Our Ancestry and a Father's Day Gift

Growing up as a mixed child, I have always got the question “what are you”, or just are you …? (which was never the right guess).  The question has never bothered me because sometimes I wonder about the ethnicity of others that look racially ambiguous. Whenever I get that question, I ask them to guess and surprisingly no one ever gets the answer right . The guessing usually involves Hispanic, Asian, Egyptian, and African American. Literally all over the place!Although I had general knowledge of my makeup, I never knew my ancestry. Every family has those speculations about why certain family members are lighter than others, why your  grandpa had blue eyes or why your aunts have high cheek bones. I don’t think anyone really knows the truth, unless you have done an ancestry test.Michael and I have both been curious about our ancestry lately. After a friend told me about gifting a 23andMe Health + Ancestry Service kit to her boyfriend for Christmas, I thought it would be a great Father's Day gift for Michael. He has been wanting to find out his ancestry and when I told him I was partnering with 23andMe he was so excited (He thought he was Cherokee) I said Happy Father's Day!23andMe is a  genetic testing service that analyzes your genetic data to create multiple reports about your ancestry, health and more.  It’s super easy you order your 23andMe service online, receive a package containing the saliva collection kit by mail, you register your kit, spit in a tube and send the package back with a prepaid label. In around 6-8 weeks, you’ll receive an email indicating that you can access your reports online! You can even choose to share and compare your results with friends or family members who have also completed a 23andMe kit.I was so excited to receive my results! I always thought  I was basically black and Jewish I didn’t know much else. So it turns out I have  58% European ancestry, which is comprised of 49.4% Ashkenazi Jewish, and small percentages of British & Irish and Northwestern European. I also have 39% Sub- Saharan African ancestry with 36% being West African,. and only 1% Native American.  The results even indicated that I’m likely to have freckling, likely to prefer salty vs. sweet foods, as well as having a little unibrow…which is all true.Michael was more shocked to get his ancestry composition results in. He had always been told he was largely Native American because of  some of his family’s characteristics but his results were 69.9 % Sub-Saharan African, mostly West African, 27.9% European, mainly British & Irish, and only .5% Native American.If you would like to learn more about your ancestry, health, traits and more.  I would highly recommend 23andMe. The results are enlightening. Go to 23andMe.com/BeautiCurve to see 23andMe’s Father’s Day Promotion.