What is my Ancestry Composition?

Say what?!

(sample)

From the time I was born  61 years ago, until I was a teenager, my entire identity was that of an American, albeit a Jewish one. Reality, as I knew it, started in 1952 in Denver, Colorado, United States of America. That's what I knew, period.  During my childhood, no one ever mentioned the old country, so for a long time, I didn't know there was one.  My great-grandparents and grandparents were so relieved to have escaped the pogroms and atrocities of those butchering Cossacks, that when they emigrated to America, they just wanted to start anew, safe and free from the centuries of terrifying antisemitism and oppression. One time, I remember as a young girl, I asked my Grandma Golden a question about her family's life before immigrating to America. When she didn't respond, my Grandpa began to answer for her, but she instantly chastised him, "Shah!! Don't talk about it!!"  That misery was over and they didn't want to burden their children or grandchildren. 

Fast forward, 45 years and thanks to my sister Rhonda, a lot of extensive research has been done on the Cooper/Golden/Becker/Shafner family trees which essentially go back to the pogroms of the Ukraine around the late 1800's and early 1900's. Then the genealogical records hit a brick wall. I've often wondered throughout the years, who was my family before then? Where did they live? Where did THEY come from?  

Now, knowing that I'm purportedly Ashkenazi Jewish according to my family lore, I could surmise quite a bit. After all, when our Second Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem fell to the Romans in 70 C.E., the Jewish diaspora began. We left town and migrated throughout Europe and beyond, for the next 2000 years! Then finally, with the recent establishment of Israel in 1948, a lot of us moved back. Those of us that didn't, still go to visit our michpocha that did.  But, hey, 2000 years is a long time.  A lot can happen! So, what happened to MY family?  Now that I've gotten older and become a Grandma myself, I just want to know more about my lineage.

Now, recently in this year 2013, I learned about a simple saliva test called 23andMe that might provide some answers.  And indeed, the answers are starting to trickle in. Initially, the first wave of information is all about health issues, what I've inherited, what I'm at risk of.  Interesting stuff, which I'll tell you about later. Right now, the ancestry information is starting to appear in my report AND it continues to get updated.  Of particular note is that the information I am receiving is only from my mother's side.  Even though half of my genetic composition comes from my father, women do not have the Y chromosome that’s passed down from father to son. So to get my paternal lineage too, my dad will soon have to spit into a test tube like I did.

Then, another piece of the puzzle will come together and maybe, just maybe, I'll find out where those light blond-hair, blue eye genes come from that my sisters inherited from my dad.

And those almond shaped eyes on the Cooper side from my mom.  

And whether or not, as I've always joked, "Did Genghis Khan from the east or some tall Scandinavian warriors from the north play a part in any of this?  

You never know.

Until maybe... now.