When he was 21, Gary Skillings tried to contact his mother through a nun at the Catholic orphanage from which he was adopted in the 1950s, but she didn’t want to see him.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_22818" style="width: 168px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22818" class="size-full wp-image-22818" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/safe_image.php_.jpg" alt="Gary Skillings' Photo" width="158" height="158" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/safe_image.php_.jpg 158w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/safe_image.php_-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 158px) 100vw, 158px" />Gary Skillings&#8217; Photo</div>
“That was kind of a heartbreaker,” Skilling told <a href="http://www.sunjournal.com/news/lewiston-auburn/2015/08/30/dna-test-brings-florida-man-home-maine/1771495">the Sun Journal newspape</a>r in Maine. “But I honored her wish.”


Although he longed to know more about his background and who his mother was, Gary didn’t search any further after that failed attempt to make a connection. But he was left with at least one bit of information, his mother’s first name, Aline. Fast-forward a few decades, Gary was able to use 23andMe and genealogical records to learn more about his mother, and connect with cousins he never knew he had.


His story, nicely told by the local paper in Lewiston Maine, includes meeting more than 50 relatives, cousins, aunt and uncles who welcomed him into the family.


“They had this reception for me and all these people showed up,” he told the newspaper. “They were all total strangers to me, yet all related.”


They shared photos and family stories with him. He learned more about his now deceased mother, Aline Mary Cotes, and his out-of-wedlock birth. He found a close cousin, who knew about his birth and actually knew about Gary’s effort to contact his mother so long ago. She had vowed to keep it all a secret.


Check out the story <a href="http://www.sunjournal.com/news/lewiston-auburn/2015/08/30/dna-test-brings-florida-man-home-maine/1771495">here</a>.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

Mending a Broken Heart

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-are-haplogroups">What are haplogroups?</h2>



Haplogroups are genetic classifications or ancestral groupings within a population, typically defined by shared, inherited genetic markers or mutations. These markers are passed down from a common ancestor. They can be traced through the analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) for maternal haplogroups and the Y chromosome for paternal haplogroups. Haplogroups provide insights into human populations&#8217; historical migrations and evolutionary history, helping researchers and genealogists understand the genetic relationships and ancestral origins of individuals and groups.



Many 23andMe customers that contact Customer Care are confused by their haplogroup assignments and what they actually mean.



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="432" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-1024x432.png" alt="" class="wp-image-33670" title="haplogroup map" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-1024x432.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-300x127.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-768x324.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-880x371.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-1180x498.png 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline.png 1501w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



If you still aren’t sure what your haplogroup is, check out our <a href="https://www.23andme.org/dna-ancestry/?_gl=1*10vpw0b*_ga*NDA5NTc3MDk2LjE2ODA4MDgwMTU.*_ga_G330GF3ZFF*MTY5NzEyNjEzOC41OC4xLjE2OTcxMjYxNDAuMC4wLjA.">DNA Ancestry Test</a> as a first step. <a href="https://www.23andme.org/dna-ancestry/">Knowing your haplogroup</a>, and how you can use it, can give you much more clarity about your own ancestry. So in the interest of helping you out, we will walk through an example of a <a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/23andmes-updated-maternal-haplogroup-report">maternal</a> and <a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/updates-to-23andme-paternal-haplogroup-assignments">paternal haplogroup</a> assignment, and explain how knowing your haplogroups can place you in the human family tree and connect you to your ancestry.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-haplogroup-assignment-example">Haplogroup Assignment Example</h2>



In this case we&#8217;re using someone who is Asian, who has roots&nbsp; in Southeast Asia. But his maternal haplogroup – B4’5 and more specifically subgroup B5a1a – is most commonly found among Native Americans of the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-haplogroups-can-help-uncover-the-migration-of-your-ancestors">Haplogroups Can Help Uncover the Migration of Your Ancestors</h2>



So why is that?



What connects him to Native Americans?



This is where understanding a little bit about haplogroups is helpful in placing you and your ancestry in the broader context of human history. Each haplogroup describes individual branches – or closely related groups of branches – on the genetic family tree of all humans. All members of a haplogroup trace their ancestry back to a single individual.



In this case, the individual shares his maternal haplogroup with many Native Americans because 12,000 years ago people migrated from Asia to Alaska, when sea levels were lower.



Or another way of looking at it is that descendants of his ancient maternal ancestor – a common ancestor he shares with many Native Americans – had crossed the Bering Land Bridge to populate the Americas.



Looking deeper into his results his maternal haplogroup is a subgroup of B4’5, specifically B5a1a. It has its own history where it broke off from B4’5 in Southeast Asia.



Recent migration patterns have altered the global distribution of this haplogroup, but that ancient history is written in his DNA and being able to read that and identify his maternal haplogroup connects him to that history.



The ability to trace back a person’s maternal haplogroup back so far – more than 50,000 years in the case of B4’5 – has to do with how it is passed down to each of us from our mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother, and so on back in time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-difference-between-maternal-and-paternal-haplogroups">The Difference Between Maternal and Paternal Haplogroups</h2>



Understanding the differences between a maternal and paternal haplogroup, goes can help you better use this information to better understand your ancestral origins.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-maternal-haplogroups">Maternal Haplogroups</h6>



Maternal haplogroups are determined by defining variants in your mitochondrial DNA. Everyone &nbsp;inherits &nbsp;their mitochondria from their mothers. Unlike your other pieces of DNA, your mitochondrial DNA is the only type of DNA that is found outside of the nucleus. For this reason, your mitochondrial DNA does not recombine with other types of DNA. Because your mitochondria is inherited directly from you mother and undergoes very little recombination, you will share the same maternal haplogroup with any relative you share a direct maternal line with. For example, you, your mother, your brother, your sister, your maternal aunt, your maternal grandmother, etc. would all share the same maternal haplogroup as you. And that maternal haplogroup traces back through the generations to a single mutation at a specific place and time.



In the case we&#8217;re looking at, his maternal haplogroup is one that is shared by many people, not only of Han Chinese ancestry, but also with many Polynesians, Native Americans, and Southeast Asians.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-paternal-haplogroups">Paternal Haplogroups</h6>



Now that we’ve looked at maternal haplogroups, we can turn our attention to paternal haplogroup assignments. In this case the person&#8217;s paternal haplogroup assignment is O3a3c1*.



It traces to East Asia and is also common among Han Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and Malaysians. The paternal haplogroup assignment is &nbsp;determined by defining variants in your Y Chromosome. The Y chromosome is the sex-determining chromosome for males, which men inherit from their fathers. Therefore, unless you inherited a Y chromosome from your father, you will not have a paternal haplogroup assignment. (You can find out more about this <a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/a-fathers-day-ode-to-the-y-chromosome/">here</a>.) This is why women will see this page is unavailable to them within their 23andMe account, but in a moment we’ll explain how women can determine their paternal haplogroup.



First understanding a little bit more about the the Y chromosome is helpful. The Y chromosome does undergo recombination with the X chromosome, but only does so at the ends. So about 95 percent of the Y chromosome remains relatively intact across generations. For this reason, the Y chromosome is a reflection of your ancient paternal ancestry. You would therefore share a paternal haplogroup assignment with any male relative that you shared a direct paternal line with.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-paternal-haplogroups-and-women">Paternal Haplogroups and Women</h6>



A woman can infer her paternal haplogroup if a male relative on her paternal line has been genotyped by 23andMe.



Because both the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA change so little over generations, they are very informative about your ancient ancestry. But that is not to say that they do not change at all. In fact, &nbsp;each letter and number that you see within your haplogroup corresponds to a set of defining mutations in your mitochondrial DNA or your &nbsp;Y chromosome. This marks a period in time when your haplogroup branched off into a distinct line. So, for example, it may mark when a population first migrated out of Africa, or when another group became geographically isolated.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-assigning-haplogroups">Assigning Haplogroups</h6>



23andMe is able to trace your ancestry based on these mutations. That is because they occurred in distinct geographical locations during specific periods of time. Haplogroup assignments can even be traced back to specific languages.



That DNA evidence is often corroborated by the fossil record. Our oldest fossils date back 200,000 years. They were found in Omo Kibish in Ethiopia. According to genetic and paleontological records, Homo sapiens only began migrating out of Africa 60,000-70,000 years ago. They moved from Africa into the Eurasian continent.



Some of these migrants moved along the Indian coast reaching first Southeast Asia. They then migrated to Australia around 50,000 years ago. Since then, different migratory events have spread our species across the continents along different routes and paths.



We are able to trace migratory patterns based on defining mutations in mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA.



