Christmas in April

Last December, my husband asked, “What do you want for Christmas?” And for the third year in a row, I replied, “Money for DNA testing.” He usually balks at this, but if you’ve read my other posts, then you know he’s softened up on the subject since last summer.

I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised on Christmas when one of my gifts was a check for $200 and on the memo line it said, “For DNA Tests”. YAY! Well I WAS surprised and very happy! As I sat there grinning like the Cheshire Cat, he says, “How many tests can you buy with that?”

The first test to come to mind was my favorite choice for males; so without thinking I replied, “One 37-marker test.”

His face falls as he says, “What?! I thought you could buy TWO tests…don’t DNA tests only cost $100 each?”

With my mind racing like a VCR on rewind, I came to the quick realization that I’ve only ever exposed him to Genographic Project tests. I had previously talked him into buying one for his uncle, for which he had hand delivered to him. I do have other kits at my house from other companies, i.e.: Family Tree DNA, SMGF, etc. but he’s never SEEN any of these kits, so his knowledge-base of DNA testing is that they all cost $99 and come is white boxes with a picturesque blue and black graphic.

I quickly replied, “Oh yeah, that’s right, Genographic Project tests are $99 each…yeah, that’s what I’ll do, I’ll buy two of those and test one person from your line and one from mine.”

He looked at me funny, the way that you do when you know something fishy is going on, and says, “That’s what I thought since those are the kind of tests you use.”

Whew! Close one! Let's just say that its a good thing he doesn't look too closely at any of our bank statements or his knowledge-base on tests would be greater. But quickly enough, glee had returned to my face as I contemplated which lines I would test and which family members would be most easily convinced.

I decided on testing my father-in-law for his mother’s mtDNA, and my cousin Ellen for my great-grandmother’s mtDNA.

Ellen’s results came in today and she’s haplogroup U2. The farthest known maternal line ancestor is from Scotland. She e-mailed me this afternoon after reading through the info on the Genographic site and said, “At one point it said my maternal ancestor was in Finland!”

Scotland…Finland…and what land before that? The first settlers were thought to come to Finland during the Stone Age about 8500 BCE. The surviving known artifacts of permanent settlement in Scotland date to the Neolithic Era which is the last part of the Stone Age. Is that when SHE migrated to the land now known as Scotland? I know that I’ll probably never know the answer to that question, but I’m grateful to Ellen for providing one more branch to our genetic family tree. I'm also grateful to my husband for funding it. This is a Christmas gift that will keep on giving for many years to come through Ellen's matches and from further knowledge gained by advances in genetics.