Monday, April 16, 2012

Editor's note

**First-person Character narrative paused, to resume next post**

About my little disclaimer above, I have learned fairly recently that in fact there is a branch of my family that moved from Ayrshire in western Scotland and re-settled in Northern Ireland. There are references to marriage and birth records for people with my surname (that can be found freely online) dating from the mid-19th century in County Antrim and County Down. I don't think I'm directly descended from this branch, but rather my family roots trace directly back to Scotland, but I guess I can't any longer say I've got no Irish connection at all. I've probably got distant Ulster Scots relations still walking around NI today, and some of them in all likelihood have intermarried with native Irish families since the 19th century.

As I'm legally adopted however, this is largely an academic discussion; The only thing I know to be genuinely Scottish about me is my name; I've no idea what my actual roots are...though I did recently get more (albeit limited) details about my birth parents. It seems I get my looks from my birth mother (described as petite with reddish brown hair and brown eyes) and my brains from my biological father (described as blone with blue eyes, a graduate student at the time, described variously as "an intellectual" but also a somewhat "nervous" man, which leads me to suspect it is from him I also inherited my Asperger's syndrome, though that is reading between the lines a bit looking back at the early 1970s when the diagnosis wasn't formalized yet).

I'm rather interested in the service "23 and Me", where subscribers can submit a genetic sample (cheek cells obtained from a saliva sample) and they will map your genome and tell you generally what region your branch of the human family hailed from. This would be neat to find out...and it would be quite a hoot if it turned out I was genuinely of Celtic origin, not just adopted into a family with that heritage. I'm encouraged to hear of my birth mother's "reddish brown hair"...and I also recall growing facial hair in the mid 2000s and being struck by just how bright red some of my beard was, and even more surprising to me, the streaks of pure blonde in my beard as well (which I now know are a genetic inheritance from my biological father).

Even if my roots lie elsewhere...Italy, Norway, whatever...I'm still proud of my adopted family's Scottish heritage that I also lay claim to through being given a thoroughly Scottish name. I would laugh out loud if my genetic origins end up being directly from Ireland.

Anyway, I've been thoroughly enjoying the Scion RPG system and especially playing this character from the Tuatha de Danann mythos...I will endeavor to bring Brendan's account up-to-date to align with the current state of game-play.

--JJR