In the case in this post, ancient ancestors who were part of his maternal haplogroup were among a group of individuals who were in Southeast Asia. Some of those individuals eventually migrated across the Bering land bridge to populate the Americas. Some stayed around East Asia and developed some new defining mutations in their mitochondrial DNA making them B5a1a.



It is important to keep in mind that your mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome account for very small portion of your DNA. It is also a small portion of your overall ancestry.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-autosomal-dna">Autosomal DNA</h2>



As most haplogroups arose over tens of thousands of years ago, these pieces of DNA generally reflect your very ancient ancestry. It&#8217;s possible for two people to share the same haplogroup assignment but no recent ancestry. So for example, while you may share a paternal haplogroup with Stephen Colbert, you probably don’t share any recent common ancestors.



A large portion of our DNA is found within your autosomal DNA. This DNA undergoes recombination with each successive generation. Your results analyzing your autosomal DNA therefore generally reflect your ancestry from within the past five to ten generations. Therefore, it is not uncommon for the ancestry found within your haplogroup or your <a href="https://www.23andme.org/dna-ancestry">Ancestry Composition</a> to differ from your own. This does not mean that any of these pieces are incorrect. They are each simply describing a different part of your rich and unique ancestry.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Learn More</h2>



You can find out if your <a href="https://www.23andme.org/test-info/genetic-health/">genetics</a> might Increase your risk for any health conditions with 23andMe. You can see a more recent <a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/23andme-updates-paternal-haplogroup-assignments">blog post about haplogroups here</a>.

Haplogroups Explained

Scott Fisher, the host of the nationally syndicated family history radio show Extreme Genes, spent his last show focused on 23andMe’s ancestry offerings, explaining a little bit about the science of <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22357" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/KasiaB-1-200x300.jpg" alt="KasiaB 1" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/KasiaB-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/KasiaB-1.jpg 576w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />DNA testing for genealogy from our very own population geneticist Kasia Byrc, PhD.


Kasia has been pretty busy lately, participating recently in the <a href="http://globalfamilyreunion.com/">Global Family Reunion</a>, and before that the <a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/ancestry/everyone-is-related-the-big-data-proves-it/">South By Southwest</a> festival in Austin, as well as writing about the <a href="http://kasiabryc.com/publications/index.html">complex admixture of African Americans</a>, Latinos and Europeans in the United States. Her research has helped show how our DNA can inform us about human migration and history in the United States over the last few hundred years.
<a href="http://extremegenes.com/category/podcast-archive/">Extreme Genes</a> is syndicated on more than 30 stations across the country and also has a regular podcast that covers all things related to genealogy. Fisher himself is a national expert in the field of genealogy, and the interview with Kasia was meant to offer those interested in tapping into the 23andMe tool box to improve their own genealogical searches.
During this episode on 23andMe, Fisher and Kasia covered some of the science behind using genetic data to help inform people about their ancestry.
Fisher explained how his own results – connections with several different distant cousins – helped him leverage what his family already knew about their history to learn even more.
“Using DNA is a fantastic tool to dig into your own history,” Kasia said during the show.
Along with detailing some of the science, Kasia, who was an NIH Ruth L. Kirschetein National Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School before coming to work at 23andMe, Inc., also shared a few stories from 23andMe customers and how they used their results to discover more about their families.


Check out the podcast <a href="http://extremegenes.com/ep-99-23andme-on-dna-genealogy/">here</a>.

