DIVING INTO THE GENE POOL PT1

I have a confession to make. I am pretty much a science dummy. I can remember the names of the Plantagenet and Hapsburg dynasty. I can do the same with mythological gods and titles of books.

But ask me to describe how photosynthesis works and I don't recall much of what I was taught about it in school.

This holds true in my genealogical research as well. I can recite my West family forefathers' names, but I have a hard time understanding how this newfangled DNA thingy works.

I had taken a y-DNA test years ago and luckily Mike Maglio was kind enough to explain to me what it said. You can read what he told me at his Origin Hunters blog.  I'd hoped taking the test would help me break down the West brickwall but other than discovering I belong to the J haplogroup, I didn't learn what I'd hoped I would. I am a West family group of one (W309) at the West family DNA project website and after five years I still have no matches.

Bummer.

So I became skeptical about the benefits of DNA in genealogy and pretty much ignored all the hoohaw over DNA and genealogy the past few years. But as many of my genealogy buddies talked about their results from the Ancestry Autosomal DNA test my curiosity was piqued. Finally, when Ancestry offered a discount this month I gave in and dove once more into the gene pool. I ordered a test kit.

The test kit came. I spit into the tube. I struggled with the cap before I realized I was trying to put the cap on upside down. (I actually got a blister on one of my fingers from twisting it so hard!). Once I figured out what I was doing wrong I put the cap on correctly, and then mailed the kit out the next day. Two days later I received an email telling me my kit had arrived and I'd have results in 6-8 weeks. That should be late July-early August.

Now I wait.

To be continued...