I’ve been challenged by students several times over the last few years to try these DNA profiling services. (The whole question of “What am I?“ and all that.) Doing the spiritual/existential meditating on “What am I?” is essential and cool, but what about that whole biological dimension?

So, recently I sent a sample to 23&Me. Got the results back yesterday.

Well, that certainly answered a lot of questions about my behavior.

First off: This body is 99.9% European.

About the specifics: My specific ethnic profile gives another interesting insight (on top of now knowing that there is a whole Neanderthal branch of the family tree to whom I have never sent Christmas cards all those years). Apparently, I’m more Irish than I had known. Although it says that this body is 82% “British and Irish”, my staunchly Irish Republican late mother would be relieved to know that the further breakdown of the data indicates that the “British” percentage of that 81.8% is nearly nothing.)

Well, this further justifies the fact that I have been able to live in Europe for over a decade on an Irish passport! It’s actually a relief to see that: I had actually felt a tad bit guilty obtaining this privilege of having my Irish citizenship, thinking, all these years, that I was 50-50, Irish/German, ethnically speaking.

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