Its all in the Name...er...Surname

I gave two DNA presentations today to the toughest crowd ever – high school students!

Granted – they were AP Science students (AP stands for “Advanced Placement”) which means that they might have a smidgen more interest in the subject than their non-AP peers, but keep in mind that they are still a captive audience by the system known as compulsory education.

This was kind of a last minute gig, and with the exception of graduations and sporting events, I’ve hardly stepped foot on a high school campus since I graduated some twenty years ago. I wouldn’t know how to connect or what was cool to a high schooler even if it hit me upside the head. But I had to try, right? So I swiped my son’s “American Eagle” hoodie, and got down to business.

I wracked my brain – “What would interest high school kids about genetic genealogy?” Hmmm…quite possibly “Famous DNA” so I included Jesse James in the Powerpoint, and brought the “Lost King of France” book about Marie Antoinette.

What else? Maybe if I could show how their ancestral history lies in their DNA. They had already been studying DNA for some time now and there were “pedigree” charts hanging around the room which showed their inherited traits for hair color, eye color, etc.

To my absolute utter amazement – the key to what interested them the most was in their surnames. Surname etymology – AKA – surname origins.

Using the surname of the man for which the high school is named for, I explained that I could tell that he was likely of Nordic ancestry because his surname ended with “sen” and if I had to guess his DNA haplogroup, I think he’d likely be an ‘I’ or ‘R1a”. The school team is the “Vikings” and I explained that the real Vikings left their genetic imprint in other regions as well, like Scotland for example.

The students were enthralled by this and the hands started shooting up asking if I could tell what country their surnames originated from. Since about three quarters of both classes were Hispanic, my answer was ‘Spain’ nine times out of ten, but they didn’t seem to mind. They even crowded around asking about their friends’ surnames when class was over.

Overall, I’d say it went well. I closed the presentation with displaying a 2006 salary range for a federal research geneticist and attempted to make the occupation sound as glamorous as possible. Who knows? Maybe the next Spencer Wells was in the room…oh, and I’ve been invited back for Career Day.