“Come back here!” I growled. “I have a burning question to ask you.” This, to my mother, dead since 2008.
My partner Walter, a physician, gave me a DNA kit to complete and send in; I expected no surprises. My father’s parents fled from a Polish shtetl before the Holocaust. My mother was a German Jew, eighth generation in the U.S., with family portraits of Altmanns, Oettingers and Ullmanns to attest to her lineage.
I was flummoxed when I discovered myself to be 42% Irish. There were clearly no Irish in the Polish Shtetls, and none I could think of on my mother’s side. I sent out a few emails to people I thought would be interested – the few relatives I have left, old friends, newer friends. The responses were a litmus test:
“Do...
