We signed on to 23andme early in its 18-year history, inspired by the breakthrough series on PBS hosted by Henry Louis Gates. At the start, Finding Your Roots focused on celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Chris Rock and Gates himself. Through a combination of DNA sampling and deep dives into archival research, the show often revealed to its subjects aspects of their family history that were previously unknown. I remember Chris Rock’s astonishment at discovering that one of his forebears had served in the Reconstruction South Carolina legislature, as I recall. “If I had known that when I was growing up, I would have had a whole different sense of myself,” he said.
We weren’t expecting anything that dramatic for ourselves. We were after confirmation of what we were pretty sure was the case – that we were essentially pure-bred Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern and Central European backgrounds. Rosellen likes to fantasize that her .2% other contains secrets that explain what she believes are Asian hints in her eye structure. I have no such illusion. We are the products of one of the longest-running experiments in inbreeding, not entirely of our own choosing.
23andme also offered health information, gleaned from your DNA that presumed to provide answers to questions like “Do you have an aversion to cilantro?” or “Are you a day or night person?” We were wise to ignore that aspect of the offerings because, doctor friends have told us, the science just wasn’t good enough yet to yield information that granular. What we were more interested in, though it wasn’t our original focus, was the opportunity to identify unknown relatives who may also have contributed their DNA to 23andme’s pool.
There’s been a slow and steady accumulation of hits over the last 15+ years that have kept us coming back for more, like Skinner’s rats who keep pressing the bar, even though it only occasionally rewards their effort with a food pellet. Many of them are 3rd and 5th cousins whose connections with us come out of a distant and foggy past, but there have been a few first and second cousins with ancestors I can actually locate on my family tree.
I’ve had more luck than Rosellen because my parents came from larger families than hers, favoring my odds. She did hit pay dirt once by finding a long-dead distant cousin who entertained the troops at the USO by singing in two voices at once. I ’ve had actual exchanges with four relatives. Two of them, the granddaughter of my mother’s sister and the granddaughter of a cousin who accompanied my grandparents from Poland to Palestine, engaged in brief email exchanges with me that died on the vine.
But the other two have produced really robust relationships that I hope will be enduring. I will mention them by name just because I’m so happy they’ve entered my life. Mark Sable is the great grandson of my father’s sister, Ida. My childhood was filled with encounters with three generations of Mark’s family preceding him. He’s helped me fill in some gaps in my family tree knowledge. Mark lives in Los Angeles but has visited us in Chicago several times when he’s in town for professional conferences – he writes comic books and graphic novels– and he’s now developed a relationship with one of our daughters and her husband. We’ve been following him through the LA fire disasters and are relieved to know that he has evacuated to a safe place and that his house appears to still be standing.
It’s the second and most recent contact that really put me on the road to writing this piece. When I got a note from 23andme last week that they had identified 5 new relatives, I opened it expecting to find more 3rd cousins with whom I share 1% of my DNA, but when I saw the name Dan Solomon and the higher DNA percentage, I was intrigued. Solomon is my mother’s maiden name, so anyone bearing that name couldn’t be too many generations distant. I sent him a note that included my email address and hoped he would respond. Dan did, almost immediately, and we arranged a phone call the next day. He is the grandson of my mother’s brother Benjamin, whom I knew as my Uncle Bennie. Before Uncle Bennie and his wife Esther moved to California in the early 50’s we visited him often in his tailor shop near Prospect Park in Brooklyn and once on a return visit to NY, he and Esther were guests at one of our Passover seders.
Dan’s father, Albert, is still alive at 98, living with caregivers in Calabasas, a suburb of LA. I met Albert 45 or 50 years when he and his wife had dinner with us in New Hampshire, where we were living then. I’ll come back to him in a minute, but I have to detour into the most astonishing discovery in this encounter. I began to tell Dan about a photograph on my wall of his great-grandparents (my grandparents). “Can we switch to Facetime?” he asked. When we did, we were able to show each other that we both had the same picture in our homes, half a continent apart. It’s a beautifully composed picture of this old couple on a street in Haifa, Israel on their way to synagogue. We had different stories about how our families came by this photo, but no matter, the picture cemented our ties to each other. He asked if we could patch his father into the call to show him the pictures and some others I had on my wall in hopes that it might jog his failing memory. It didn’t have that effect, nor did he remember our meeting, but it was thrilling to see his very recognizable face after almost half a century. I intend to call Dan again this week to learn more about his family. I want to grow this relationship.
The company 23andme is in dire straits. A recent data breach exposed many of its customers’ private information. The discovery that the company shared its DNA information with drug companies further eroded customer confidence, all of which has resulted in a steep decline in its stock value and the risk of bankruptcy. There are serious questionsnow about what happens to all the information that resides with the company if it goes under.
I am especially concerned about all the family relationship information that may be lost. The company has strayed from its original course, but I am grateful for the small discoveries it has enabled about relatives I’m eager to stay in touch with. That’s a lot more important than its predictions about my genetic predisposition to cilantro. I’m grateful for the doors its work has opened for me.
