DNA

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Mixed Race: What Does a Person Look Like Who is Mayan, Aztec, Spanish, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Greek, Italian, Baltic, and West African?

Undeniably, my mom’s MyHeritage DNA test results were all over the place: Literally, all over the globe. It took a lot of ancestors from a lot of different places to get my mom here… and me, as well.

So now that we know my mom’s ethnicity mix (as well as half of mine), let’s take a moment to assess the situation by asking this question:

Can you see the following ethnic backgrounds in my mom and me? These are my mom’s MyHeritage DNA test results:

32.9% Central American (Mayan/Aztec)

22% Iberian (Spanish/Portuguese)

15.2% Sephardic Jewish (via Spain)

14% Middle East/West Asia (Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Palestine and Georgia)

7.8% Greek

4.5% Italian

2.6% Baltic (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia)

2.0% West African (Benin, Burkina Faso, the island nation of Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, the island of Saint Helena, Senegal, Sierra Leone, São Tomé and Príncipe and Togo)

It could be easy to say, “Well, you’re barely African.”

True, I am only 1% African and my mom is 2%. But without that one African ancestor, somewhere in our family history, even if it were nearly 200 years ago that they became part of it, my mom and I would cease to exist.

Granted, I’m not claiming to be an African-American. But at the same time, I can imagine how my 1% and my mom’s 2% would have been a whole different issue back when “The One Drop Rule” was still in effect in America. After all, I have “one drop” of African blood in me.

I am proud of every bit of my DNA.

It’s especially interesting that my mom and I are nearly equal parts Jewish and Middle Eastern.

From the best my mom and I can figure, this is how it happened:

Her Italian grandfather, Giuseppe Metallo, who moved to America from southern Italy, was barely Italian; which explains how he had an Italian name and only spoke Italian, yet why my mom only showed up as 4.5% Italian. Instead, I theorize he was actually mostly Middle Eastern; with a little bit of Italian and Baltic thrown in there.

He married Maria Vite, who was a Sephardic Jew whose family had moved to America from Italy, as well. (Vite is derived from Vitalli; a Sephardic Jewish last name.)

So in theory, my mom had two “Italian” grandparents, one of whom was mainly Middle Eastern and one was mainly Jewish.

I think that’s just fascinating.

Some people could care less about their ethnicity, but I am not one of those people.

Instead, I think it’s one of the coolest things in the world.

And if you’re interested in taking a DNA test like I did, here’s the link to MyHeritage.

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MyHeritage DNA Test Results are Back… But Do You Agree with the Results?

Either my DNA results from MyHeritage are inaccurate, or what my family has believed this whole time about our ethnicity has been inaccurate.

Currently, I am sort of baffled. I am still sorting out the confusion. My Italian grandfather, Alberto Victorio Metallo, whose own father arrived in America a hundred years ago from Italy and could only barely speak English when he died in 1983, was Italian.

However, my results from MyHeritage do not remotely reflect my Italian heritage. Instead, the test shows I am literally 0% Italian. I went through the trouble of looking up exactly what countries of origin my DNA traces back to, according to the regions that MyHeritage provided, and removed the countries in which the test showed I have no DNA connection.

Here’s my DNA:

Nick Shell

100.0%

37.4% Central Western European (Germany, The Netherlands/Holland, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland)

31.8% Iberian (Spain/Portugal)

21.6% Central American (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama)

6.1% Eastern European (Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia)

2.3% Balkan (Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania)

0.8% Middle Eastern (Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan)

0% (England, Finland, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Scandinavia, Greece, Italy, Sardinia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ashkenazi Jewish, Yemenite Jewish, Mizrahi Jewish, Native American, South American, Indigenous Amazonian, African, Asian, Oceanic)

My whole life I have had reason to believe I am one quarter Italian, but I was open-minded to the idea my test would reveal instead of being 25% Italian, maybe I would only be 12.5%, as my great-grandfather Joseph Metallo (the one who came here from Italy) married a woman named Maria Vite; who could have possibly been of French descent, based on vite being a French word.

(That’s my Italian grandfather pictured above on the left; opposite me, with my son.)

However, my great-grandmother also emigrated here from Italy and spoke Italian. Maria “Mary” Vite died at age 38 in the year 1938, so there is definitely some mystery as to her family tree. But even if she was 100% French yet born in Italy, my great-grandfather would have had to been mainly of Spanish or Portuguese descent and his family would have had to at some point adopted Italian names, including their last name, Metallo.

Even if the test was a little inaccurate, I would still think I would show up at least a little bit Italian. After all, Middle Eastern DNA showed up in me, along with Eastern European, but not Italian?

If you’re wondering why I show up as nearly a quarter Central American and nearly a third Spanish (or Portuguese), it’s because my grandmother (who my Italian grandfather was married to) was Mexican.

(This is her, pictured below, being able to meet my daughter.)

That actually brings up another surprise. By quadrupling my Central American DNA, which is 21.6%, that indicates my Mexican grandmother was actually 86.4% Central American, only leaving 13.6% (that’s close to one eighth) to be Spanish. Then, once I subtracted that 13.6% from the Spanish part of me (31.8%), it left 18.2%. I then multiplied that percentage times 4 again, to assume how Spanish my Italian grandfather must have been: 72.8%.

According to my theory, my Mexican grandmother was mainly Central American (barely Spanish) and my Italian grandfather was mainly Spanish (not Italian at all); leaving the rest of him to have been 9.2% Balkan (Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania). That brings my Italian grandfathers DNA up to exactly 82%.

Next I added the 3.2% Middle Eastern he must have been; now totaling 85.2%. That implies the rest of him had to have been Central Western European, which includes French.

This also means, by default, my dad has to be of Spanish descent as well, because there’s still Spanish DNA to be accounted for.

Most of my test makes sense. My last name is Shell, which in German, means “loud and noisy.” So that accounts for some of the 37.4% Central Western European.

But is this test accurate? Is it possible that I am truly not Italian at all? What do you think?

In the meantime, my mom is taking the test too. Being half-Mexican, half-Italian her whole life, I’m curious to know what the test says about her. We should know by October…

And if you’re interested in taking a DNA test like I did, here’s the link to MyHeritage.

1 Comment Posted on People, Uncategorized

5 Reasons It Took Me 7 Years to Finally Decide to Take a DNA Test (through MyHeritage)

Back in 2010 when the TV show “Who Do You Think You Are?” premiered, I learned how it had become possible to take a simple DNA test and find out my ethnicity. What took me so long, though? If finding out my own ethnicity has always been important to me, why I wasn’t I one of the first people in line to take a DNA test.

These were the 5 obstacles I had to overcome, to get me to the point where I finally purchased my DNA test through MyHeritage.

1- The Perception of Difficult Access– Until I started seeing commercials for these tests a couple of years ago, I always assumed I had to drive hours to certain cities where these tests were conducted and pay at least $1,000. So I didn’t bother looking into it. Finally, a few years ago, I starting seeing commercials on YouTube, making me aware how I could just buy one off the Internet for $100; but I still didn’t immediately react.

2- Having to Wait for Results– Perhaps the main reason is that in an age of instant gratification, I didn’t want to have to go through the process: Go to the website, pull out my wallet and type in my credit card info, wait a week for them to mail me the test, take the test, mail the test back, then wait a month for them to mail back the results.

3- Paying the Money for It– I didn’t want to have to part with 100 bucks of my own “blow money”. (This is a Dave Ramsey term, which means that my wife and I have a limited set amount of money we can spend on ourselves for things other than paying the bills.) It’s not that $100 was too high of a price point, but it’s just there were other things I wanted more. Somehow at age 36, I have apparently acquired all the toys I have always wanted. Or more importantly, MyHeritage was having a sale.

4- Needing Assurance of Specific Results– It was my assumption that if I bought my test from the “wrong company”, it wouldn’t be specific enough. But then I watched a commercial for MyHeritage in which an African-American took the test and learned he is 3% Finnish. After hearing MyHeritage’s test was that specific, not just simply telling him he was 3% Scandinavian or Northern European, I realized this test was legit.

5- Wanting Confirmation from an Actual User– My final step in choosing MyHeritage was when I sent a message to them on Twitter, asking them if the test could discover Jewish DNA. Not only was MyHeritage quick to respond from their Twitter account, but so was an apparently unaffiliated girl from Tel Aviv, Israel with the handle, @shaindlinger. She testified to me that the test confirmed she is Jewish; which therefore answered my question. So she was the final element in my decision to choose MyHeritage for my DNA test.

