My DNA

 I knew it, I always knew it! Oh, no, I didn't know, I felt it! 

I'm writing a post, emotions are beating over the edge... I don't know where to start from/ who to start with... the post is being written thanks to my husband, but I'll start with dad.

To begin with, my dad was a “storyteller.” 

No, he didn't write fairy tales, he told them.

The main fairy tale of our family: the swarthiness of the skin and brown eyes were inherited by him and my younger sister from the great-great-grandmother of a gypsy who ran away from the gypsy camp. 

Look at our photos, how different we are.

Our parents told us that I looked like my grandfather (dad's dad), and my sister looked like my grandmother (his mother). 

To be honest, I believed in it as a child. As I grew up, I began to doubt whether my parents would come up with anything. I don't even know about Dad, if he believed his own words. You can't ask now.

When dad was no longer with us, but the Internet and social media networks appeared, I wanted to find people with the same surname. It turned out that there are no such people in Tomsk. Not a single one. The men (dad, grandfather, dad's son from his first marriage) died, the women got married and changed their surnames, my grandmother died when I was 3 years old.

But there were many namesakes in Kazan*. The question arose: maybe my grandfather was a Tatar? But he was blond!

My Grandfather

There were no questions with my mother's relatives. She comes from a village near Tomsk (22 mi). Most likely, her ancestors have always lived there and most likely they are Russian. And she didn't tell any fairy tales.

And I didn't have much time to think about nationality at that time.

Then my parents died.

Then the divorce happened. And with it, I’ve made the decision that I want to move to another country.

My first thought was about Finland. I didn’t know why (I know now).

 I still call Finland the country of my dreams.

I've never been there, I haven't even read anything about it. But for some reason I thought that I would be at home there. 

Why am I writing all this?

My (current) husband gave me a DNA test as a birthday gift. 

Many of my English-speaking friends have done such tests. Someone found a stepsister, someone found cousins and cousins of the parents. 

I understood that I would not find relatives in America. But I became curious, who am I?

And so, Daniel gave me a test, I collected saliva, created an account and sent the test by mail, and two months later I received the result.

It says:

Your DNA is most similar to DNA from these 4 regions of the world:

Eastern Europe and Russia - 61%

The Baltic States - 26%

Eastern European Roma (Gypsies) - 8%

Finland - 5%

!!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe my eyes!!!

It turns out Dad's fairy tales were NOT fairy tales. And my desire to go to Finland is not just a flighty fantasy. 

And now I know for sure that I am not an Asian  woman, as my husband teases me. Daniel says his wife lived right above China. And this is Asia, so I'm Asian. Yes, but only by place of birth.

Now the website offers me to start creating a family tree, for money. But I have no data about the ancestors, only fairy tales....

My Dad

My Mom

Questions?

Opinions. 

Feel free to tell me. 

*Kazan is a city in southwest Russia. The capital of the Republic of Tatarstan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazan