Knowing Where You Came From

I have always like the quote, or the idea, that you can't know where you are going unless you know where you came from.

I know I came from loving parents. So that's a good start.

However, with prejudices, and lost contacts, and long-lost family members, the true identity of your heritage can be buried under a pile of name changes, relocations, immigrations, and - in some cases - shame. People often deny they carry in them the blood or the DNA of a group that is not favored. Some people deny being part black (or part white). People used to deny being part Native American. Or Hispanic. Or Asian. Or Irish. Or German. Or Jewish. The list goes on and on.

I've started the process of tracing my father's family - difficult when everyone with the answers has passed. My father and I are also in the process of testing our ancestral DNA, which has been fascinating.

I guess I plan to use this blog to chronicle what I find in my research and what our DNA results say.

It starts with our name. It may have been changed along the way, but so far, knowing we are called "Long," is all we've got.