“Who am I? And how do I get to Detroit?”
This is a line from comedian Richard Pryor, in which he speculated on the first words spoken by ancient man.
Most scientists who don’t believe that Jesus had a pet dinosaur or that global warming isn’t just God hugging us a little tighter now believe that the species that evolved into modern man originated in what is now Botswana in south central Africa.
So you see, in one respect we’re all African-Americans.
We each have two types of ancestry, the ones that can be traced through family trees and the ones that show in our DNA. In the last couple of years I have tried to investigate both. I have been able to trace one side of my family back to 14th century England and the other to 17th century Germany.
The other one isn’t as easy. I don’t know anyone who can trace their DNA without the help of a lab and a database. I did a sample of mine and sent it in for analysis last year. Of course it’s a lot more complex and includes words and places I never imagined. The top three on the list make up 50 percent of my ancestry and all are reasonably centralized.
First is Fennoscandia (18.6 percent), which peaks in Iceland and Norway and declines in Finland, England and France.
Second is Southern France (17.1 percent), which peaks in south France and declines in north France, England, the Orkney Islands and Scandinavia.
Third is the Orkney Islands (14.4 percent), peaking in the Orkney Islands and declining in England, France, Germany, Belarus and Poland.
So I looked at some maps and learned some things.
I had no idea Iceland was so far east, and for some reason, the Orkney Islands didn’t even register on my personal radar. If you look at the map above, they are the archipelago of islands ESE of the Faroe Islands. Interestingly, they are part of Scotland and are considered by many the best place to live in Scotland.
Very little of my DNA is from outside Europe and Northern Asia, although if I look down near the bottom of the list, there’s some from India and Pakistan. I suppose that shouldn’t be a huge surprise since both countries were part of the British Empire.
The only parts of the report that were something of a surprise to me were the 17.1 percent from Southern France and the fact that there’s less German DNA than I had expected.
As for Africa, I guess that part of it goes a lot further back.
Anyway, I’ve been to Detroit.