Festival of lights
I know without sending my saliva anywhere that I have less Asian DNA than Liz Warren has native American DNA. My coffee buddies and I were talking a bit about genetic heritage yesterday at coffee. MMCB2 is heavily involved in researching her family as well as her husband’s. She has come up with some interesting information that I won’t repeat because it’s her business.
At one point I said that I don’t plan to send off my saliva anywhere but I am probably more Scot than anything. This was a surprise to my buddies. My blonde hair fools a lot of people into thinking I am Scandahoovian. And actually, I probably am, just that those ancestors probably preceded my Scot ancestors. I’m not a great student of history but I think the Vikings took over that whole area, raping and pillaging… Without sending out my saliva, I have documentation aplenty of when my Scot ancestors came over to Canada, so those are the ancestors I mostly identify with.
Replying to my friend’s surprise, I told her there was a Scottish Farquharson clan and that my family is part of that. (At least I was always told that but don’t really know 🐽) She lit up because knows an African-American family with the name Farquharson and wondered how he ended up with that name. I tentatively suggested “slavery”? But I don’t really know.
Whatever DNA I’m made up of, I love holidays that involve lights and so I love Diwali. Cubelandia has a host of wonderful Indian-American employees (our off-shore colleagues over on the sub-continent are awesome too!). Today, our local folks provided a home-made potluck vegetarian lunch for everyone in the building. It was soooo good and many of them were dressed in traditional clothing, saris and whatever the men wear. We asked but I don’t remember exactly! Kurta maybe? That’s what they look like. Whatever, they put on a wonderful show!
So this lantern, which is also my “birthday” gift from yesterday, is a nod to Diwali. From here in the pretty-soon-to-be frozen Great Lake State to those in a scorching hot country.
Saliva P.S. Then again, there’s The Commander’s fam… We’re mostly Scotch-Irish (not that different from the FinFam) but MacMu family legend has us specifically related to Daniel Boone and Johnny Appleseed… To me this is more or less equivalent to the prevalent American legend of having a Native American ancestor in the fam. Maybe I’ll have to send in that saliva after all? We’ll see… Don’t hold your breath…
October 25th, 2019 at 2:19 am
You should do it! (Send in that saliva). I recommend Ancestry dot com. Even if you don’t get down and dirty with genealogy, it’s still fun to see your ethnicity, plus who knows? You might discover a surprise in your list of “cousins.” They tend to have a good sale on kits on Black Friday.
October 25th, 2019 at 3:57 pm
The Vikings did some raiding and pillaging but were also migrating, motivated by a desire for farmland, which is in shorter supply in Scandinavia. Actually, “Viking” is rooted in a verb for going raiding, vs. “Danes” which referred to people who were Scandinavian. This is a very loose explanation of something which I know probably the tip of the iceberg on. You and dad should try out the show “The Last Kingdom” though, it’s on Netflix.
October 26th, 2019 at 12:24 pm
You could end up being way more Scandinavian than you suspect. It isn’t so critical where your ancestors were from, it’s more about where their ancestors came from. People in those days were way more mobile than we suspect. All of my mom’s grandparents grew up in and came from Northern Italy, but turned out to have very little Italian. No, they were mostly French! It was a big surprise. 🙂 I agree with Tonya; it’s super interesting.