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I signed up to 23andMe in the amused hope there would be a black sheep in the family tree (almost literally). Nope: 96.5% British Isles, as expected. Boring, but confirms what I knew growing up. We're as Irish as that famous clover.
I don't find Irish culture or Irish people boring. Don't be so hard on ourself.
The more I learn about Celtic mythology and the history of the Isles, the more interesting it becomes.
My wife found out information about her grandmother that she couldn't get because of a courthouse that burned down. She ended up with an entire step family she didn't know about.
I discovered a step nephew and step niece that no one knew about.
We still can't find any information regarding my father's real parents. We know the mother's name and where she lived at the time of birth, and find people in my tree with the same last name, but none of them claim someone with her name. I guess shame carries down for 115 years in some families.
My grandfather would have hated all this, he refused to discuss any of the sundry details in his lineage.
His mother would likely feel very vindicated right now. She tried to tell her grandkids (my dad's generation) who her "real father" was, and nobody believed her. She had a well-deserved reputation for being dishonest and manipulative, but I feel for her in this area. The lady that cried wolf, so to speak.
I wanted, and personally needed for my peace of mind, the info that only a DNA test could provide regarding my own paternity. I know now, and I'm at peace with the revelation. Only two people, including me, in my family know and that's the way it will stay. I don't want any "grave rolling", or dirty gossip, so the info is strictly need to know in my family. And no one except me needed to know, but I needed on person's assistance/cooperation for the test.
I haven't found anything shocking as I already strongly suspected the women in my lines were faithful but not all of the men were. No gossip or dirty secrets and they strongly believed in marriage no unwed mother's some lines going back to the 1200's but all go back to about 1680 my family is from Portugal.
Sometimes, I wonder if we don't worry about those things too much, and perhaps more than earlier generations may have done.
Both of my parents would have loved it. My father was fascinated by technology in any shape or form. I can remember him being blown away the first time he saw an electronic fish finder/depth finder on a fresh water fishing boat. He was like a kid in a candy store. He wouldn't have focused nearly as much on the DNA results as the science behind it.
For Mom, on the other hand, it would be today's equivalent of gossiping over the back fence. She would be the one digging for the dirt, to hail with building a family tree. A free spirit, if it happened to uncover any of her unshared secrets, she would have gotten the biggest kick of all out of it.
Well many of the laws and customs of earlier generations were meant specifically to help ensure paternity so I think at least some of them were worried about that sort of thing. I suspect back then it would be as it is now though, with those hiding secrets being less enthusiastic about the technology than those who weren't.
And of course who knows what the old church would have thought of it all. I think they would have been against it, publicly for Godly reasons but really because they wouldn't want people to know just how much of the clergy's lineage was spread around the village.
I wanted, and personally needed for my peace of mind, the info that only a DNA test could provide regarding my own paternity. I know now, and I'm at peace with the revelation. Only two people, including me, in my family know and that's the way it will stay. I don't want any "grave rolling", or dirty gossip, so the info is strictly need to know in my family. And no one except me needed to know, but I needed on person's assistance/cooperation for the test.
It may stay that way until more family members are tested.
You make an interesting point, but secrets were found out via many ways long before we understood the concept of DNA.
This is true - a few years ago I found out that my mother, father and sister all have blood type 0 where I was a type A. In researching it online I found that the chances of my father actually being my biological father were like one in 5 million. Because my youngest son looked so much like my father I figured maybe I was the one in 5 million. However my mother recently admitted, now that she is terminally ill, that the man I thought was my father for 64 years wasn't actually my father. She didn't realize she was pregnant when they had their first blind date. When she found out, my father and her were already in love and married when she was 4 months pregnant. He never treated me any differently even though he knew. Unfortunately he died in 2006 and I can't tell how much it meant to me to be treated like I was his bio kid.
This is true - a few years ago I found out that my mother, father and sister all have blood type 0 where I was a type A. In researching it online I found that the chances of my father actually being my biological father were like one in 5 million. Because my youngest son looked so much like my father I figured maybe I was the one in 5 million. However my mother recently admitted, now that she is terminally ill, that the man I thought was my father for 64 years wasn't actually my father. She didn't realize she was pregnant when they had their first blind date. When she found out, my father and her were already in love and married when she was 4 months pregnant. He never treated me any differently even though he knew. Unfortunately he died in 2006 and I can't tell how much it meant to me to be treated like I was his bio kid.
That's a really sweet story, chi.
Just had a lady tell me how much I looked like my dad when we were out shopping together. He's not actually my bio dad.
And until I found out in my 20s that he wasn't my bio dad, I never imagined that was the case.
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