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ARTICLE: “DNA rewrites history for African-Americans: Tests to determine lineage can reveal complex ancestries,” by Richard Willing, USA Today, 2 February 2006, p. 4A.
The widespread use of DNA testing to reveal lost genealogy among African-Americans is just the tip of the iceberg. This stuff will spread globally, and will be used all over the dial to solve all sorts of mysteries in coming years and decades.
And when it comes big time to China, my family may well find itself meeting long unknown members of our then-extended family.
Many girls given up for adoption in China are second daughters. The rule is: you have a female first child and you can try again for a son, at no penalty. What happens if you have a second daughter is, either choose to live with financial penalties, which are prohibitive for rural poor (if caught or prosecuted—and not all are), or give her up for adoption and keep trying for that son.
Do the math and it’s possible that someday I may not just meet my adopted daughter’s parents, but perhaps her sister and brother.
How would these people fit in our lives? Hard to say from today’s perspective, but I honestly believe it’s a conundrum that many parents of Chinese daughters will someday face—thanks to DNA testing.
Me? I will never bet against the human instinct for connectivity. I will expect to happen, and I will welcome its expression. Anything else is simply fighting the inevitable.
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