Here’s a rather amazing thing I recently learned about myself from 23 & Me: “You inherited a small amount of DNA from your Neanderthal ancestors. Out of the 7,462 variants we tested, we found 257 variants in your DNA that trace back to the Neanderthals.” 23 & Me further told me I have up to 2% of Neanderthal DNA in my genome.
I’ve also checked out many hundreds of my 4th-6th cousins. They have many hundreds of last names and, based upon the profile photos, they come in every size, shape and skin color. They reside in dozens of countries all over the world. I have numerous relatives born in Africa, Asia and Australia. Six of my relatives are Egyptian. 34 of my closest 5,000 relatives are at least 25% Ashkenazi Jews.
As I’m learning these things, I’m recalling the joyous presentation A.J. Jacobs made about his expansive family tree at this TED talk. [1]
That a company can reliably tell me these things for $99 would have been unfathomable even a few decades ago–It wasn’t until 2003 that scientists could read the complete genetic blueprint for building a human being (the Human Genome Project). These findings and this modest cost to learn these things are stunning. So stunning that, as I found ever more about my family tree tonight, I even chuckled a little Neanderthal chuckle.
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