When the topic of ancestry arises, I usually joke that I’m a “real American,” meaning my gene pool reflects a melting pot of Middle Eastern and Western European ingredients, with a splash of Jewish and a pinch of Native American thrown in for added variety. I took a DNA test a few years ago, not because I was terribly curious, but mostly because I wanted to have a written copy of my own personal DNA recipe.

I expected a pretty clear 50/50 split between Armenian (my dad was second generation American, born of two native Armenian parents) and a predominant mixture of Scotch-Irish from my mother’s side.

The results weren’t exactly like that, though, and I was puzzled.