According to Ancestry dot com, my DNA is a mishmash of curious combinations. While the main classifications that they identified held no great surprises, after seeing my DNA pie chart, I’m left with unexplainable images of a debonair Italian troubadour sailing to Scandinavia to open a pizzeria and wedding a sweet Danish girl from a seaside village, or a Middle eastern orphan who was conscripted to be the cook on a Viking vessel and ended up married to a Dane. My imagination and my travels have taken me many places in the world, and so, evidently, it was with my ancestors.
If you’ve read my novels Night and Day or Daybreak, you already know that I have a love for and a strong connection to Denmark. My mom is half Danish and so was my Dad. That makes me half Danish – but who knows what snippets of DNA filtered into the Danish Viking gene pool over the centuries.
I grew up believing the other half of me was 25% English / Scots / Pennsylvania Dutch (which I thought meant Dutch}, and 25% Bohemian. A few years ago, after living in Germany for 3 years in the late 70’s and not having a clue that I had any German blood, I found out that my Bohemian quarter was actually half Bohemian and half German. When I was in grade school and researching family trees, my Great-Grandpa Miller was already dead and buried. My great-grandma’s Bohemian pride had carried on while the German part of our heritage had gone to the grave with him. I started asking questions when I realized that Miller was NOT a Bohemian surname, and my dad filled me in on the rest of the story. Finding out that we were part German certainly explained why I felt so at home in Deutschland – and my family’s love of the Jaegerschnitzel and homemade Spaetzle recipes I brought home from Germany!
My love for and the connection I feel to Scotland is a little harder to explain. But then, I think I have not only explained it, but given many illustrations of it in Wild Rose, Blue Belle, Shy Violet, Sweet William, and Golden Rod. I feel at home in Scotland. The scenery and the lifestyle and the people call out to me. Yes, I supposedly had a great-great or great-great-great grandmother who was Scottish. My ancestors hailed from a little village in Lincolnshire called Scoton, which means Scott town. But my passion for Scotland is born of my heart somewhere deep in my soul, and is really quite unexplainable.
My husband and I are currently in Arizona for a Spiritual Life Conference and later tonight, we’re going to attend a Burns Dinner with bagpipers, Scottish dancers, haggis and meat pies, addresses to honor the great poet, Robert Burns, and of course, some wee sips of whiskey. I can’t wait to meet others who love Scotland and relive various facets of the culture we fell in love with in the 9 weeks we’ve spent in the country – so far.
Tomorrow, we’re heading to northern Arizona to visit the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest and an Indian reservation – another culture that’s been precious to me ever since I read about Sacajawea in the 3rd grade. Yes, I’m a bit eclectic.
This fall, we’re planning a trip to Prague and several villages in the Czech Republic to explore my Bohemian roots. A few years ago, we spent 2 weeks in Romania, where we followed up on leads regarding my husband’s ancestors. I’ve been to Denmark three times, England several times, and returned to Germany with a new appreciation for my heritage. The ties are there, the pull is strong. I can truly imagine living in any of those areas. Somehow, I’ve bonded with the people and places – in part, because of my heritage, and in part, because I listen and pay attention when places and things call out to me.
There’s one other component of my DNA that is an integral part of my personal DNA, and that’s that I’m part of the family of God, adopted by grace, through faith in Jesus. Those roots go deep as well, impacting everything I think, do, and write.
So take me as you find me, for who I am and who I will become as I deconstruct and explore the various niches and facets and colorful strands of my DNA. It’s reflected in my books – in my whole life. If you haven’t already, I hope one day you’ll join me in the journey.
