Under the skin, we’re all kin
Carolyn Abraham’s compelling identity quest has universal application
The Juggler’s Children: A Journey Into Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind Us Carolyn Abraham Random House Canada 380 pages, $32
Obsession makes for good stories.
Consider Captain Ahab’s preoccupation with a sperm whale or Jay Gatsby’s fixation on Daisy Buchanan.
A consuming passion doesn’t only have a place in fiction. Science writer Carolyn Abraham’s obsession with her family’s genetic history inspired her new book.
Abraham is a longtime medical science reporter for The Globe and Mail and a former Citizen reporter. Her first book, Possessing Genius: The Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein’s Brain, was nominated for the 2002 Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction.
Abraham has been puzzled by questions of identity since her childhood in St. Catharines, Ont. She describes herself as “a brown girl with a Jewish last name who went to a Catholic school.” No wonder the other kids wanted to know, “Where are you from?” and “What are you?”
Abraham’s parents were unable to provide the answers their daughter was looking for. That was largely because little is known about either of her great-grandfathers. Abraham’s paternal great-grandfather was purportedly a juggler who abandoned his children; her maternal great-grandfather, a sea captain who died young. What these two men did leave behind was their deoxyribonucleic acid, more commonly known as DNA. So in 2005, Abraham, who had been reporting about advances in DNA testing, set out to use this relatively new technology to explore her own “bio-geographical ancestry.” While many people turn to DNA testing to determine health risks, Abraham had another goal: to learn the origins of her family.
Abraham, who has a lively, accessible style, believes, “The past is never lost, not completely; we carry it with us.” For her, DNA represents “biological mementoes of the family who came before us.”
Abraham’s research involved more than scraping buccal cells off the inside of her cheek — and those of her relatives — and sending them to a lab for testing. She also travelled, with her husband and other family members, to India and Jamaica, where she did interviews and examined records. Though this book is built around science, it’s the personal experiences and relationships Abraham describes that will remain with readers.
Not that the science isn’t interesting. Despite differences in our shapes, colours and sizes, we humans are 99.9 per cent genetically identical. Or, as Abraham puts it, “At the level of DNA, Dolly Parton and the Dalai Lama look like twins. … Under the skin, we’re all kin.”
We learn other interesting facts along the way. DNA evidence was first used to convict a murderer in 1986. India’s Nilgiri Hills, where Abraham’s juggling great-grandfather took refuge, is home to rock bees, the world’s largest honeybees.
Some of what we learn is more disturbing. The ancient caste system lives on in some parts of India. The owner of the guest house where Abraham and her family stayed was furious when he learned their driver would also be staying at the guest house. We learn, too, that not all slave owners in Jamaican history were white; some black or partially black Jamaicans inherited slaves and were known to be especially cruel to them.
What if DNA testing reveals information we’d rather not know? This is a quandary Abraham will face on both sides of her family tree. Part of her quandary has to do with the Y chromosome, carried by men and passed down to their sons. As Abraham says, the Y can “kiss and tell.” Y chromosome evidence will make Abraham wonder whether one of her relatives might have been unfaithful to her husband.
Abraham’s parents play a vital role in this story. Not only do they support their daughter’s work, they literally come along for the ride. Her father, an octogenarian with an adventuresome streak, is delighted when DNA evidence confirms his Chinese heritage. Abraham’s mother is unflappable, even in the face of difficult discoveries.
At a conference in Houston on genetic ancestry, Abraham meets a software developer who is also “a genealogy junkie.” When Abraham asks him why he thinks so many people are interested in genealogy, he tells her, “We’re lonely. … We don’t want to be so lonely anymore.”
In the end, it is not science alone that leads Abraham to a deeper understanding of her origins. Church records, a will, relatives’ memories and even a novel she comes across also yield useful information. The juggler is more than a distant relative; he is a living metaphor for DNA. With every generation, DNA recombines and we inherit traits from those who came before us. Many balls get tossed into the air and it’s not always easy to predict where they will land.