I am 5% Middle Eastern...Middle East Middle Eastern

Well, this is correct, if we are to believe what AncestoryDNA from Ancestory.com's analysis results claim. I'll reveal more shortly. First, I'd like to take you on the journey I took to get to these results.

First, I pondered this for over a year. Should I spend the $100, precisely $108.50 to ascertain my heritage. Finally, after a year of deliberation, I decided to bite the bullet.

Step One. I went online and ordered my test kit. This was November 12th, 2015. Within two days I received an email alerting me that my kit was on its way. Over the next few days, I checked back via the UPS tracking site. My 0.345 pound package was shipped on November 14th. By November 16th my package was in Philadelphia, where I live. Later that morning it was in Bridgeport, NJ. [Wait. What??] By the afternoon, it was back in Philadelphia. [That's more like it.] By the 17th, it was in The Bronx, NY. [WTF??? How in hell did that happen?] Well, Ancestory.com ships via UPS Mail Innovations [Whatever the hell that is.] but only to a USPS location. It was the good old US postal service in its everlasting efficiency that sent it to package limbo in NYC. Bastards!

What to do next? 

Step Two. Contact Ancestory.com. I got on the phone one evening after work after the Thanksgiving holiday. After being on hold for over an hour, I gave up and hung up. I repeated my effort the next night and persisted to stay on hold for nearly two and a half hours. I could probably still recite the hold message. No, not really, I forgot it. But once again, I gave up, hung up and went to bed. Their operators man the phones until 11 pm. I gave up a little before the cut-off time. The following morning I got on the phone at exactly 9 am, when the phone lines open. I got through. [Woo-hoo!!!] After explaining my plight, the operator informed me that it had to be at least 15 days beyond the expected delivery date before a reissue order could be issued. Meaning!!! I had to wait some more but only until, Monday, December 5th, nearly a month since I ordered the damn kit, to file a request to issue another kit. I waited until Tuesday before I called back. I gave the USPS the benefit of the doubt that they would pull their heads out of their collective asses and deliver my package. [Foolish me.] I phoned in and got through again right away at 9 am. [Score!!]

The operator, a very nice man, was amazed that I hadn't received my kit. [Like I'm the only one who has ever encountered the Postal Vendetta toward the public.] He went through some verification crap and submitted my reissue request. He told me to expect another email with my new tracking info. I waited two days. No email. I called back. Another nice operator informed me that it may take up to 15 days before the replacement would ship. [Oh, c'mon. Who do I have to blow to get this thing processed? BTW, I'm not blowing anyone. EVER!!!] 

I received the email alert, finally, on December 12th. The package was shipped. It made it to Bridgeport, NJ and then Philadelphia by the morning of December 14th. I received it on December 16th. Early Merry Christmas to me. 

Fun Fact: Did you know that the expression Merry Christmas was first said 4 million years ago by an American English speaking Neanderthal named Og. He came home one night from an all-niter with his mates at the local Pterodactyl Pub about a week before they and all the dinosaurs became extinct. Upon entering his cave he was greeted by his angry wife, Mary. In an attempt to diffuse his lateness and drunkenness he playfully threw a big, hairy arm around his wife's neck and drooling in her ear said, "Mary kiss mouth." However, translated in Neanderthal drunkenese came out as Merry Christmas. True story. Of course, if you don't believe me and still believe a fat man in a red suit flies around the world on a sleigh with eight reindeer led by a freak of nature with a shiny red nose, then you're more delusional than me. Of course, we all know that there is no Santa. It's actually time travelling aliens who have the ability to pause time and deliver gifts to us all in an attempt to keep us from detecting their plan to attack Earth and enslave us all to make toys and what-not for the kids on other planets. Had Og come home with a trinket from these aliens, he might have survived that night and not gotten smashed upside his head by a stone frying pan by a short, fat, ill-tempered Neanderthal wife. True, true story. Now back to my tale.

It took over a month to finally receive this little package of a vial and instructions. On to Step Three. Supplying a sample into the vial. After I realized I unzipped my pants for naught, I read the instructions and the sample they required was saliva. Yes, dear readers, I had to spit in the vial. I paid to spit in a vial to find out if I'm related to Og. [Most of you are thinking, there's probably a great probability that I am.]

