It all started so innocently. Curiosity is a gateway to becoming a chronic Ancestry addict, chasing down roots and unheard of relatives. If that wasn’t bad enough, along comes DNA testing. Somewhere along the stages of ancestry dependence, circles of people pop up, who may or may not have bloodlines to you. Cool. But I have enough trouble keeping up with relatives I know.
Whoever got me started on this particular obsession, it’s on you.
Then again, DNA reports give a handy heads up about sneaky diseases waiting to snag you. To be fair, there were some scary sounding ones that I may have dodged the bullet on, so there’s that. Anyway, I heard enough commercials and friends’ excitement about the hunt for random family members that I thought I’d give it a shot, so here I am. That was 5 years ago and since then, I’ve dropped in and out, spending hours tooling around the digital ancestor graveyard. Hey, who doesn’t want to know if they should be wearing a kilt or lederhosen, right?
Five days before my husband died, he gave me two birthday gifts, both of which I must have ‘hinted’ about. One was a new iPad to replace my 7 year old model; the other an Ancestry DNA test kit. Unfortunately, by the time I spit in the tube, dropped it in the mail and got back the results — my man was gone. No one would have laughed harder than he when, unlike my lifetime denial that I was anything but Italian (and a tiny bit German), the results showed I was also — Irish. Wait, what?
Once you catch the ancestry bug, it’s hard not to be hooked. Though, to be fair, it’s too pricey for me to be a lifer. I pop in and out, getting a heritage high whenever I find one person who leads to another and another. But, you do need to curb your enthusiasm. In your haste to populate your tree, it’s easy to throw in a few Waldos that don’t belong there. When your tree suddenly blooms like you showered it with Miracle-Gro, there might be a few misfit branches don’t fit the profile. That can take the edge off congratulating your inner detective! Continue reading “Ancestry Addiction”
The Other Shoe 