Blogging Along the Brandywine: DNA, it's Greek to me

Blogging Along the Brandywine: DNA, it’s Greek to me

Posted by Sally Denk Hoey on January 19, 2017

Ever seen the commercial where the guy is dressed in lederhosen and dancing the Schuhplatten? Thought he was German, took the Ancestry.com DNA test, found out he was mostly Scottish and now wears a kilt.

I started charting my family tree in ninth grade by talking with my grandparents, reading old family Bibles as well as funeral sermons. I mean, how could this dufus get his heritage so wrong?

My father’s parents were born in Germany and I can trace my ancestry back to my fifth great grandparents Johann Georg Wegenhals and Regina Magdalena Siffring born in the last quarter of the 1700s.

On my mother’s side, although there was a good mix from Great Britain and Ireland, there were also the German Hochs who settled in York County, Pa. as Hokes and Hoaks, as well as the German Joachims who settled near present day Pendleton, W.Va. as Yoakums and Yocums while we were still colonies.

I was almost smug in my knowledge.

But just for fun, I registered on line with Ancestry.com and received my personal 15 digit code. This most recent process is more accurate and tests for both autosomal and mitochondrial DNA. It set me back $108.95.

A month later, a pretty little box with the Ancestry.com logo came in the mail. Inside was a sealed test tube, a tiny funnel, an adhesive strip with my personal code and a smaller box to send back my DNA sample.

After not drinking or eating for half and hour, you put the funnel on top the test tube and spit in it, filling it up to the line.

Ewww- so gross. It’s only 2 ounces, but it’s harder than it sounds.

Then screw on the special cap to release a blue stabilizing solution, shake for 10 seconds, affix your personal code strip to the tube, send it in and wait.

A few weeks later the email bearing my personally assigned code arrived!

There was a big multi-colored pie chart graph as well as a map of Europe with intersecting areas corresponding with the same colors of the graph.

I started to read:

Thirty-eight percent Great Britain. Yes, that would be my mother’s family.

Fifteen percent Italy and Greece.

What ?

No, no, no, no. They’ve made an error. Surely they meant German and not Greek.

I wasn’t happy. Why did I spend all that money for some marketing gimmick?

But I started to read and learned that as early as 500 B.C. the Greeks had established over 90 trading colonies around the Mediterranean including areas as far north as the Ukraine, spreading their DNA all over the place!

Adding to this, the genetic history of Europe is complex because European populations have a history of many successive periods of population growth and migrations. In other words, genomes (genetic material) don’t observe political boundaries.

So, finally (and I hear you cry) here’s the other 46 percent of my wandering genome: 11 percent Ireland, 10 percent Scandinavia, 10 percent Europe East, 9 percent Europe West, 3 percent Iberian Peninsula (Spain), 2 percent Ashkenazi, 1 percent West Asia, less than 1 percent Northern Russia.

Sorry, mother and daddy. You raised me in a nice house on the Main Line and sent me to the Devon School of Ballet and introduced me to the finer things in life, but… we’re genetic mutts.

About Sally Denk Hoey

Sally Denk Hoey, is a Gemini - one part music and one part history. She holds a masters degree cum laude from the School of Music at West Chester University. She taught 14 years in both public and private school. Her CD "Bard of the Brandywine" was critically received during her almost 30 years as a folk singer. She currently cantors masses at St Agnes Church in West Chester where she also performs with the select Motet Choir. A recognized historian, Sally serves as a judge-captain for the south-east Pennsylvania regionals of the National History Day Competition. She has served as president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates as well as the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford where she now curates the violin collection. Sally re-enacted with the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment for 19 years where she interpreted the role of a campfollower at encampments in Valley Forge, Williamsburg, Va., Monmouth, N.J. and Lexington and Concord, Mass. Sally is married to her college classmate, Thomas Hoey, otherwise known as "Mr. Sousa.”