You’ve probably seen the advertisements for those DNA testing kits. Heck, maybe you’ve purchased one to learn more about your ancestry. As for me, I know my rights. So the only way somebody is getting my DNA is with a court order.

Not that I have any crimes — frigid or otherwise — to hide. Moreover, DNA submitted to those ancestry companies has been utilized to solve crimes — frigid or otherwise — so there’s always the chance that your fifth cousin thrice removed’s interest in genealogy will land you in the slammer.

Anyway, I’m fascinated by the aforementioned advertisements. They usually feature someone who shares a tidbit about an inspirational ancestor. In a somber voice, he or she also shares a photo with a child and tells said child that their great-great-great-great-grandmother found the cure for a long-forgotten and eradicated disease in her kitchen laboratory whilst simultaneously rearing 14 children and selling soap door-to-door. Soap that she also made in her kitchen laboratory.

Or maybe he or she somberly tells said child that their great-great-great-great-grandfather left the old country during a blizzard whilst literally battling the Abominable Snowman. Once settling into the new country, he opened a brewery that revolutionized peach-flavored beer before leaving behind that empire to become a concert cellist.

I’ve wondered if anyone’s ancestors ever led simple lives. If anybody’s  genealogy research turns up clerks or painters who went to work, came home, and read by candlelight until bedtime. Just once, I’d like to hear someone say he and/or she found their ancestors and there wasn’t an interesting person in the lot.

I’ve also wondered what role these photos and stories play. Surely these kits don’t provide artistic renderings and narratives based on genetic results. So, if the customers already have them, then these are really two separate issues.

Regardless, I’ve never been that interested in genealogy. My brother has researched our roots, however, and we’re somehow linked to Lady Godiva, the 11th Century noblewoman who allegedly rode naked through the streets to protest oppressive taxation.

As for more recent ancestors, I’d like to know what prompted the ones who settled in the States to leave the old country and, perhaps later, Virginia. It was probably something simple. They had probably run out of space and opportunity and had heard that both awaited them in the west. But maybe it was something more exciting. Maybe they were escaping a crime, frigid or otherwise.

This post originally appeared in the Appalachian News-Express.

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