It was curiosity that made me do it. That, and a little bit of vanity. I was hoping for a surprise, something unexpected and intriguing about my family history, like an Indian ancestor, or a drop of Viking blood — something to fire up my imagination.
But my DNA test results could not have been more banal or predictable. They told me that I am 99 per cent European Jew (Central and Eastern Europe), with one per cent Middle Eastern genes.
It certainly feels like the joke is on me. I paid £70 and patiently waited for over two months to find out something you could have told me by looking at me: I am pure Ashkenazi Jew. Inbred. Not even a sniff of Sephardi, let alone anything else. Honestly, I have never been so disappointed. I should have deposited my saliva somewhere more useful. Like a tissue.
In the advert for the website that I used, it says you can “discover your unique ethnic mix”. Assuming that the test is accurate — and there is some controversy over the reliability of these tests — what I discovered is that there is no mix in me at all. My ethnicity is only unique in the sense that it’s all one and the same.
