DNA Ancestry profile...

Since teaching Indigenous Research starting in 2015, it somehow coincided with the start of my writing/author pathway and reigniting an interest that I've always had of wanting to know my genealogy.

I remember returning to Samoa in 1985 and being so interested in wanting to know my gafa (genealogy) that I started asking questions, especially of my parents, regarding our familial relations.

At that time, I became aware of a 'loa' (hollow grave enclosure) that was painted white and was on the mother's families' communal property in Faleula next to the house. That was where I found out that my Great, great, grandparents (I assumed from Germany) bones had been housed but over the generations, it had fell to ruin and no one had looked after it.

There were many stories that my mother told of my part German grandmother, whom is my namesake Eleni and so with the family reunion coming up, I wanted to know more and to confirm the bloodlines of both my paternal and maternal lines.

Hence it took me a while to come to the idea of having a DNA saliva test as there are tapu (forbidden) in some families, cultures around the body. However, my 'need to know' greatly outweighed the other considerations and last year I sent for the ancestry.com DNA kit and almost 6 months later I have the results.

To describe it as an amazing tool is to say the least. It definitely confirmed that I am Samoan (82% Polynesian) as often people don't believe that I am because of my lighter complexion than the average Samoan but then it is explained by both my maternal and paternal bloodlines.

The 7% Asia South DNA is due to my Great, great Grandfather, whom we believe left China possibly from Shanghai and somehow made his way to Samoa in the early 1800s where he married a Samoa lady and I am the fifth generation from their union. I did meet one of his children whom was my grandmother's uncle in the 1980s and he was still driving in his 80s in Samoa then.

The 7% Scandinavian ancestry was a real surprise because I had been told that my great, great, grandfather had come from Germany. However, upon more research, I learnt that he lived on an island off the coast of Germany on the North Sea and the territory had first been under Danish rule, then British and then in the late 1700s and early 1800s the Germans took over which made sense that although my ancestor was probably seen as a German national, he was Scandinavian of origin. He also married a Samoan lady in Falealupo and tah dah - here I am.

Wow! I have been able to share this with my family and so for them they are aware of their origins in living in NZ of their DNA ancestry and from the various 'corners' of the world or as in the Maori worldview from the four different winds.

I am so blessed to have been gifted this opportunity to learn this information using modern technology to answer some of the questions that I wasn't quite sure about and that there were no oral records or few written records. I only wished that there were photos but then sometimes things were meant to be and are instead carried through DNA and features of the generations to come...