Category Archives: 23andMe

23andMe, family

Another long lost relative pops out of the woodwork!

Hi everyone. I hope those who observed had a pleasant Memorial Day. We had gorgeous weather again. I meant to write a blog post, but got bogged down with moving more of my music and ended up really annoyed and frustrated. Then, I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to write about. I decided to take the day off of blogging, which was a good idea. Today, I’ll probably write two posts. I have a book review to write after I write today’s fresh content.

About a week ago, I pissed off a relative by marriage by ranting about an unfortunate interaction we had. She ended up blocking me on social media. I would like to say that I wasn’t still upset about that incident, but that would be a lie. However, as the days have passed, so has the “sting” of that situation. Especially given what happened yesterday. It was very exciting!

Several years ago, I sent in my DNA to 23andMe. A couple of years after that, I sent in a sample to Ancestry.com. I’ve gotten several benefits from sending in my samples. First of all, I’ve learned more about my origins aside from the United States. I always knew I was very English, but the DNA tests have shown just how concentrated my origins are… and instead of being English, it turns out I’m actually much more of a Scot. And it really makes sense, too, given my looks and personality. I always feel very much at home when we visit Scotland.

And secondly, submitting my DNA has put me in touch with other people in my family… people I have never met before. They all have fascinating stories! That’s especially exciting for me, as someone who likes to write.

Two people who contacted me turned out to be the offspring of an affair my great uncle had. I never knew him, because he died six years before I was born. But it turns out my grandmother’s brother, who was from Natural Bridge, Virginia, had a relationship with a woman who had gone to my alma mater (Longwood University– then called the State Teachers College) before he married his wife. She got pregnant, and they had a baby girl, who was put up for adoption. The baby was raised in Roanoke, Virginia, and never knew she was adopted until she was a young woman who was working in Washington, DC. She later got pregnant out of wedlock by a man from Ecuador, who was also working in DC. When she told her mother, she said “You’re just like your real mom!”

Instead of putting the baby girl up for adoption, the young woman raised the child, and then married and had another daughter with her husband. Years later, that baby girl submitted her DNA, hoping that maybe she might run into some of her natural father’s relatives, since she’d never known him. She always thought she was half Ecuadorian. Imagine her surprised when she found out that, actually, she was half Ashkenazi Jewish! Her bio dad’s family must have moved to South America in a bid to escape Hitler, or something. Anyway, she and her half sister contacted me for information about my great uncle, who was their grandfather. I was sorry I couldn’t put them in touch with my grandmother, who lived to be almost 101 years old and could have given them so much information. Or even, my aunts and uncles could have talked to them… but a lot of them have died.

Another relative I “met” through DNA testing was my mom’s first cousin, Pat, on her father’s side. Pat was born at about the same time my mom was, in the late 1930s. We became Facebook friends, and I was delighted by her, because she was refreshingly liberal, unlike so many on my dad’s side of the family. I never had the chance know most of my mom’s kin, since my grandparents on that side of the family died when I was very young. I did know my mom’s much older brother, who died at age 90 in 2015, and I met my one cousin on that side a few times. The last time I saw my one maternal cousin, Sue, was at my wedding in 2002. As far as I know, she still lives in Lexington, Virginia, which is near where a lot of my dad’s family lives.

I really look like my mom’s side of the family. It was especially apparent to me, especially when I first saw photos of Pat, where some of my looks came from. Pat looked a lot like my mom! They have very similar smiles. My mom used to say I looked a lot like her mother, and that was the only way she knew I was her kid (the age before DNA tests, of course). She was kidding, and said that when I was misbehaving or being obnoxious, which was a lot of the time. But now that I’ve seen pictures from her dad’s family, I can see that I got some of his side’s looks, too.

Pat was a very prolific Facebook poster, but I recently noticed that I hadn’t seen any posts from her. I got yet another message on Ancestry.com yesterday, this time from a man in Georgia named Warren, who is the grandson of my mom’s Aunt Bessie. I went to Pat’s Facebook page to see if I could connect them. That’s when I found out that Pat died a few days ago. It seems like it was very sudden, although she was in her 80s. Pat was the daughter of Bessie’s brother, and my mom’s uncle, Herbert. Mom didn’t know either of them that well, as her father, Carl, had moved from the family hometown of Marion, Virginia.

