The holidays as they are celebrated these days add more stress to family life.
I was thinking about this today because I had to go to Walmart. Yes it had to be Walmart. I had not been in one since last fall. But I went. The place was total confusion. Parents clutching fairy light sets and stacks of toys. Children running around undisciplined - maybe they lost their parents an hour ago? Greeters not allowed to leave their post to help you get a cart.
As is usual, it was near impossible to find an employee on the sales floor at all. I asked one about the pricing of some items that were unmarked and she told me to go scan for the price myself. And she was on her cell phone. As was the security guard. The line for less than 20 items was around and down an isle. Half way to what I thought was a register I learned I was in the line to check myself out. This company makes so much money, and they pay badly enough that employees have to get government help for food and shelter and a cashier was replaced by this check yourself out. I refused so I went into another line. What could I have been thinking when I went shopping at all for the holidays? There were things on my list that I could have also bought at Walmart, but I got out of there rather than look through picked over departments where things went unstocked or were disorganized. I once worked retail. There used to be pride in retail. More and more do it yourself at discount places.
One of the things I didn't find out was if Walmart is, like CVS, and some other places, stocking discounted DNA tests. CVS sells kits for determining parenthood as well as DNA heritage.
I bring this up because I got a call about helping someone actually figure out what their results meant.
Someone else used two different companies and got different results from each. What could that mean?
So here goes:
DNA test results are statistical analysis using a pool of candidates; the other people who also turned in their results to that particular company. Overall, the more people who contribute and are part of the statistics, the "better" or more accurate the results when it comes to ethnicity. Even then, ethnicity is rather a broad term because we are just starting to understand how it is that people migrated, how they bred. Overall, more males migrated than females due to their roles - gender assigned. For instance, more men were explorers, travelers, traders, in armies, in crusades. Sometimes a man settled somewhere other than where he was born and raised. (There were also army camp followers who were women - wives, prostitutes, nurses, but you get the idea here.) If you look at some of the websites that attempt to show the statistics using other kinds of charts - such as maps - you will see that the zones spread out. Also, be aware that as time goes on, there may be discoveries of DNA that is identified with different codes. When you look at any article or map or statistical analysis of DNA results, try not to read anything more than a year or so old. Really. Right now even the Out of Africa theory has a challenge.
Someone "reminded" me that we are all out of Africa.
It's usually someone who wants to "remind" others not to be prejudiced against people who appear Black.
There is more DNA variation in African Black people than anywhere else.
However, ethnicity is considered a fairy recent invention by anthropologists.
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