First, I had to wait thirty minutes like after eating and before going swimming. I suppose if I ate Lox on a Bagel, they may think I'm from the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn and Jewish. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it would be inaccurate. While waiting out my thirty minutes, I popped online and activated my test kit. Without activation, they will not share your results. They will keep your ancestral facts(?) from you. After my thirty minute wait, I spat in the tube and dribbled down the front of me. It required about 1/4 teaspoon of spittle. It took me four attempts to spit enough to meet the required amount that was suppose to meet the squiggly line on the vial, not including bubbles. Yes, they said bubbles. And wouldn't you know, there were bubbles. I guess they've seen a few of these in their day. They fashion a nifty little funnel to drool into the vial. Once the spit is spewed into the tube, you unscrew the funnel and screw the cap that contains bluish fluid that will "stabilize" your spit. [????, Whatever.] You tighten the cap until the blue liquid mixes with your saliva. Shake the tube for five seconds. Place the tube in a collection bag provided. The bag appears to be one (plastic, gray and practically opaque, like the Aliens, who will someday enslave us) where harmful UV rays can't penetrate. [Every spit is sacred.] Seal the bag. Stick it in the prepaid mailing box and drop it into your nearest USPS mailbox or office. Done and done. It took less than an hour to put it together. Matter of fact, it took me longer to document the process than it took to perform the function. 

This leads us to Step Four. The Wait.

According to the instructions, it takes six to eight weeks (or longer depending on demand and volume) to receive notification of my results. [Oh, for the love of Jim!] You don't receive results; you receive a notification to go online and download/receive your results. Oh, happy freaking day! I'm thinking I'll receive it around my birthday or as a late birthday present which is about two months away, 59 days to be exact. 

I did receive about a week later an email notification informing me that they received my sample. Of course, they encouraged me while I waited for my results to expand my family tree, blah, blah, blah. Their real bread-and-butter --- The Ancestry chart you can build for a monthly subscription.

On January 12th, I received an email from Ancestry.com. They had started to process my sample. Oh, goody-goody-goody. Any day now I'll get my results.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Ten days later...

So the wait is over! After 63 days, I can retrieve my data. Long story short. I am:

UNKNOWN DNA

[Wait, what??] That might explain the phone message I received earlier today from a Fox Mulder. The return number was 1-888-782-5436. If anyone knows how to spell words using a phone, it's me. 782-5436 spells R U Alien. Hmmm...curiouser and curiouser. 

OK. Enough of that nonsense. This bit and piece has gone on too long. The findings are:

92% European

 5% West Asian (Middle East)

 2% Asian (Asia South)

<1% African (Africa North)

You wouldn't know it to look at me. Well, maybe.

Broken down more finitely:

48% Italian/Greek

37% European West (Germany/France and the like)

 5% Middle East (Saudi Arabia and the like) and Caucasus (Iran/Turkey/all the 'stans' and the like)

 2% Scandinavian

 2% Iberian Peninsula (Spain/Portugal and the like)

 2% Asia South (India)

 1% Europe East (Poland/Ukraine/Romanian and the like)

the remaining 3% is equally distributed between Great Britain, European Jewish and Africa North. 

I can see most of this. Considering the first peoples were believed to have risen from the Middle East and Africa, we all could have a dash of that. And all of us have ancestors that stem back 200,000 plus years. 

Here are all the little places my ancestors came from.

The Italian/Greek and Eastern European, Asia South and the Africa North could be from my Mother's side. The European West, Scandinavian, Iberian, GB and Jewish could have been from my Father's side. Historically, people migrated. And over thousands of years, I can see many relatives marrying outside their sects/tribes migrating from one part of the world to the next. Look at the U.S.A. today. How many of us are actually within 100 miles from where we were born. Okay. I am. I'm a bad example. 

So, is Ancestry DNA a lot of bunk? I don't know. I think it's as accurate as you can get considering the markers being used (700,000+) are based on indigenous peoples living in these areas today. With the last name of Smith, you have to believe that it must have been changed centuries ago (no doubt to escape the tax man or the po-po) and not to put faith in that I actually have any Irish or English blood. (Look-up surnames and Smith is said to be Irish.) A name alone cannot tell us who we are.

So was the money worth it? Yes. It took for freaking ever to get the damn results, but I am pleased that I did it. I found it to be most interesting and I encourage others to look into it, especially my cousins. I would love to see how related we really are. 

PS: Don't correct me with the Neanderthal, aliens, Santa or any of that. It's meant as humor. It has not been fact checked. None of it is true or real. It's all an illusion, much like a Trump Presidency. Oh, shite, that's REAL??? Okay. Stay safe this year. TTFN.