Seemingly simple, infinitesimally small, but grand and powerful…It is a miniature material used in the construction of a human being, much like a ladder is used in the construction of certain building project, except it is curved and twisted with a name that few people can pronounce or spell – deoxyribonucleic acid. Its two side rails, or helixes, and the rungs that connect them are packed with genetic codes that create an individual’s singular physical characteristics; personality traits and temperaments; skills and interests; and predispositions to being shaped by his environment and the people, processes, and objects that inhabit them. I don’t understand it as deeply as I’d like to, but I recognize that DNA is minuscule magnificence.
DNA is really a form of identity, a carrying card, so to speak. Far from just identifying a person with a geographical region, ethnic group, or racial class, DNA, coupled with genealogy research, can name our fathers and mothers and their fathers and mothers, too. Here are a few things DNA has shown me. First of all, DNA biologically situates me in the family that raised me. My mother is my biological mother, and my father is my biological father. All of my grandparents are exactly who I expected them to be. There was a little surprise when I explored the background of one of my great-grandfathers, though. DNA revealed the long-held secret that my grandmother’s father was not who she said it was. Further, DNA confirmed my hypothesis that my line of Texas Susberry’s descended from a white man whose surname was Shrewsbury, and this came through a link to my dad’s very distant Cousin Jim. DNA even debunked the assertion cited in a legal document that my great-great-great grandfather, George Wheaton, had not fathered any children by his second wife.
Mankind has made great advancements, at once wondrous and dangerous. Yet, none of these advancements or creations could ever be greater than man who created them. Man has even begun tinkering with DNA, but he still has not discovered how to create it. Even if he could, he would be availing himself of natural resources in his environment that he simply used, not created. Who, but a Being greater than man, could make something like DNA? DNA, if we choose to search its treasures, connects us to our fathers, known and unknown, from today and yesterday. More amazingly, DNA connects us to the ultimate Father. As we cannot hide from our ancestry, neither can we hide from God, the Being who created the vast universe contained without and within our bodies.
The Genealogy Griot 