Written by: Derek Bisset
The woman was openly staring.
“You're Irish,” she said.
“I'm Scottish.” I was wearing a kilt. It was a Scottish dance event after all.
She shook her head.
“I was born and grew up in Scotland.”
“No. You're Irish.” She said it with conviction.
Over a lifetime we develop a story about who we are. This personal narrative we carry around informs a lot of the choices we make. Do we have a strong sense of community, or do we think the individual looking after self and family more important. Do we act out of strong moral beliefs or are we like Groucho who said “I have lots of principles; if you don't like them I have others.”
We are aware that who we are comes from early influences of people we grew up with and these are added to and changed over time by life experiences.
However, in the last few years evidence has been building that our genes have an effect as well. The evidence comes from studies in genetics and the discoveries made there.
It is now possible to take free university courses on line. They are called MOOCs and they allow thousands of ordinary people from all over the world to study hundreds of subjects freely. We followed a genetics course from UBC recently which focussed on the effects of genes on everyday life. The teacher, Professor Redford, showed how genes passed down from parents, grandparents and ancestors affect many aspects of our makeup, and hence our lives. The genes we inherit can affect our susceptibility to diseases like Parkinson's, personal qualities from height to hair colouring, and personality traits, outgoing or shy. Does that mean it is already decided how I'll vote in the upcoming election? Not quite. I still have a say, but less absolute than I might think. As part of the attempt to assist understanding of a new and difficult subject for non specialists like me she recommended students get personal genetic analysis done by one of the online companies. Spit in a vial, send it to 23andMe for example, and find out your risk for Alzheimer's or what percent of Neanderthal genes you carry.
It only took a few weeks for the results to come.
The first batch of results reported on the markers for serious diseases which could be life threatening, either for self or possibly being passed on to children or descendants. You could choose not to look at these results if you didn't want to know. I looked and just saw a list with markers 'not present'.
Interesting results then came later showing family and ancestral origins. No surprise here, Northern European origins. Neanderthal genes present? Yes, to the level of 2.8 percent. But despite the knuckle dragging jokes from my friends, they probably have the same. Most Europeans are now known to have similar levels.
But then came the shock.
Thousands of people have had the gene analysis done by this company. Who were my close relatives in that group? The percent of my genes identical to others tested showed close relationships, first cousins, second cousins and so on. I knew we were all ultimately from common ancestors. We are all Jock Tamson's bairns as the Scots say. But here I was looking at a world map with relatives scattered everywhere and a list of surnames of relatives I had never heard of.
I wear a Fraser kilt from the area around Inverness because my story says we are related there. But the hard evidence is that most of my closest relatives who shared my genes are either in Galway or Boston and are called O'Malley.
I'm Irish.
Now that says to me that the story we tell ourselves about who we are is just that... a story. And I still haven't decided how I'll vote.