Last Christmas, my girlfriend gave me an Ancestry DNA test kit. I was delighted. I spit into the tube, sealed it up, and mailed it off.
When the results came in a couple months later, they showed west European and Scandinavian heritage, both of which I expected. But they also suggested that 11% of my DNA came from the Iberian Peninsula and its environs.
I was surprised and oddly pleased. I imagined myself, at least in part, as a hot-blooded Spaniard, a passionate Portuguese, or an enigmatic Corsican. I began drinking Sangria and taking mid-day naps. I indulged in passionate quarrels over women and politics. I took the name Santiago Zorro, a rough Spanish translation of my first and middle names. I cultivated a courtly mien, tilted at windmills, and renewed the lease on my Puerto Rico apartment.
But now half a year later, Ancestry.com has refined its DNA analysis. They notified me of changes to my ethnicity estimate in an email whose subject line read, “Your AncestryDNA results have been updated – See what’s new.”
So I did.
And now my fantasies of being a latter-day Don Quixote have been crushed. I don’t come from Spanish or Portuguese stock as the earlier report stated.
Does this mean that exposure to the Caribbean sun has altered my DNA? No. It merely shows that DNA ancestry analysis is an evolving field. As more and more people submit their DNA samples, the database of DNA grows and enables more accurate, fine-grained analysis.
So from now on I will eat more herring and call myself Jaakko Kettu.