One of several photos Warren sent me. These are my grandfather’s immediate relatives. I got goosebumps when I read Warren’s comment about “our great grandparents”, who are pictured here. I’ve never met this man from Georgia, but we share something very profound.

One person that both Pat and Warren knew, and I too remember, was my mom’s Uncle Walter. Walter always dressed well and drove nice cars. He lived in northern Virginia and had a beautiful home. Herbert had also moved to northern Virginia, but died in the late 1960s. Walter used to visit us occasionally, until age and fragile health made visiting more difficult. He died in the late 1990s.

I spent a good portion of yesterday trading information with Warren. I sent him the PMs I shared with Pat, which had some family lore in them, and I forwarded a couple of photos I have available in Germany. I have more photos, but they are in storage in Texas. Maybe someday, I’ll be reunited with them, and all the other stuff we left back home.

Warren sent me several photos of my mom’s dad’s family, along with some information about the people within the images. I had heard a little bit about some of the people who were pictured, although it was kind of strange to realize that I wouldn’t be here without input from some of those folks. It was also interesting to share what little I did know about my grandfather’s family with Warren. Like, for instance, our great grandmother, Viola, was known for being a bit eccentric and spending a lot of time in her garden. She grew herbs. The one photo I have of myself with my grandfather was taken in 1975 or so, just before we moved to England. I was a toddler. We were all in Granddaddy’s beautiful garden… I guess I would have called him Granddaddy. My mom called her father, “Daddy”. I wonder if he learned to garden from his mother, Viola. Or maybe that was my grandmother’s garden. I get the sense that it was my grandfather’s project, though. My mom said he was always a very gentle, nurturing soul.

In Grandaddy Elliott’s garden in Buena Vista, Virginia, sometime in 1975. I am the blonde toddler on my sister’s hip. This was probably the last time I saw my mom’s parents. I don’t remember this day.

I called my mom to tell her about Pat. They’d had a phone call a few years ago and traded stories. Mom was shocked, because she had just been thinking about Pat… as I had. She was thinking she should get in touch with her. Pat lived in Washington State, though, and my mom lives in Virginia. Mom also doesn’t use computers. They would have had to connect on the phone, and I don’t think my mom is quite as good at keeping in touch as she once was. She was sad to find out that Pat has passed. I think they would have been great friends if they’d had the opportunity to connect more.

I never expected to expand my family tree so much when I sent in my DNA samples. I haven’t heard from anyone in my Grandma Elliott’s family, who come from Lynchburg and Amherst, Virginia… but as I explained to Bill, Grandma Elliott’s family was a bit more “feral”. Or so I’ve surmised, based on things I’ve dug up on the Internet. I wish I had known my grandparents on my mom’s side, especially since I seem to take after them, at least in appearance. But I think it’s pretty awesome that I can meet relatives I never knew through DNA tests now… I know not everyone feels that way, though. Especially those who have any “skeletons in the closet”.

Bill and I had planned to go away for the holiday weekend, but I’m glad we didn’t. I was home, and able to easily share what few genealogy clues I have with Warren.

Well, I think I’ll end this post and write my book review. Then, I’ll get back to the pain in the ass task of moving more of my music library. One nice thing that has come of that chore is that my HomePod seems to be playing some stuff I haven’t heard in ages. Both of my computers are on the same network, so it seems like the HomePod would have access to everything, anyway. But, for some reason, moving the files seems to have awakened the deepest cuts in my collection. It’s pretty cool.

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23andMe

Another long lost relative…

Yesterday, I noticed I had a new relative on 23andMe, this one even closer to my DNA than the one I wrote about yesterday. Her name is Pat and she’s my first cousin once removed on my mother’s side. She and my mom were born during the same year, which makes her an octogenarian. Her father was my mom’s Uncle Herbert. I never knew most of my mom’s relatives because they had a smaller family and weren’t as social as my dad’s people were. I do remember meeting my mom’s Uncle Walter, who was married to an Irish woman and lived in northern Virginia. I remember Walter was always well dressed and drove nice cars. Pat also knew Walter well, although she only met my mom once or twice.

