The article this week focused on Alice Plebuch, who took a DNA test only to find out that she was half Jewish. At first Plebuch thought it was an accident, as she had grown up believing she was completely Irish Catholic. Plebuch had her other family members take tests to figure out whose side of the family it had came from. Plebuch found out her father had been switched at birth. Plebuch began to grapple with her identity as she realized she wasn’t blood-related to her favorite cousin and realized she wasn’t completely Irish, as she had originally believed.

Obviously, the story I am about to share is not the same situation as Plebuch’s, but I think there is a fair amount of overlap here. One of my family members took a DNA test because this family member had always heard they had some Jewish ancestry. Once this family member found out they began telling everyone about our Jewish ancestry. I personally thought it was a little weird, like Plebuch I knew I had Irish ancestry because my grandfather was Irish but that was the only ancestry really I knew. Finding out I had Jewish heritage really did not change anything for me, then again for me, my percentage would be smaller than the family member who took the test. I just thought it was funny how this was a revelation for my family member because they had never grown up knowing any Jewish traditions or anything about Jewish culture. I sometimes find that DNA testing can be a little silly, I understand the desire to want to know where your family came from but I also think it would be weird for me to start claiming a heritage or culture I know nothing about just because of the results of a DNA test. I definitely think that what you grew up practicing, in most situations, is more relevant to who you are and your identity.