I asked for 23andMe on a whim for Christmas. I’d been curious about my DNA, but not for reasons most people are into it.
For me, I grew up not knowing my biological father. He was a real piece of work, and it’s another story for another day (if you’re curious, there is a series of Highlighted Stories under Personal on my Instagram account), but I don’t know much about him except that he was from Ecuador, and he lied about everything. I once reached out, but he wasn’t interested in knowing me, which is fine. I already have a great (step)dad, but I wanted to know things like - what part of Ecuador was he from? What sort of genetic predispositions might I have gotten from him? I really just wanted to know anything and everything I could because it felt like 50% of me was a big question mark.
I got 23andMe, and it sat in my room for a bit because you have to spit into the plastic collection kit when you haven’t eaten or had anything to drink in 30 minutes, and if you know me, well, you know those 30 minutes are pretty rare, haha.
One morning I finally got up and remembered to do it before eating. You download their app, follow the instructions, spit, and put it in the pre-paid mailer, and then essentially forget about it for six weeks until they email you.
When my ancestry composition came in, I was surprised. It said I was about 50% Native American, Spanish and Portuguese, and the majority of the other half of me was Lebanese. The Lebanese bit wasn’t new, that’s my mom’s side, but the Native/Spanish/Portuguese piece was an initial surprise. Looking deeper into it, it said that essentially the first humans to reach the New World populated much of North, Central and South America within just a few thousand years following their arrival from northeast Asia around 15,000 years ago. Despite drastic population losses over the past 500 years as a result of exposure to Old World diseases and genocide at the hands of European colonizers, the genetic legacy of these early American trailblazers persists to this day, primarily in Central and South America. So the Native American in me is from South America, since my ancestry is traced back to Ecuador. Quito, to be exact.
That was really interesting because one thing I do know about my biological father is that he lied about everything. He originally said he was from Puerto Rico, but then my mom found his Green Card, which said he was from Ecuador. So it was just nice to have validation that at least that part was true.
23andMe also offers a report on physical features. According to mine, I have a 62% chance of not having dimples (I don’t), 93% chance that I do not have a cleft chin (I don’t), 83% chance I have detached earlobes (I do), and it goes on and on and on - I mean right down to the craziest things like finger length ratio and ear wax texture, which I didn’t even know was a thing, but apparently there are many different textures of ear wax.
You also get reports on Health Predispositions like Late-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (this variant was not detected in me), Parkinson’s Disease (not detected), MUTYH-associated Polyposis, one of the three main hereditary colorectal cancer syndromes (not detected), Celiac Disease (slightly increased risk for me), etc. Now, this isn’t to say one couldn’t develop these diseases down the line, but it’s just saying that hereditary predispositions either have or have not been been found.
Overall, I found 23andMe tremendously interesting, especially for someone who doesn’t know their biological father. It helps to start piecing together genetic information where there was once a big question mark, so for that I’m really appreciative. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to learn more about themselves.