The Way Way Back

Several media stories in the last few months have highlighted the potential of 23andMe to help adoptees.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-6586 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-300x300.jpg" alt="An image of 23andMe's logo." width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog.jpg 350w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
One of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/nyregion/a-son-given-up-for-adoption-is-found-after-half-a-century-and-then-lost-again.html">more touching pieces</a> highlighted a woman’s 50-year search for the son she’d given up for adoption at 19. She was able to find him using 23andMe, only to lose him again to cancer. Another interesting <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-21/korean-adoptees-are-using-dna-kits-get-glimpse-their-ancestry">story on PRI</a> looked at Korean born adoptees using DNA to learn more about their ancestry.
Inventor and scientist Thomas Park Clement, who was among the first wave of Korean adoptees to come to the United States in the 1950s, set aside a million dollars of his own money to cover the cost of other Korean adoptees who want to get tested.
&#8220;Everyone on the planet has the right to know who their relatives are,&#8221; Clement is quoted as saying.
Those stories and others highlight that while it’s not designed with adoptees in mind, 23andMe has become a resource for many wanting to fill in the gaps in what they know about their ancestry, their inherited traits or family history. 
For many of us we take for granted knowing this basic information about ourselves, but for many adoptees using a DNA test is the only way they could find out this kind of information.
<div style="float: center; text-align: justified; width: 650px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;"><a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/more-than-just-luck">More Than Just Luck</a> 
With the help of a genetic genealogist and her 23andMe results, a woman abandoned behind a grocery store as an infant is able to identify her biological mother.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-22519 size-thumbnail" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-150x150.jpg" alt="A photo of brothers who found each other using 23andMe with a quote that says &quot;Stories of this kind, they are hard to believe…”" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> 
Not an adoption story, but this story tracks some of the same kind of ordeals adoptees have to go through to find out about their biological families. In this case, half brothers– one who lives in Brazil, the other in the United States – connected through 23andMe. Their story, which spans over several decades and includes some harrowing childhood trauma, ends with the two brothers meeting for the first time.
<a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/goodnight-son/">Goodnight Son</a> 
Not every reunion between an adoptee and his or her biological parent or sibling is a happy one, but for Mike Reed the meeting with his biological father couldn&#8217;t have gone better. His biological father welcomed into the family and introduced him to his nine half siblings.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-21929 size-thumbnail" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-150x150.jpg" alt="A photo of Liz with the quote: “To site and talk with someone who is your sibling, or your biological parent … who you have never met… incredible.” " width="150" height="150" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> 
Abandoned in a laundry mat as an infant, Liz Kellner used 23andMe and ultimately found her sisters and biological parents.
<a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/an-unexpected-discovery">An Unexpected Discovery</a> 
Cody tested to find out more about his health, but in the process he found his biological parents and half siblings. He also learned that he&#8217;d been conceived when his mother was a young teen and that&#8217;s why he&#8217;d been put up for adoption.
<a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/its-a-girl">It’s A Girl</a> 
Although not an adoptee story, Kelli&#8217;s story highlights some of the anxiety many go through when trying to connect with a biological parent. They simply don&#8217;t know how it will play out. For Kelli the experience was a good one. She used 23andMe to help her find her biological father. Once she made the connection her biological father, who hadn’t known of her birth, welcomed her into the family.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-21348 size-thumbnail" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-small-quote-150x150.jpg" alt="A photo of an adult son who found his biological father using 23andMe and how the two later became friends: “I am awed by how this happened.” " width="150" height="150" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-small-quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-small-quote.jpg 200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> 
An adult son connects with his biological father and they become friends.
<a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/a-siblings-story-from-23andme">A Siblings Story</a> 
Using 23andMe Tricia found her half brother and half sister. They were able to tell her more about her biological father and the three of them met and became friends.
</div>

Searching With 23andMe

The amazing <a href="http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/p/about-me.html">CeCe Moore</a>, a genetic genealogist and 23andMe Ancestry Ambassador, has done it again, solving a family<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-12939" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CeCephoto.jpg" alt="CeCephoto" width="114" height="162" /> mystery and helping a woman connect with her biological mother for the first time.
“DNA,” Moore told the Orange County Register, “was the only way to solve this.”
<a href="https://www.ocregister.com/articles/tovo-670236-kayla-baby.html">The story</a>, which appeared in the Orange County Register, generated a lot of questions and some strong reactions. CeCe and her team had helped Kayla Tovo, a 27 year-old mother and US Army veteran, solve the mystery of her birth.
Kayla was just a few hours old when a janitor found her wrapped in a towel in a milk crate left in the back of an Alpha Beta grocery store.
Her story could have ended in tragedy if not for being adopted by a wonderful loving mother and growing up in a supportive home. But after having children of her own, and a brush with death in Afghanistan, Kayla decided to try in earnest to find the woman who abandoned her. She wanted to know why. A friend connected her to CeCe. Kayla then tested with 23andMe and found a first cousin once removed, providing her the pivotal lead to connect her to her biological family.


“I received questions from all over social media on this story,” CeCe told us. “(Kayla) was lucky, and some have complained they don&#8217;t have matches that close.”


But as the database grows, so too does the possibility for new and closer matches, she said.


“New matches are coming in all the time and the newer ones are more likely to respond and share family tree information than the older matches,” CeCe said.
Check out Kayla’s <a href="https://www.ocregister.com/articles/tovo-670236-kayla-baby.html">story</a>.

More Than Just Luck

While 23andMe can inform you about your ancestry, that information doesn’t define you, as has been so eloquently written about by Jesmyn Ward <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/innovation-cracking-the-dna-code" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in the New Yorker</a>, and by Simone Kitchens in <a href="http://www.glamour.com/inspired/2015/02/what-are-you-how-to-answer-identity-questions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">her story</a> that first <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-22626 size-large" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/0315-GL-AABY06-01-copy-e1435353553605-452x768.jpg" alt="At Home in the WorldIn my apartment, with a favorite photo of me and my mom.Rachel Comey dress. See GLAMOUR Shopper for more information." width="452" height="768" />appeared in Glamour. Both Jesmyn and Simone write about being multiracial and the difficulty of navigating not just how their mixed race influences how others perceive them, but how they perceive themselves. In his new book <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/219260/loving-day-by-mat-johnson/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Loving Day</a>, the writer <a href="http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/interviews/a35341/mat-johnson-interview-mixed-race-in-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mat Johnson</a> covers some of the same territory. How people think about race, and the commonly accepted notions about what it means, are changing. Probably at the forefront of that transformation are people like these three writers who are of mixed ancestry. More and more people are walking this path. In the United States nearly 7 percent of adult Americans have a multiracial background, according to a <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/multiracial-in-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new report</a> by the Pew Research Center. Many other people simply do not know of their own mixed ancestry. Reconciling what it means to be mixed is complicated, and that process is elegantly captured in Simone’s piece, which we’re republishing here. Take a look. 



By Simone Kitchens
This is what I look like to you:
I&#8217;m brown.
Various shades of brown. Dark brown curly hair, darker brown eyes, skin a tan sort of brown. You might think I&#8217;m black or part black, but most people have trouble pinpointing my race. I do too.
I&#8217;ve gotten the &#8220;What are you?&#8221; question about once a week for the past 20 years, ever since I heard it for the first time in the girls&#8217; bathroom in sixth grade. I was looking in the mirror when a girl at the sink yelled over, &#8220;Are you mixed?&#8221; She was black. She came closer to get a better look. &#8220;What are you?&#8221; she asked. A group of girls, her friends, studied me as well.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; I said.
The girl went back to drying off her hands and said, &#8220;You&#8217;re half-black.&#8221; She was matter-of-fact, as if she were filling me in on something I wasn&#8217;t aware of. From that moment on, I&#8217;ve known myself as a half-black person.
But &#8220;half-black&#8221; has never felt like the whole story.
I grew up with my mom, who was adopted and didn&#8217;t know her background. I look like her; she&#8217;s brownish too. I always had my mom for reference, and while I didn&#8217;t know my dad, I didn&#8217;t think a lot about why I look the way I do. Still, as a brown girl in Oklahoma, there were times when I noticed I was the only nonwhite person at a roller-skating rink or food court.
Some mixed people feel they&#8217;ve lived a black experience in America. President Obama, who is mixed-race, once said:
&#8220;I self-identify as African American–that&#8217;s how I&#8217;m treated and that&#8217;s how I&#8217;m viewed. I&#8217;m proud of it.&#8221;

In many ways, I identify. At times I&#8217;ve also gotten the feeling that people are assuming something about me, trying to place me. I get it–skin tone isn&#8217;t an easy thing to sort out. (And if anyone should understand skin tone, it&#8217;s me: I&#8217;m a beauty editor. I&#8217;ve worked on stories about how hard it is for women of color to find their true foundation shade, a frustration I&#8217;ve experienced firsthand.)
When it comes to people&#8217;s curiosity, this awareness of my skin tone, I&#8217;ve heard it all. The conversation usually goes like this:


&#8220;Where are you from?&#8221;


&#8220;Oklahoma.&#8221;
&#8220;No, but where are your parents from?&#8221; People seem unsatisfied when I say my parents are also from Oklahoma; perhaps they&#8217;re expecting something more &#8220;exotic.&#8221;
By the time I was in my twenties, my response to the question took on a &#8220;Sorry, can&#8217;t help you&#8221; tone. A friend joked that when a group of people looked at me for a little too long, they were playing Guess Her Race. What I never admitted was that I was playing the same game. My biggest insecurity was that I didn&#8217;t have the answer.

<h6>
Checking the Box–or Not</h6>

When I applied for college in 2002, I had to state my race. On the application there were six options, and I was instructed to choose one: Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, or Other. I identified with a few of these, but not fully enough that I felt I could legitimately tick only one, so I checked &#8220;Other,&#8221; then wrote &#8220;See essay&#8221; next to it. I wrote honestly about how it felt not to know, and then to have to choose an option as faceless as &#8220;Other.&#8221; For better or for worse, my identity could not be contained in a box.
I finally met my dad and his side of the family a few years later. In them I found a loving group of people–siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins–who embraced me. I also found out more about my ancestry. It turns out his side of the family is part German and part Native American, though if you saw my dad walking down the street, you&#8217;d probably think, White guy. I was so happy to connect and learn more about myself and my family, but I still couldn&#8217;t relate it to the tone of my skin.
Then I moved to New York City, a place where everyone on the subway looks like they&#8217;re from somewhere else. I still got the question, but now people took the liberty of telling me what they thought I was: &#8220;You look Egyptian&#8230; Brazilian&#8230; Dominican&#8230;.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;m not sure,&#8221; I&#8217;d say with a smile. This was the way I lived my life–I&#8217;d become seemingly comfortable with the unknown.
And then the impossible happened. A year ago, after a lifetime of near misses, my mother met her birth mother. Here, I thought, was the missing link to what I was, and maybe, finally, an answer. My maternal grandmother, I discovered, is Irish and part Native American. But, frustratingly, there were few clues about my mom&#8217;s birth father, my grandfather–a man who doesn&#8217;t look that brown in the one black-and-white photo I&#8217;ve seen. I still didn&#8217;t feel any closer to understanding why I&#8217;m this color.

<h5>
Time to Turn to Science</h5>

Then, last spring, I learned that Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D., would be speaking in New York, and I knew I had to hear him. With his PBS show, Finding Your Roots, this pioneer in ancestry research has helped many celebrities trace their backgrounds. He&#8217;s also a proponent of genetic testing kits like 23andMe, now easily available online.
At the end of the lecture, I introduced myself to Gates and mentioned that I was from Oklahoma. His response:
&#8220;I was going to say you look Native American.&#8221;
My heart sank.
Here I was in this room, with a lot of other black people, and didn&#8217;t look black to Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of our nation&#8217;s foremost experts on race. I ordered a 23andMe kit the next day. I had to know.
The kit costs $99 and is simple to use. You spit (a good amount) into a plastic vial, close it up, and send it off. It takes about three weeks to get your ancestry reports. The wait felt like an eternity.
When the email arrived, I was with two of my best friends, Rightor and Elizabeth. I held up my phone, pointing to the message that would reveal my race, my identity, my everything.
They went silent.


When I&#8217;d dispatched my kit, it had never occurred to me that I might not be ready to receive this information. Now I realized: I didn&#8217;t want to open the email–not yet. Suddenly, certainty didn&#8217;t seem so exciting.
Rightor whispered, &#8220;I do still hope you&#8217;re part black. You&#8217;re our half-black friend.&#8221;
We all laughed. I&#8217;d gotten used to being the brown friend among white friends. Now this message had the power to change my idea of myself.
I had taken the test last June, in a time we could call pre-Ferguson, pre-Eric Garner, two tragedies that drastically shifted the conversation around race in our country. Now, as the email waited in my inbox, I watched what felt like injustice on repeat. I kept asking myself, Where do I fit in?
When I went to the Millions March NYC protest in December, I stood shoulder to shoulder with blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics. Still, I wondered: What am I, here in this crowd? One of the oppressed? An empathizer? An outsider?
I realized that while I&#8217;d been searching for the answer to what I was, I&#8217;d also been looking for affirmation of the black part of me. I wanted to belong to that group because I did identify myself in that way. But what if technically, genetically, I didn&#8217;t belong? I was scared to find out.
The test results sat in my inbox for months. Then, one day, it hit me: I could know or not know. Live my life being safe, like I&#8217;ve always done, or take this leap. I was searching for answers, but did I actually want to hear them? I hadn&#8217;t been ready before; now all of a sudden, for some reason, I was.
My hands shaking, I opened the message. A map of the world popped up, indicating I had roots all over. Almost every continent was highlighted in a bright color.
The cold, hard science, the letter told me, was this: I was 67.8 percent European and just 2.9 percent West African; about a third of my DNA was labeled &#8220;unassigned.&#8221;
I had a moment of feeling, What the f&#8211;k? I&#8217;d waited 30 years only to find out that a good chunk of me was still a mystery, even to a genetic-testing company?
I read further. As it happens, DNA that traces from multiple continents is labeled &#8220;unassigned.&#8221; I also learned that Native American DNA is hard to test for, since there are few reference populations available to provide samples. (The Native American sample pool used for my analysis is smaller than the European samples.) With a good portion of my genetic makeup still unknown (mostly the not-white portion, it seemed), I went to bed feeling hollow.
When I started this process, my initial excitement had been clouded by a thought: More actual facts about my history might close off the possibility that I could be black, Brazilian, Dominican, fill in the blank.
All my life there&#8217;s been a chance that I could be a lot of things, and I&#8217;ve embraced that. Feeling unattached to groups and hard to categorize had become the most defining part of me. Not having a fixed identity had become my identity.
The day after I opened the email, I went through my morning, still feeling disappointed. As I crossed the street, a black man passed me on the left. At the same time a white woman came toward me on my right. For the first time in my life, it flipped for me: Before, I wasn&#8217;t sure which one would have thought I was part of their culture, what they would have called me. But in that moment, I saw parts of myself in both of them–I could identify with each one and, for that matter, whomever I wanted.


