Melting Pots

In his later years, my dad spent countless hours compiling our family history. In the days before the internet became vogue, a family researcher was forced to visit genealogical libraries and thumb through card catalogues, microfiches and dusty books.

We have it easy today, though the veracity of some of the material on ancestry websites is questionable, since there is often no documentation to back up the data one finds in the average family tree. Although the inclusion of census, military, birth and death, and other records is paramount, they are often missing.

Having always wondered about what might be referred to as my “continental composition,” I submitted a vial of saliva (spit to you) to a particular agency for DNA testing. The results were forwarded to me a few weeks later.

According to these results 70% of my bloodline lies in the British Isles, whereas 12% originates in other Europeans countries, 3% from Spain, 3% Italy or Greece, 1% Scandinavian, surprisingly enough, 1% Caucasus (Israel, Syria, Iraq, etc.), and 1% northern Africa.

All this to say, each of us, without exception, represent what has been referred to as a “melting pot.”

Consider.

We each have 2 parents. 4 grandparents. 8 great grandparents. 16 great great grandparents. 32 great great great grandparents, etc. And thus, the term, “family tree.”

Recently, as I was watching television, I learned that during the course of human history there have been approximately 106 billion people, alive or dead, who have inhabited this planet. (About 98 billion have already gone on to their reward, or lack thereof, and 8 billion are currently living).

I once sat down and computed the number of direct ancestors any one of us can claim over the course of 1500 years, (or 33 generations). Amazingly, over this period of time the total of great, great (etc.) grandparents to which each and every individual on earth can trace their composition is (drum roll)

… 1 billion!

And with each previous generation the total of direct ancestors doubles again!

We live in an age of racial prejudice and significant resulting tension. Historically, there are groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Black Panthers Party which boast about their racial purity, and the need to protect “their people” from those whom they view as the enemy.

Well, my friends, I dare say this sort of mentality is nothing more than total

… Hogwash!

For you see, there isn’t a racially pure person among us. As I have previously inferred, each and every one of God’s children are the summation and composition of innumerable bits of DNA contributed by literally billions of direct ancestors.


And (therefore) it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that while most of us may be identified by the characteristics of one major racial group, each of us are, almost certainly, the blend of peoples from, (another drum roll)

… all three races!

As one of my former pastors used to say,

Imagine that!
 

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 6