chain of nucleotides, backwards into ancient empires. The testing industry is worth an estimated $7.7 billion but it has been plagued with privacy concerns - after tests were used to catch the Golden State Killer (no bad thing, the issue being the test results weren’t secure) - dubious results and some real horror stories.
New Zealand and Australia, countries built on immigration, have a higher rate of DNA testing per capita than places like the UK, for example, where people think, quite rightly, ‘Oh, our family have lived here for 500 years’. Us colonials are really into it. We will never be royals, but we definitely want to find out if were related to them.
Young people are tuning into the DNA mapping super fad in increasing numbers, as the search for identity, connection to a bigger story, a bigger sense of belonging to the world is becoming more important - perhaps because our world has shrunk. Younger generations have lost much of the traditional round-the dining-table storytelling that used to provide the fabric of family stories and now they want answers to the ubiquitous, ‘Where do I come from?’
I’ve always assumed I had quite the exotic lineage, given that everyone in my extended family has dark skin, dark hair and a very distinctive nose (except me, that is). Spanish and Irish I was told but maybe the clue was in my last name all along, oh, and my freckles, and the fact I sunburn really easily.
I’m 64 % Scots, 22% English, 8% Irish and 3% Viking. I always tick Pakeha New Zealander (because Sparkle Unicorn isn’t usually available), but I thought I was a bit more special than that. Turns out I’m not.
I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am. Quite possibly not as disappointed as the journalist Dani Shapiro, who found out her father wasn’t her father, after a DNA test gift revealed a decades-long family secret. People have been blind-sided by testing results; their entire identity dismantled. Families torn apart. It’s the Christmas present that could contain a genetic bomb.
In my own small way it’s been a blow. Now I feel like I can’t be all hilarity and fire and passion anymore, that I have to be frugal and dour. Instead of hummus, deep-fried Mars bars are my culinary heritage. Rather than extroverted, my hereditary default setting is whinging and talking about the weather or whinging about the weather.
The test results are very specific, drilling down to actual places. When it comes to my English parts, it’s Devon and Cornwall. Devon and Cornwall, where the Casanova is from. That’s right. We might be related. Forget opposites attracting, it could be a Flowers in the Attic situation, forbidden love. Family tree more of a family shrub. Lover uncle cousin brother.
Would being first cousins stop our romance? Of course not. If it’s good enough for the Queen and Prince Phillip, it’s good enough for us. It’s not the incest that hurts though, it’s the lack of culture.
Scottish culture is basically stabbing stuff they don’t like with a broadsword, including vegetables and anything not fried in lard. English culture is an oxymoron. But I’m no afeard. Not a trembling wee beastie, me. Time to embrace my whakapapa - however grey and dull and prone to colonising it might be. The first Scots to set foot in New Zealand were among the crew of Endeavour in 1769. They had sex with everyone and then set about naming everything after places back home and planting gorse to stop them feeling sad.
I think that’s how it went anyway. I’m not an historian.
To close, some words of wisdom from the band Six60: Don’t forget your roots my friend, don’t forget your family. Even if your roots are your family, don’t forget them. Buy SPF 100 in bulk instead.
