You think you know who you are, but any questions you have aren’t likely to be answered on a searching quest for your heritage funded by an SBS TV documentary. So, what do you do? Get a DNA test of course.
I’m not talking paternity here, I’m talking ancestry, ethnicity.
Ancestry.com is famous for helping people create accurate family trees going back many generations and now with thanks to advances in modern technology even a DNA test can be used to inform your ancestry family tree.
So I took the test. The Kit will set you back $149, and it’s a strange thing.
You open it up and are presented with instructions and a small tube. The idea is to spit into the tube.
Now the hardest part of this was not eating or drinking for the 30 mins or so beforehand as recommended.
And man, it takes a while to fill that little tube. But you’ll get there.
Off it goes in the post to a lab somewhere in the world to be analysed.
Tick tock, tick tock. The results are in. An email link is sent to you and hey presto – confirmation: I’m the whitest white guy in the world.
No surprises, other than confirmation of my love of IKEA meatballs. And the breakdown is really interesting.
For those on a journey of discovery it’s an amazing tool. For those working hard on a detailed family tree you never know what – or who – it will dish up.
Check it out at ancestry.com/dna/
Here my full chat with Brad from Ancestry.com on Talking Lifestyle:
