I wrote this question in a notebook at the head of an empty page. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote it.
But how much do I care to know?
Writing is my primary way of knowing, as it is for many writers. Right now I'm writing to understand what the question I've raised means to me right now.
How much do I care to know about my ancestors?
How well do I want to know who I am and where I come from?
I sent in my DNA sample for testing. I was spurred by a family mystery that no one has been able to solve: the origin of my maternal great-grandfather's middle name, Lonzo. A sharecropper from North Carolina, much of his past is an enigma.
I admit that I hoped that my DNA sample would reveal ancestors from some place other than England, Scotland, and Ireland.
And it did, but not in the way I had imagined it might.
40% of my DNA comes from southeastern England and northwestern Europe, including France and Belgium. The other 60% comes in dribs and drabs from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, other parts of England, the Netherlands, and Norway.
So, where did the name Lonzo come from? I may never know.
My sharecropper great-grandfather eloped with the landowner's daughter. (You can imagine how popular that was with her family.) They had six children, one of whom was my maternal grandfather.
He came home to find his wife scrubbing my grandfather and his older sister with a scrub brush.
He said, "Stop! Don't take their skin off! They're dark like me, not light like you."
As soon as he could, he changed his middle name to Lawrence.
How ironic that the ancestry he thought he might need to conceal, is the thing I was hoping to find.
The rest is stories. And that's where I'm liable to find out more than I ever wanted to know.
(Cover Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash)