Discovering Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates

I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.
Psalms 89:1, Old Testament, King James Version

It brings the Oracle of Ottawa great pleasure that there is still some excellent television to be watched, even in the age of the great spiral to the bottom. The Public Broadcasting Service has done a great service to get Discovering Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates on to the air. The Oracle of Ottawa happened on to an episode quite by accident and I was soon riveted to the screen! It has been a long time since the Oracle of Ottawa has observed such powerful and moving television.

Henry Louis Gates - brilliant television...

The desire to know of our origins is a very powerful and consuming desire. But as I learned from watching several episodes of Discovering Your Roots, which uses the traditional genealogy with modern DNA methods, you just might want to be real careful what you wish for! Especially if you are an African American with blue eyes! Or in the case of the Oracle of Ottawa, who has recently found out that his roots can be traced all the way back to New France in the 1600's, to the actual young wife of Champlain (!), still leaves the Oracle of Ottawa leery. Well you see... the Oracle of Ottawa and all his siblings and close relatives have the very prominent 'hook'.. if you follow my drift...that nose is way to large for a person of French, English descent... We often talk about it and wonder... What the fuck!? Do ya' think? Really?

Yes sir, that part of each show that brings in and up the subjects major haplogroups really got the Oracle of Ottawa squirming in his seat! Mixing the traditional and modern methods together can really be a hell of a whammy to take if your not ready for it! But never the less, the Oracle of Ottawa has been scanning Google to find the best place to get a full both side run down on his haplogroups.. Why, the Oracle of Ottawa is ready to write down what he thinks his ethnic percentages are... Here goes. English (Anglo-Saxon) - 25%, French - 30%, Irish - 15%, Amer-Asian (i.e. Native Canadian) - 15% (my mothers side...) that leaves room for the expected shocker... and  the Oracle of Ottawa just knows that it is there... yep, Haplogroup J1 and / or Haplogroup J2, Oy Vey!!   Damn you Henry Louis Gates! I watched you and I learned something, and even worse I am being driven to find out even more! Perhaps you want I should write you a check? Oh damn! There it is again...

 Brilliant, moving television! Get your DNA kit ordered now...