It took overcoming all this to get where I am today. And now, we shall all wait until September 2nd at the latest, for me to reveal the results. Stay tuned…

And if you’re interested in taking a DNA test like I did, here’s the link to MyHeritage.

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How to Take Your DNA for MyHeritage Ethnicity Test without a Blood Sample (Unboxing and Demonstration Videos Included)

In case you’re considering purchasing a DNA kit from MyHeritage and you’re curious to know what happens once the box shows up on your front door, then I’m your guy.

It’s true that one of the things that kept me from taking a DNA test up until now, is that I assumed it would require taking a blood sample. I actually thought there was a chance I would either have to draw my own blood, or go to some kind of medical center and have them do it.

Nope. Not at all.

There is absolutely no blood sample required. I think this is a popular assumed belief among people who have never taken one of these tests. It’s crazy to say it out loud, and sounds ridiculous when you start thinking about a company like MyHeritage requiring customers to be responsible for providing their own blood samples. What a liability!

 

But I do believe it’s a popular enough assumption among not-yet-consumers of the product, and therefore, “no blood samples required” should be more prominent in their advertisements. There’s a good chance I would have purchased my DNA test much sooner had someone spelled that out for me:

“No blood. Just spit.”

Oh, what if I just created a new marketing catch phrase for MyHeritage?

The MyHeritage DNA kit mainly consists of a 2 swabs and 2 containers. That’s pretty much all that’s needed.

 

You swab the inside of each cheek for about a minute each, then put each swab in its own container by pressing part of the swab itself. Next, find a stamp or two to place on the front of the envelope and place it in the mailbox. After waiting 4 to 6 weeks, the results will arrive. Currently, I’m on Week 2.

Check out the two videos I made; one is an unboxing video and the other is a demonstration of how to take the test. Neither of them were rehearsed, so you will see me somewhat awkwardly figuring out what to do.

Thanks for visiting Family Friendly Daddy Blog today!

And if you’re interested in taking a DNA test like I did, here’s the link to MyHeritage.

1 Comment Posted on People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

I Will Be the 1st Person You Know Who Actually Took a DNA Test to Find Out Their Ethnicity (MyHeritage Results by September 2nd)

Some people could care less about what shows up in their family tree. They will just sort of laugh it off with, “Yeah, I’m pretty much a mutt, I guess… A little English, a little Irish, maybe some German- I even heard there’s some Native American Indian in there too.”

But I am not one of those people.

Instead, I am Nick Shell. Therefore, I have always been fascinated by the mystery of my ethnicity.

I suppose I have somewhat of an advantage in that I know for a fact that all my great-grandparents on my mom’s side were born in another country:

Her grandparents on her father’s side were born in Italy and her grandparents on her mother’s side were born in Mexico. It’s just always been taken for granted that my mother is half Italian and half Mexican.

But I can no longer assume that every ancestor on my mom’s side was either 100% Italian or 100% Mexican. Besides, “Mexican” isn’t actually a race; as I understand that Mexicans are ultimately an ethnic mix of Native Americans and Europeans.

Over the years, my mom has reminded me of what she heard as a young girl, when she was around the Italian half of the family: “Just because we have the Metallo name and we’re Italian, that doesn’t mean that’s all we are. There’s other stuff in there too: A little bit of Greek, a little bit of French, and a little bit of Jewish…”

 

And before my Mexican grandmother passed away last year, she told me something I never heard her say before; that when she was a little girl, she saw family members “who had black skin and tight, curly hair.” I believe it is possible there is actually a few drops of African blood in me.

As for my dad’s side of the family, no one really knows. A few years ago, my dad received a book containing all the family tree records, but the names all seem to be predictably “WASP”: White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

But I won’t be wondering much longer. Because as of Saturday, July 22nd, I mailed off the DNA test I bought from MyHeritage. The results should be back within 4 to 6 weeks from that day; which would be August 19th be at the soonest, and September 2nd at the latest.

As you can imagine, I am looking forward to finding out the results! No matter what the results reveal, I am sure I will be surprised…

Even though I paid $79 (normally $99) plus shipping, I see there are running a special that ends tonight, on July 31st; for just $69.

And if you’re interested in taking a DNA test like I did, here’s the link to MyHeritage.