DNA Test – Who do You Think You Are?
Can a DNA test help you know where you come from and who you are?
DNA test and identity
Knowing where we come from is important to us and knowing who our family are and where our roots lie can all contribute to a sense of stability. The importance of identity and confirming who we are and who our relatives are by using a DNA test can have a significant impact on our lives, especially when it's something as dramatic as discovering a lost parent or finding a lost sibling. DNA tests can be used to find the elusive answers to these mysteries. A DNA test can define relationships. For many of us a DNA test can be the solution to one of the biggest questions we will ever ask in our lives - who are we?
Irrefutable proof
There are some bizarre cases where even the ultimate proof of identity, the DNA test, is not enough to determine our sense of self.
In 1999 a man turned up in Toronto who had been mugged and knocked unconscious. When he woke he had no recollection of his identity. Noth his wallet and his memory had effectively been stolen in the attack. Of course, identity is more than the sum of our fingerprints, dental records or a DNA test. The man, who said his name was Philip Staufen, had an English accent but spoke French and Italian and could also read Latin. He had no idea why he was in Canada, and could not travel the world in search of his former self as he was unable to obtain a passport. Losing our identity has to be one of the biggest anxieties in the modern world, but DNA tests are now available that enable people to put their identity in a ‘DNA bank’ thus ensuring they never lose who they are genetically, no matter what bizarre twist of fate comes their way.
DNA test ‘bank’
The idea of a ‘DNA bank’ is not a new thing. J. Edgar Hoover wrote an entry on fingerprints for the Encyclopaedia Americana where he stated that most of the 191 million fingerprint records on file at the FBI in 1969 were those of ordinary civilians. Many of them, Hoover explained, asked to have their prints on record ‘as a protection against accident, amnesia, or loss of identity through disaster’. For decades, and particularly in wartime, people have feared a situation like the one Philip Staufen found himself in.
DNA test can help
With the help of science and DNA tests, we can now take steps to protect our identities and also confirm how we fit in with the rest of the world - how we are related to others, where we come from, etc. - but there is more to the mystery of the self than knowing who we are genetically, as the story of Staufen revealed. Memory can be an elusive but vital ingredient too. Staufen, who never regained his memory, went on hunger strike after being refused a birth certificate by the Canadian government and became increasingly paranoid. His fingerprints were taken and a DNA test performed but without his memory he had no identity.
Discover DNA tests
Establishing who we are through a DNA test and discovering who our parents, brothers, sisters and relatives are is vital to our sense of self. The stories of our parents, grandparents and siblings all add to our own story and help sustain our memory and our sense of being. |
