Family tales don’t always match the story DNA tells

I will maybe never know the stories behind my real heritage

A funny thing happened when the results of my DNA test came through.

Yes, I know the results of other people’s DNA tests are pretty boring when it’s not your own or a direct relative’s. The only people who are ever truly interested in your DNA is, well, yourself, but please do bear with.

My husband purchased the Ancestry DNA test for my Christmas present last year and I was eager to get the results. I quickly spat all of the saliva required into my little test tube and popped it in the post.

I knew it took six to eight weeks to come through, and there was a Christmas rush which meant a few delays, but in early February, I got an email saying my results were ready and with one click, I would discover the secrets of my heritage.

I now feel the need to say my story doesn’t result in the discovery that I was adopted, or have a long lost sister or that I’m actually the love child of a beautiful African queen and her Asian fling.

My story is a lot more vanilla than that, but it has still left me slightly perplexed and doing a lot of reflection on the difference between who we tell ourselves we are through our stories, what our DNA says we are, and that grey area in the middle of what we identify with.

So the results. Predictably, with the maiden name Mcdonald and other family names that include Mason and Jamieson, my results came back with an ethnic makeup of 38 per cent Scottish, 27 per cent Southern England (Wales), 15 per cent Scandinavian, 12 per cent Western European, 7 per cent Iberian Peninsula (Spain, Portugal) and the all-important 1 per cent Italy/greece.

On the face of it, I wasn’t that shocked at the results. The Viking link got me excited – I’d never thought about having links to that area, but once I read more about where my Scottish relatives hailed from, it made sense that some seafarers or feared raiders of Sweden, Norway or Denmark made their way to Scottish shores at some stage.

The real shock for me was the lack of any Ma¯ ori DNA.

Ever since I was little, I was told about how we had Ma¯ ori heritage but that my nana, like many of her generation, did not talk about it due to the rapid urbanisation of Ma¯ ori and the associated issues around that.

They essentially had it beaten out of them and were of a generation where what it meant to be Ma¯ ori was simply not talked about. She had dark skin and especially as she aged, became even more like her mother who resembled a kuia in appearance.

It’s that same rich skin colour that I brag about each summer when my own skin turns the same way with a moment’s lick of sun, prompting people to ask about my bloodlines.

‘‘You’re soooo brown,’’ they’d gush. Why yes, yes I am. It’s my exotic Ma¯ ori blood, donchaknow.

It wasn’t just the stories. When Nana died, I inherited some of her taonga, in particular an ornate greenstone brooch I was told was passed down from her grandmother.

I believed our link to be relatively strong – there was often talk of Waikato royalty. Could there have been a mistake in my results?

Intrigued, I began to look into Ma¯ ori DNA results and the Ancestry website actually identifies Ma¯ ori and Aboriginal as two ethnicities that may show up as other populations, such as Oceania or Polynesian. Or in some cases, not at all.

DNA is by no means an exact science, and it’s not a simple case of being 50 per cent from Mum and 50 per cent from Dad.

Since talking about my situation with others, I have heard that there are often errors in DNA testing, so maybe there is something there, or maybe my olive skin is that strange Spanish link?

I will maybe never know the stories behind my real heritage, whether the Ma¯ ori rellies were ever a thing, or just an epic korero passed down in the spirit of good storytelling.

One thing is for sure, Ma¯ ori DNA or not, what it means to ‘‘be Ma¯ ori’’ is something I firmly believe lies in having an appreciation and acknowledgement for a culture and everything it involves.

For my part, I identify with what I was raised with; a bilingual primary school teaching that piqued my interest and created a solid base for my future te reo learning, an admiration of how Ma¯ ori deal with death and dying, and observing and taking part in many day-to-day Ma¯ ori customs, many of which on a subconscious level.

This, to me, is what being a New Zealander is all about – it is not actually a genetic thing for me. It’s about what makes me feel whole inside and, despite these DNA results, I have a deep pull towards many aspects of Ma¯ ori culture.

So while this one test left me feeling like some type of fraud, I also now feel more compelled than ever to hunt out the stories of my ancestors.

One can only wonder what secrets lie buried for discovery.