Those sending their saliva to ancestry.com and 23andMe might want to heed the advice Dr. Zaius gives to Charlton Heston as the stranded astronaut sets off to stumble upon his destiny in Planet of the Apes: “Don’t look for it, Taylor. You may not like what you find.”

Exhibit A: our friend Peter, descendant along the Quincy line in Massachusetts – you know, the folks who more or less invented New England. Peter took an early iteration of one of those DNA tests and was told, to his astonishment, that he was – according to Science! – significantly Norwegian.

Muttering the Yankee equivalent of “WTF,” Peter threw himself into a full-bore exploration of this putative heritage. As we live about 30 miles southwest of the first Norwegian settlement in America, he requested a tour of his new mecca: Kendall, New York. We warned him that the Norwegian influence on and presence in rural western New York is somewhere between negligible and invisible, but images of the homeland he’d never seen clouded his mind.

Germany and Italy were the other ingredients in my ethnic stew, but I forbore any Axis celebration

Germany and Italy were the other ingredients in my ethnic stew, but I forbore any Axis........

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