There’s a photo somewhere – taken to preserve history – of me swabbing my inner cheek with a cotton stick, ready for DNA testing to find my roots. Two years earlier, in 2008, my mother had died by suicide, aged 60. The coroner had said she was extraordinarily healthy for a woman her age, which only exposed the gulf between her physical and mental states. It was this sudden, shocking loss that propelled me to find a deeper meaning in my life.
My mother had left Jamaica aged 10 to join her father and stepmother in England. Similarly, my father left the tiny Caribbean island of Nevis as a teenager, to study maths and engineering. They met, married and settled in a suburb of London, where I was born and raised.
I’ve always been proud of my identity as a person of Black Caribbean origin, and I knew the stories of my paternal great-grandfather who was born at the tail end of slavery in St Kitts, the twin island to Nevis. He grew up to be a successful entrepreneur in the construction industry and was instrumental in setting up the first organisation in St Kitts that would act as a trade union. But I knew nothing of my African ancestry before the transatlantic slave trade until I came across a DNA testing company called African Ancestry.
I took a test that enables a person to discover the specific ethnicity of their mother’s maternal line, up to 2,000 years ago. Three weeks later, I found out that I’m descended from the Fang and Tikar people of Cameroon and Gabon.
So much of popular psychology focuses on the need to individuate and self-actualise. But the need to belong to a race, culture and community is hard-wired into us, and is an integral part of our sense of self. So, how is identity formed? How do we know who we are?
“Identity development is an extremely complex process that’s influenced by a variety of factors,” explains Dr Sarah Gaither of the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University. “These include where you’re living, messages your parents, peers or teachers give you, and encounters and experiences where someone may question you or notice something different about you. Usually, these encounters cause someone to go and learn about whatever that identity or difference may be. They either accept that part of themselves by learning to internalise it, or decide that the identity doesn’t match their sense of self.”
In fact, Gaither’s own career has been shaped by growing up as a biracial Black/White woman, which led her to research how having multiple racial and social identities affects a person’s behaviours. “As humans, we all have a fundamental need to socially belong,” she says. “It’s that feeling you belong to a group that gives you a sense of identity and wholeness. And importantly, people’s identities often change across the lifespan.”
Since the age of six, I’d known I was a writer, after a teacher praised a story I wrote. My mother had taught me the alphabet before I went to school and I quickly started reading. She helped nurture my love of literature by taking me to the library every week.
By the age of nine, I was devouring as many magazines as I could get my hands on and knew I wanted to be a journalist. I was also fascinated by the mechanics of songwriting, and would listen to Madonna songs on repeat, pulling apart the lyrics to understand how to construct my own songs. By the time my mother died, I’d been a working journalist for eight years, but I don’t think she’d ever read a single article I’d written – she showed zero interest in this core part of me. In this she was as ever a woman of contradictions.
Discovering that the Tikar people of Cameroon were known for their artistry and storytelling made me realise my deep-rooted love of writing was grounded in something bigger than me. According to the Roots Revealed blog, many Tikar people were gifted in writing, acting, dancing and music. Despite my mother’s lack of interest I could believe there was a set of ancestors who would have embraced my writerly self and encouraged me to share my stories.
In their golden age, they held political and financial power in Cameroon through exporting iron and bronze, masks and sculptures. They were targeted by traffickers who, driven by envy, sought to bring about their downfall. They thought that the trafficked Tikar people were destroyed, but they were seeds who were replanted and, despite all odds, bloomed. This narrative of true resilience, grit and determination is truly inspiring.
“Finding your ancestral roots can bring a new way of thinking about your identities, and past and present belonging,” says Gaither. “Immersing yourself in learning your history can bring a new sense of self and purpose, since it can connect you to something bigger.”
According to a 2019 YouGov survey, an estimated 4.7 million people in the UK have used a DNA testing kit, while 60% of the population were interested in taking a DNA test. When Emma Parsons-Reid’s mother did a test six years ago, it led to the discovery she was descended from Danish royalty. “We are descendants of Queen Estrid [who was born around 997] and my mother was allowed to visit her tomb privately in Denmark, as she proved she was related,” says the 57-year-old grandmother from Cardiff. “It’s put a spring in my step and has made me more daring – I stand up for myself. I’ve been assertive about bad service and I call out bad behaviour if I see wrongdoing.”
However, DNA testing can come at a cost. Gaither explains: “For some people, learning about their past can be hurtful. If it brings up things you didn’t know, you can feel inaccurate about yourself. This dissonance in identifying one way, but knowing something contradictory can be difficult to overcome.”
But can discovering your ancestral roots help you to express dormant parts of your own personality? “Science has been very clear that, biologically, there is no such thing as race – it’s a social construct,” says Keon West, author of The Science of Racism (to be published by Picador in January). “The associations we make between race and our preferences and activities are dubious at best. Generally, people are good at the things they practise, regardless of their ancestry. That said, it can be helpful to remember that the world is full of a large variety of diverse people, and that what is considered weird in one culture is perfectly normal in another. British men, according to stereotypes, notoriously hate dancing. A British man who can’t resist the call of dance might take comfort in discovering that he is part Cuban, Trinidadian or Russian, as this can remind him that there are places in the world where dancing is a normal, valued trait in men. This would transform him, in his own mind, from an odd Brit, to a dancer from a line of dancers.”
Tom Bratchford, a 48-year-old Australian, had always felt an affinity with the ocean and with fjords and forests, despite living in the suburbs of Adelaide. He was adopted by a family with English and Irish roots, and when he found his birth mother 27 years ago, it all made sense. “I feel such a connection to the ocean that I used to say that I wanted to be buried at sea. Then I found out that my natural mother is from a shipbuilding family in Norway,” he says. “I was always drawn to Norse mythology and Scandinavia and didn’t know why. Now, I feel connected to a place on the other side of the world, and I feel pride and a sense of belonging in knowing who I am deep down.”
It’s clear that discovering your genetic heritage can be the missing puzzle piece in helping people embrace who they are. “We all feel like the odd ones out sometimes, and there are parts of all of us that clash with our local cultures,” says West. “Discovering our genetic heritage can remind us that we belong to more of the world than our own little towns, and that we are more complex and diverse, even as individuals, than we generally think.”
After leaving her homeland, my mother never returned to Jamaica. She said the circumstances of her leaving were too sad to ever return. Shortly after taking that DNA test, I visited Jamaica for the first time, finally able to piece together some parts of my more recent history. Of my mother’s life, I have fragments – photos, stories, hearsay – and events forever etched in my consciousness that remain largely unspoken. Knowing her genetic beginning (and mine) gives me something else I can grasp on to.
Greta Solomon is the author of Heart, Sass & Soul (Mango Publishing, £12.99); gretasolomon.com