“Come back here!” I growled. “I have a burning question to ask you.” This, to my mother, dead since 2008.
My partner Walter, a physician, gave me a DNA kit to complete and send in; I expected no surprises. My father’s parents fled from a Polish shtetl before the Holocaust. My mother was a German Jew, eighth generation in the U.S., with family portraits of Altmanns, Oettingers and Ullmanns to attest to her lineage.
I was flummoxed when I discovered myself to be 42% Irish. There were clearly no Irish in the Polish Shtetls, and none I could think of on my mother’s side. I sent out a few emails to people I thought would be interested – the few relatives I have left, old friends, newer friends. The responses were a litmus test:
“Do you think you’re the only one now discovering you’re not who you thought you were?” (snarky friend)
“My husband took one of those tests and it came back a percentage Neanderthal. That figures.” (work colleague)
“Maybe that’s why you don’t look like any of us.” (first cousin)
“Are you going to start attending the RC church?” (old buddy)
My most analytical friend enlisted the aid of a mathematician and his sister, a biologist, who sent me reams of research with the conclusion that at 42%, one or two grandparents had to be part Irish. They opined that a 100% biological Irish father would produce a 50% Irish offspring, not 42%. I knew all four grandparents; the paternal ones looked like Polish peasants, my maternal grandmother looked like an archetypal Ashkenazy matriarch, and my maternal grandfather looked like Shylock. Not a remote possibility.
My mother always had a great affinity for the Irish, and now I’m thinking it was a really strong affinity. She hired a young Irishwoman to look after me. Anna McHugh took me with her to church, taught me how to say the rosary, light candles, and visit her many first-generation Irish friends. Culturally, I started off more Irish Catholic than Jewish, until Anna went back to Ireland to look after her ailing mother. I was then enrolled in Union Temple’s Sunday School.
Did Anna McHugh have a child (me) with my father? Highly unlikely. Was I the product of my mother and a mostly Irish man? Quite possibly. My mother was a sneaky one. Did she even know who the biological father really was?
Everyone who might have known something is long gone. Just to verify, however, I’ve sent a DNA sample to another vendor. As they always tell you, it never hurts to get a second opinion.
DNA
by Sally Haver