dna + chromosomes

My little sister, Sarah, got me the most amazing gift for Mother's Day this year. One day I'll have to blog our entire story but to keep it short and sweet.. we were both adopted separately, and share the some biological mother but have different paternal sides which we know nothing about. Until now! She got me a DNA kit from 23 and Me after doing one herself and learning so much about where her ancestry began. I received my kit in the mail, followed all the directions, mailed it back, and waiting the 6 long weeks for my results. 

The kit was actually really easy to use and comes with everything you need including the packaging to send it back in a timely manner. I filled up the little vile with my saliva, secured everything and DONE!

The results are posted to their site, where you can securely log in to your account after registering and everything is connected to your personalized code on the vile that you send in. The results will tell you your ancestry composition, maternal halpogroup, neanderthal ancestry, and even connect you with others who have taken the DNA test that you are related to! You can pay extra for the health test and learn what diseases you are at risk for in connection with your ancestry history, but neither of us really wanted to dig into that for now. There are a ton of different reports that I now have access to but here is a quick overview of my ancestry results!

For years I have had people ask me if I'm asian at all, because of my very slanted eyes and other features. I actually never really took that one seriously and laughed it off. But it turns out.. I AM! The majority of my European DNA is from my maternal side, which I knew quite a bit of thanks to my Grandpa and his stories of Romania, Italy and France. All of the Asian DNA is from my paternal side which for the most part explains that my biological father was nearly 50% Asian. I still have a lot of research I want to do as far as parts of the countries that are of importance to my history but along with Romania, I absolutely want to visit Japan someday. It's amazing that science has come this far and I am so happy that I took the opportunity to learn more about who I am and where I come from.

Here are the only "baby" pictures I have of myself. The last one is me on my 1st birthday!