What I'm Made Of

Have you ever wondered what you are? When you are talking to someone and they ask, "What are you"?... what do you say? Do you even know? Or if you do have an answer, how can you be sure that it is correct? I've been told by both sides of my family what I am made of, and up until the past year I never questioned it.It's kind of funny, my whole life I've been told I am Italian, French, and Native American, but oddly enough when people try to guess what I am, almost every case people guess that I am SPANISH.

If I go by what both sides of my family say, I am 50% Italian from my dad's side, 43.5% French and 6.5% Native American from my mom's side.

First of all, let me tell you what I have been told what I am based on what my family has told me. My dad's side of the family all claim they are 100% Italian. Okay, well this is the 21st century, and considering these claims are based on stories that their ancestors have told them for decades and decades, I personally find it VERY hard to believe that at some point or another there wasn't someone in my family who had a baby with another person who wasn't Italian. I am probably going to get a lot of crap about this from my family but look at it this way. If a woman in my family got married to another Italian man, and at some point during the marriage she strayed and got pregnant from some different man, WHO WAS NOT ITALIAN, do you really think she is going to tell her husband and family that she not only cheated on her husband but is also having a baby that is not Italian? Yeah, didn't think so. She is going to say that the baby is her husbands, and then everyone is going to believe that the baby is 100% Italian, when in fact that baby is only 50%. That baby is going to grow up thinking it is 100% Italian, then is going to marry someone who is 100% Italian, and have kids who are supposedly 100% Italian when in reality they are only 75%. Generations go by like this. Stuff like this happened all the time back then because life was more conservative like that. So yeah, when my dad's side of the family tells me that they are 100% Italian, I'm taking it with a grain of salt.

I am not just picking on my dad's side. My mom's side of the family claims we are just French and Native American. Apparently my grandfather's side of the family is all 100% French. Now, like the hypothetical situation I mentioned above, this may not be totally true, even if they don't know it. My grandmother's side was apparently French with some Native American in there. If you have seen any of my mom's side of the family, it is undeniable that Native American is in our blood, but just how much, that is the question.

I am proud of every nationality I carry in my blood. I like being French and Italian, but I am most proud of being Native American.The past couple of years I have talked to a few family members about genealogy, and I have expressed how even though I love the stories, and I totally respect what I am, I really want to know EXACTLY what I am. I have gotten mixed reviews, but for the most part very supportive reactions. I want to take a genealogy test that will tell me exactly what percentages I am. My family knows that once I take this test it is going to reveal a lot of information about my family, and in doing so it may reveal that they are not exactly what they have thought they were their entire life. How am I going to take this test? Here's the link:

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/

I plan on taking this test before the end of the summer, seeing that it is $200.00, I need to wait to see how my finances will work out. The link here is the homepage to the website, and if you click on it you can explore the geno project and learn more about what the test covers and how it works. It is not a matter of IF I will do this test, because I AM going to. It is time that I learn what I am made of, because maybe for generations stories were enough for people, but stories aren't always accurate, and science is. If you have ever really wondered what you are made of, I encourage you to look into the geno project. There are many DNA tests out there similar to this one, but from my research this test from National Geographic has the best results from a larger pool of data!