See the video on Trinidad and Tobago Genealogy on my YouTube Channel!
What race am I? I have read comments like “human race”, but let’s be realistic, when you fill in a form that asks for your race you do not put “human” so there needs an answer.
Have you ever wondered about your origin or do you just accept what your parents told you? Have you ever done a DNA test? I did and I will show you the results along with some of my genealogical research. While I am in Trinidad, I have a line going through Barbados and a ‘couple’ places as you will see:
You may say… JB who cares, I know who I am…
But do you? Do you really know your origins or are you just going on what you’ve been told?
There have been so many people who have done what I am about to show you and discovered they aren’t who they taught they were.
Not to be controversial, but others have also discovered their father wasn’t really their father and so on.
Why You Should Know Your Origins
At the same time, knowing your ancestry gives you a sense of identity and if nothing else it is a good talking point for when you meet your friends.
As an example, imagine people not perceiving you as looking Asian at all and yet you discover, that some of your ancestry is from China!
Have you ever wondered about where your ancestors came from and what really makes you… you?
If you saw me, what would you say is my race or ethnicity?
Before there was a large influx of Venezuelans in Trinidad people would sometimes ask me where I was from.
Now that the Venezuelans are here in large numbers Trinis will assume that I am Venezuelan until I started talking.
For me, I see myself as simply mixed and just how mixed you are going to learn from this video.
In fact, you surprisingly learn all the countries involved in making me what I am today.
Not only that, but I will be able to give you the percentages of just how mixed I am so you can see the more dominant and recessive blood in my veins.
Science of DNA Testing
This will be based on science and not just what dad or granny said.
So how did I get this information?
It is called DNA test which is the science into one’s genealogy.
You know that test that couples take when they think someone’s been cheating and they want to figure out who the real father is?
Yeah something like that.
How did I go about getting into doing that… I will show you.
First, let’s reverse a little.
From a young age, my father… yeah that’s him, told me many stories about what he knew of his own father and grandfather.
A lot of this intrigued me because it had direct links into the making of what Trinidad and Tobago is today.
The Love of Genealogical Research
So, around the age of 16 I started to keep something called a “Book of Remembrance”.
This book is like a folder of pages that you can add of pedigree charts and ancestral information.
It allows you to track your genealogy and the offspring of descendants.
Today there are a lot of programs that do this so there is no need for an actual book.
But that was the driving force behind me doing this.
DNA Test Kits
Now there are DNA test kits that you can order and take the test.
In my case, I ordered the Ancestry DNA test kit.
It comes like what you see here. Inside it a…
Back in 2019, I got the test and both my wife and myself tried it.
Doing the test is easy. You simply…
After sending it I waited for around 3 weeks and then checked online for the results.
Now here is the interesting part… Ancestry is able to target the origin of your DNA through a huge database of DNA records from around the world.
Their database is not stagnant and is updated every now and again.
This means that there might be slight alterations in your results as time goes by but not so much as to leave you puzzled as to your major origin.
The Origin of JB
Anyway, back to my origin.
So, usually, when you ask your parents about your origin they may say something like…
Your grand father came from X and his father, which is your great grand father came from here and yet they have nothing on paper to show that.
That was partially my case to… I was left to wonder about the real origins of my ancestors…
Well here it all broken down for you…
Get ready… drum roll please and get read this is a long list…
I am…
You will need to look at the video to see the countries as I am not going to spoil it by listing that here.
Now another way to know that they got my information correct is they can show you others who have also had their DNA tested and your connection to them
Sure enough, it picked up my half brother, first cousins and so forth and showed me how I was connected to them.
The system also tells me the kind of traits I have based on genetic dispositions – for instance I have the sprinter’s gene but I wont go into that.