I can hardly fathom not knowing my cousins. I grew up going to family reunions every year. I know my twenty-one cousins on my dad’s side pretty well, and I know a lot of their children. I only have one cousin on my mom’s side, though I am finding out I have more distant relatives like Pat, who now lives in Washington State. Like my mom, she married an Air Force officer and he moved her all over the place. When he retired in 1979, the year after my dad did, he worked for Boeing in Washington State. She’s apparently been out there for many years.

I called my mom last night to tell her about these discoveries I’ve made through 23andMe and she was very interested. I passed my mom’s phone number to Pat, since mom doesn’t use computers. I hope they’ll get to talk to each other.

Meanwhile, although I had resisted Ancestry.com for years, I finally ordered a DNA test from them, just because I want to see how close the results will be to 23andMe’s. Then I started making a family tree. I was amazed by how far it went back. I found relatives of my maternal grandfather’s as far back as the 1500s. I found German relatives I didn’t know about, some of whom were from Hesse. Sure enough, my people on both sides have been in Virginia for many years, but before that, they came from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. I found one from Delaware and one from Connecticut. I guess they arrived in Boston and made their way south right around the time people started coming to America from England. I found one branch from Ireland, including County Donegal, which is where the Crossens came from (Crossen is my married name).

I decided not to sign up for Ancestry.com’s subscription service because it’s pretty expensive and I don’t need another subscription. I also read a lot of negative reviews of the service and people having trouble quitting it. I may change my mind eventually. It’s amazing what you can find. I found an old yearbook photo of Bill’s on Ancestry.com, along with our marriage license. He was very cute as a high school JROTC cadet. I probably would have had a crush on him back then, too… of course, when he was in high school, I was in elementary school.

It’s mind boggling to realize that if any one of the 300 people I’ve found so far who are my direct ancestors had made different choices in life, I wouldn’t be here today. It’s even more mind boggling to know that my particular branch of the family tree will end with me. This new hobby ought to keep me busy for awhile. Every time I think I’ve found everything there is, I fall down another rabbit hole. At the very least, it gives me a chance to connect with other people, which is a very rewarding thing… especially since I have been feeling pretty divorced from my family lately.

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23andMe

Guess I’m not Spanish or Italian anymore…

23andMe just updated their algorithm again. According to them, I no longer have Spanish or Italian DNA. I’m a little bummed about it. Now, instead of Spanish and Italian DNA, I have gone back to having Scandinavian DNA.

Back in September 2017, Bill and I submitted saliva samples to 23andMe. These were my original results.

South Asian? That was surprising. Turns out it was also apparently wrong.

About fourteen months ago, 23andMe updated again. This time, they said I had Scandinavian DNA to go with my majority British heritage.

I always wondered if maybe there was a little Swede in my creed.

But then they updated again… and until a couple of days ago, they had removed the Scandinavian connection and added .7% Spanish, Portuguese, and .5% Italian ancestry. I also went up a trace in British and Irish ancestry, as well as Native American. I could believe the Native American connection, given that my people have been in Virginia for a couple of centuries. I figured at least one or two of them must have gotten with a local. And I could also see the Spanish connection because of the Spanish Armada. There is such a thing as “Black Irish” people– those are Irish folks who have dark hair and dark eyes because they made babies with people from Spain. Also consider that Spain actually isn’t that far from Britain or Ireland as the crow flies… and that they got their dark features from people in Africa. Southern Spain is not so far from Morocco, you know.

I kind of enjoyed thinking I might have a dash of spicy Spanish or zesty Italian in my DNA. But, then 23andMe ran their data again and, wouldn’t you know it? I’m not only no longer Spanish or Italian at all; I’m also a tiny bit more Native American.

So maybe I’m a little Scandic after all… for now, anyway.

All of these tests are done at a 50% confidence interval, so chances are excellent that these results are mostly bullshit anyway. What they do know is that my origins are almost 100% European. All you need to do is look at me to know that. I’m actually glad to see the higher concentration of German ancestry, since I know for a fact that I had German relatives from the Rhein and Karlsruhe relatively recently, as in the 1800s. You can change the confidence interval on 23andMe to see your actual raw data if you want to– up to 90%. I have always sucked at statistics, even though I took six classes in the course of my seven years in university studies. What I know is that at a 50% confidence interval, researchers are only 50% sure of their results. The overall results become less specific at 90%, though they are definitely more accurate.

Bill’s results changed, too. He’s no longer got Nigerian roots. Instead, he has links to Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. I never thought I’d be in an “interracial relationship”, but I guess I am… Looking at Bill, you’d never know he has any African genes, but apparently, he does. He has Dutch ancestry and the Dutch were quite involved in the African slave trade, which means some of them were having sexual relations with African locals.

I can’t help but remember studying slave narratives in my African American and Women’s literature classes at Longwood University and learning about the “tragic mulatto“. That was a fictional character that appeared in literature back in the 19th and 20th centuries… a character that was sad or even suicidal because he or she was “mixed” race and did not fit into either black or white worlds. In the slave era, many white men got black women pregnant. The children that resulted from these sexual trysts were considered “black”, as one drop of African blood supposedly meant a person was black. Naturally, some of them “passed” as white people and enjoyed more privileged lives. It kind of makes me cringe to think about that today, but it was the law in parts of the United States back in the 1800s. The “one drop” rule was never federally codified and is now, thankfully, a defunct law.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t even been 100 years since my home state of Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which made interracial marriages illegal and required all birth and marriage certificates issued in the state to declare a person either “white” or “colored”. Even today, there’s still controversy about racial relationships in Virginia. Just recently, Rockbridge County, which is where most of my family is originally from and where Bill and I got married, was in the news because the marriage licenses issued there required applicants to state “what they were” racially speaking. Virginia was recently sued due to requiring marriage license applicants to list their races. It’s not the first time Virginia has been in the news regarding its attitudes about interracial relationships. Until 1967, it was illegal in Virginia for a white person and a black person to marry. It took the Supreme Court to make the decision to lift bans on interracial marriages.

I’ve spent over half of my life in Virginia, never fully understanding just how racist a past it has. And this is even though I had the benefit of education and a normally functioning brain. What’s funny about these DNA tests that anyone can take is that people are realizing that we aren’t as “pure” as we think we are. People with racist attitudes are finding out that many of them have genetic links to the people they most disdain. We are more alike than we are different. And yet, even in 2019, we have plenty of white supremacists around, proudly showing off their racism to the masses.

I suppose I shouldn’t care so much about where I came from. I find genealogy and DNA testing fascinating, especially since there are so many stories connected to it. I recently wrote about how I found a DNA relative through 23andMe. Her mother was the biological daughter of my great uncle Edward, whom I never knew. He was my paternal grandmother’s brother, and he died six years before I was born. My relative, who writes that I am the only one on 23andMe from my great uncle’s family who has connected with her, explained that her bio grandmother had a “fling” with my great uncle and got pregnant. She was originally from Farmville, Virginia, the town where I went to college and where Virginia’s great teaching college, Longwood University, is located. It’s likely Edward’s girlfriend was a Longwood graduate like me, since she was a teacher by profession.

Bio grandma gave up my DNA relative’s mother for adoption in Roanoke, Virginia, not at all far from Natural Bridge, Virginia– which is where my father’s family is from and many relatives still live. My new relative’s mom had a fling with a man who worked at the Uruguayan Embassy in Washington, DC back in 1944. In 1945, my relative was born. She grew up thinking she was half Hispanic, but she learned thanks to 23andMe, she is actually half Ashkenazi Jewish. Her father, who had “passed” for Uruguayan, was actually most probably someone whose family fled Europe to escape the Nazis.

I love a good story, and this lady is now sharing her story with me. And it’s all because of 23andMe, she’s learning about her mother’s father… a man whom I never knew, but I knew his sister, my grandmother, quite well. I am providing a link to that part of her history, all thanks to DNA testing. Still, I have to admit that having done the test, I have a lot of questions I never considered before… and it’s very interesting to see how the guesses as to what and who I am are changing as more people get DNA testing done. My new relative even found pictures of our great grandparents– Rebecca and Edward Barger– my granny’s mom and dad and her grandfather’s mom and dad. It amazes me that until very recently, making this connection with my relative would have been very unlikely. I wish I could connect her to some of my older relatives, whom I know could answer more of her questions than I can.

Anyway… writing about this keeps me from watching bad TV and eating junk food, which according to 23andMe, I’m probably statistically more likely to do, thanks to my DNA. I’m just kidding. I don’t think they’ve yet made that determination. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if, someday, they did.

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