I finally did a DNA Ancestry test, compliments of My Heritage DNA. I was genuinely surprised by the results. Before I share with you, because I know that's why you're here, I want to give a bit of background.
This is my immediate - biological family (this is important later lol). Yes, I have a twin brother by the way - unfortunately, I'm the bald one. My father is biracial (white British and black Bahamian) and my mother is black (Bahamian and what we believe is also Bahamian). We always felt like my mother's father had some sort of Indian, but I never knew him and so we never really knew what race he was.
Nonetheless, I have always identified as black, despite people around me saying that I'm mixed-race - white and black. I think it was always because of my hair texture. Either way, I have always been curious about my ancestry. I always planned to come to the UK and discover my British roots. Little did I know the DNA test would tell me I'm a lot more of something else...
Now, the moment you've all been waiting for! In my best Maury voice:
When it comes to the case of 28-year-old Lashanti Jupp, turns out that she is 26.7%...
*dramatic silence with drum roll*
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the drum's still rolling lol
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NIGERIAN
Needless to say, that English percentage was shocking as well! However, the detailed write up made more sense...
I found myself being over 50% West African, with a strong pull from Nigeria (my Nigerian friend would say that its basically 42.3% Nigerian based on the areas shown in the West African map given by My Heritage DNA.
The Kenyan surprised me a bit, but let's move on to Europe!
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My last name Jupp always felt... non-British, based on the other last names around me like Smith. Seeing influence from East Europe made sense from my Jupp side (dad's British father). However, South Europe, Iberia (Spain and Portugal), along with the Middle East and Central and South America, is most likely my mother's father. Crazy, because my twin brother loved telling people he has Indian descent haha - he visited India and picked up conversational Hindi and believed that was why.
Regardless of what or where I'm made up of, My Heritage reminded me at the end of one very important thing.
I'm 100% Lashanti Jupp and fully Bahamian, unique and definitely one of a kind - yes, I said the same thing twice, be pedantic if you must haha.
