I did a DNA test

possibly a very dull post for anyone who isn't me

A couple of months ago I was listening to a radio series by Jenny Kleeman called The Gift. It’s about people who had been given at-home DNA tests for Christmas or birthdays as a kind of desperate last-minute gift pick - ‘I have no idea what to get them - this will do’. The people dutifully spat in the tube, sent it off and more or less forgot about it … and then the results turned up and, in these people’s cases, completely upended their idea of who they were, not always in a good way.

It was gripping to listen to, and it made me immediately order a kit from 23AndMe (who have since suffered a sizeable data breach, so there’s that, as well as breezily gifting your DNA to a random organisation). But I did it anyway and the results came back last week. They didn't tell me anything I didn’t broadly know - give or take - but they went into minute detail and I found them completely fascinating and weirdly moving. Look: