About one year ago Zuri set out to answer a seemingly simple question about the heritage: where exactly in Africa did her grandparents come from? All she needed to do is spit into some test tubes and wait for the results.
Zuri is one of the 26 million+ people who have used at-home DNA kits to try and map up their family trees. At-home DNA ancestry tests are massively popular both in the US and abroad, not just because they are affordable and easy to use, but also because they offer an entertaining and informative way of learning who your ancestors were, where they came from and even how your genes may impact on your health.
Zuri’s Epic DNA Testing Experience
Zuri had moved into the US to study nursing. She later got a green card and decided to stay. She didn’t have any close relatives that she knew of living in the US. To the best of her knowledge, her parents, two siblings and extended family all lived in Kenya, East Africa.
Zuri’s father, Mr. Hamisi, was born around 1945 and raised in the coastal region of Kenya. Her paternal grandparents were also born, and raised in Kenya.
Zuri’s mom, Mrs. Adia Hamisi, was born around 1951 and raised in the coastal region of Kenya.
Zuri never met her maternal grandfather, but she heard stories that he was a brave local chief who was killed by British colonialists when they invaded the country.
Her maternal grandmother, Imani, too was born and raised in coastal Kenya. She neither remarried nor had any more kids after her husband (Zuri’s grandfather) died. She passed away when Zuri was 14, and Zuri says that she misses her very much.
“Granny told us the best stories as kids,” says Zuri. “But her stories weren’t always true. I think she might have been a bit of a compulsive liar- we never knew which of her stories were true!”
Zuri recalls that her grandmother often told them of how she stole a baby mermaid from the ocean and raised it as her own- and that that baby was Zuri’s mother, Adia.
“She told us that my mother was a ‘daughter of the sea’ she rescued from the Indian Ocean, but we mostly dismissed it as one of her tall tales.”
All in all, everyone Zuri knew to be a blood relative was born and raised in Kenya. She, therefore, didn’t expect that the results of her DNA test would show that she had any familial origins beyond the African continent.
However, as Zuri puts it: “Thousands of your ancestors have lived before you. Each of their uniqueness is added to a collective which is now your life and DNA. Analyzing your DNA is, therefore, guaranteed to rattle a few skeletons and reveal some ghosts of the past you never thought existed.”
Why Even Bother Testing Your DNA?
Zuri decided to test her DNA after reading the fascinating story of how the Golden State Killer was apprehended in 2018 after police investigators matched DNA samples from an old crime scene with the DNA records of the killer’s relatives.
“I wanted to find out where exactly I come from in Africa so that I can tell my kids,” Says Zuri a 34-year-old mother of two. “As a woman living in the diaspora, I also hoped that the knowledge would give me a sense of pride in my African heritage and origin.”
Like Zuri, hundreds of thousands of Africans in the diaspora are turning to personal DNA testing technology to uncover critical pieces of their history.
Gina Paige, the cofounder of AfricanAncestry, says that in addition to tearing African families apart, slavery and slave trade robbed many people of African descent their true names, identity, languages and even a way to honor their ancestors. DNA testing, however, gives them a way to accurately trace their roots to specific countries, regions and ethnic groups in Africa.