I flashed back to the Millions March, to all the faces on the New York City subway, to that sixth-grade girl looking in the bathroom mirror. What I had been seeing were just skin tones. I&#8217;d spent so much time trying to understand my own color, but as it turned out, there was something empowering about the fact that I didn&#8217;t have to take ownership of any particular race. I realized: I could be what I was by being who I was. My search led me to my father&#8217;s family, whom I adore, and to my mother&#8217;s family, whom I&#8217;m getting to know–and, most important, to myself. The daughter I am, the sister I am, the friend I am.
This is who I am. No email could ever change that.
The next time someone asks what I am, my response will be ready:
&#8220;I&#8217;m Simone. What are you?&#8221;


Simone Kitchens, Glamour&#8217;s deputy beauty editor, lives in Brooklyn.

Simone Kitchens

I’m Simone

Around this time every year, we turn our attention toward the patriarchs of our respective families and collectively ask: “What should we get dad for father’s day?”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-13497" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FathersDayImage-300x141.jpg" alt="FathersDayImage" width="300" height="141" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FathersDayImage-300x141.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FathersDayImage-768x362.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FathersDayImage.jpg 793w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> 
Today, we want to step back and ask just the opposite:
“Genetically, what do we get from dad?”
Our customer care team has received countless phone calls from women wondering if they inherited any DNA from their fathers. The questions pop up because women don’t inherit a Y-chromosome from their fathers, and thus do not receive a paternal haplogroup assignment.
But if you were planning to call about this, we have good news for you — you actually inherit half of your DNA from your father.
The DNA 23andMe uses for most of our features, including Ancestry Composition and DNA Relatives, is inherited from both of your parents as a mixture and reflects both of your parent’s ancestry. 23andMe looks not just at the sex chromosomes – the X and the Y – but the other 22 pairs of chromosomes, called the autosomes. You can read more about how DNA is transmitted through the generations in our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubq4eu_TDFc&amp;list=PLF9969C74FAAD2BF9">Genetics 101 series</a>.
That being said, the Y-chromosome is only inherited by males. That allows 23andMe to make a paternal haplogroup assignment for male customers. Paternal haplogroups are families of Y chromosome types that all trace back to a single mutation at a specific place and time, and can help customers wanting to learn more about their ancestral origins. Some of us like to think that the Y-chromosome is responsible for a father’s ability to look like he appreciates ugly ties, but scientists don’t see it that way.
Geneticists, historians, and genealogists have actually discovered remarkable information using Y-chromosome DNA. So, for example, my paternal haplogroup is R1a1a. This branched off about 12,000 years ago and among people, with Western European ancestry, it occurs in about one-third of Norwegian men and a quarter of men from the far northern British Isles. Knowing that does give me a better understanding of my own ancestry.
Let me explain why this is.
First, you need to understand how the Y-chromosome is passed down. As we mentioned above, almost all of your DNA is inherited as a mixture, however, the Y-chromosome is handed down directly from a father to his son. For this reason, there is no mixing, or as geneticists say — there is no recombination — when it comes to the Y-chromosome. This is important to note when learning about your ancestry through your Y-chromosome because it only reflects one branch of your ancestry – your father’s, father’s, father’s, father… you get the idea.
You can technically trace your Y chromosome all the way back to the earliest known human civilizations.
If we’ve emailed in the past this might sound familiar, but we should confess something to the rest of you before we go any further, Y-chromosome DNA does not provide a comprehensive view of your ancestry. Features that use DNA that you inherit from both of your parents can identify relationships or ancestry from any branch of your family tree.
Okay, back to Y-chromosomes. Soon after geneticists discovered how a Y-chromosome was inherited, word got around to the historians. Historians took note that at certain points in ancient history Y chromosomes changed at specific places. Soon, they started naming and ordering these changes using this information to <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-15199 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MaternalPaternalLines-300x283.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="283" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MaternalPaternalLines-300x283.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MaternalPaternalLines.jpg 400w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
At this point, you are probably thinking that you haven’t heard a lecture this longwinded since your dad sat you down as a kid. But, before we wrap this up we want to explain why you should be interested in your father’s Y haplogroup. These days there are several hundred known paternal haplogroups if you are genotyped by the service we assign to you a <a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/historys-mysteries-finding-answers-in-our-dna/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">paternal haplogroup</a>. You can treat this knowledge as a sort of genetic family crest passed down from an ancient time from each father to his sons. Women can infer their paternal haplogroup by having a male relative on your father’s paternal line. So that could be your father, brother, or paternal uncle or paternal male cousin.
You can read more on our blog about how paternal haplogroups can provide insight into more recent history. If you want more information about paternal haplogroups in general, visit our help center. And because we have undoubtedly forgotten to send a card: happy father’s day dad, thanks for our Y chromosomes.

A Father’s Day Ode to the Y-Chromosome

High school teacher Thomas Holterman wanted to show his students that some of the human story and our own family history are written in our DNA if we choose to explore it.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/AC-300x294.jpg" alt="AC" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22530" width="300" height="294" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/AC-300x294.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/AC.jpg 757w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Holterman is one of four teachers who won an award for lesson plans they developed as part of the <a href="http://iskme.org/media/press-releases/winning-teachers-announced-dna-learning-challenge-prize" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Genetics Learning Challenge</a>, sponsored by ISKME and 23andMe. Holterman was assisted by 23andMe&#8217;s academic program, which helps teachers incorporate genetic education into classroom instruction.
Holterman, a history teacher in Oak Creek Wisconsin, wanted his high school sophomores to use DNA testing to learn more about not just their own families’ histories but also human history.


Using 23andMe testing his students were able to learn more about their ancestry and use it to help create a “family history book” to trace where in the world their ancestors came from.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve done ancestry projects in the past, but I wanted students to dig deeper into their heritage,&#8221; history teacher Holterman told the <a href="http://www.oakcreeknow.com/news/a-spitting-image-of-themselves-b99474078z1-298987461.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Oak Creek Now</a>. &#8220;This is a journey of self discovery for them. We&#8217;ve lost so much of our personal history and now they&#8217;ll have information about their ancestors that they&#8217;ll be able to pass down the line.&#8221;
Some of the students plan to share their DNA stories at the <a href="http://www.discoveryworld.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Discovery World</a> in Milwaukee, WI.Check out what some of his students learned from testing.
<iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a_t3C9JWj9k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Don’t Know Much About History?

For decades, Jonathan Hay, a well-known hip-hop producer and Santa Monica-based PR maven, felt paralyzed by the mystery of his birth.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22539" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/jonathan-hay1-300x266.jpg" alt="jonathan-hay1" width="300" height="266" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/jonathan-hay1-300x266.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/jonathan-hay1.jpg 610w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
That all changed late last year after connecting for the first time with his biological parents, in part because of testing with 23andMe.
His story was recently featured in The Ledger in Central Florida, where his biological father, Ron Bradley, and half-brother, Ryan Bradley, live. His biological mother, Pamela Nicely, lives in Ohio.
Although he spoke on the phone with Pamela and Ron, Jonathan had difficulty meeting them in person.&#8221;They wanted to see me on Thanksgiving, and then they wanted to see me on Christmas, and I found myself making excuses,&#8221; Jonathan told The Ledger. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-22541" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Haymaker.jpg" alt="Haymaker" width="250" height="138" />
He and his parents will meet in person for the first time sometime later this year, but it will be on camera as part of a reality series Hay is putting together called <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/thehaymaker/jonathanhay/prweb12604331.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“The Haymaker.”</a>
Stay tuned for more about his reality show.

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