For me, having information from my DNA could never, would never be about anything other than curiousity. Being caucasian, being easily identified as such, I suppose I have nothing to prove and no axe to grind. I know I have Irish blood, but as I say, I can hardly hate the English for their treatment of the Irish! Yes it would be interesting and fascinating if there was another race in there. Obviously the further back you go there would have to be the original link to Africa, but I'd be interested to see what happened along the way.
I am blood related to two women with a half-Chinese mother. Having seen photos of
their children, it will probably only take another generation for this not to be apparent visually. They can't lay claim to any Chinese heritage, or at least not any knowledge of it - their Mum never knew her Chinese father (her mother was a prostitute on the Docks) and grew up without any Chinese influence in her life at all. But I'd be interested in it if it were me. I would not expect it to change who they are, how they see themselves - but it would be interesting.
I worked with a man who was of Indian descent. His parents were immigrants, but all the children were born in this country. The family were very Anglicised - his father studied at Oxford before bringing his new bride here a few years later. But it seemed so weird to me that he (my colleague) knew nothing about where his family were from. He couldn't even point to it on a map - only identify the region. His response was, "Why should I bother about that, I'm British." The only answer to this for the rest of us was to assume it was a response to racism. My Mum took us on plenty of trips round the places her & Dad grew up in London. She'd call us into the room if something on TV showed pictures of where Nanny grew up, in fact she gave me a book written by someone who lived in the same street as Grandad the other year (it was rubbish) just for the few names and places it mentioned.
The same was true to a greater or lesser extent for all the team. Only Bal had no interest in his parent's lives. Then again, he was the spoiled little boy of the family. Perhaps after all it was just being self centred
