Either through the 1993 drama film featuring Will Smith, Donald Sutherland, and Stockard Channing or the play, most of us are familiar with “Six Degrees of Separation”:
“Six degrees of separation is the theory that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away … from any other person in the world, so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It was originally set out by Frigyes Karinthy in 1929 and popularized in an eponymous 1990 play written by John Guare.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
But in all honesty, because this deals with DNA – and not acquaintances – I probably should have titled it “It’s a Small World After All”. But then you’d have that annoying song as an earworm the rest of the day.
So how much DNA do we share with people from other countries and cultures? And more importantly, how much would our views about foreigners be fundamentally changed if we knew more about our own genetic origins?
Well, to a lot of people it came as an eye-opening surprise when the Danish travel search engine momondo produced a mini-documentary promotional film titled “The DNA Journey”.
While I found it impressive and compelling, I also thought it was also a little too slick. Apparently I was not alone, and to their credit momondo subsequently did put out an FAQ that’s pretty transparent. So let’s dig a little deeper into the nuts-and-bolts.
They set out by having 169,631 people enter their The DNA Journey competition with the hope of winning their very own DNA Journey. [NOTE: the contest is closed]
Strangers discover their ancestry and the result is beautiful
Their purpose was to show that there are more things uniting us than dividing us in the hope of creating a more open and tolerant world.
They employed two casting agencies to go through the 169,631 databases to select the final 67 participants who were then each filmed in a 10-minute interview, including the spitting saliva segment, by the casting agencies.
Based on these filmed interviews, together with the participants’ personal stories, momondo then selected the 16 subjects for the shoot in Copenhagen. They say the only criteria they used were their ancestry, their perception of themselves and the world, and if there was a surprise element in their DNA results.
While momondo says they knew nothing of their occupation or educational background, it does admit that they retroactively went back to look, since that was a common criticism. They found that 10 of the 67 participants did, in fact, have an acting background.
But momondo insists they were neither coached nor scripted on what to say or how to act – other than they were encouraged to show enthusiasm. And they do admit they were paid, as they say is standard for any appearance in a promotional film.
They also admit the inserted “Two Weeks Later” title block was used only to facilitate the “story-telling”. It was all filmed in Copenhagen between April 6-8, 2016, and all had provided their saliva samples at the original interview filming.
But the revealing of the results of their DNA testing were all done de novo. They all opened their envelopes only once – and the reactions were genuine and contemporaneous. And yes, the story of the two participants being distant cousins is true.
The DNA tests were performed by AncestryDNA. The test is available for anyone for $99. In the test you learn about your DNA based on 26 regions worldwide, and AncestryDNA gives ethnicity estimates that map back to broad geographical regions.
To their credit, momondo did commission a study “The Value of Travelling” [PDF]conducted by Radius, an independent, Danish-based research group.
The results of the 7,292 respondents, with at least 400 respondents from each of 18 countries [Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States] showed …
• 76 percent say that travelling has made them look more positively on
differences and diversity
• 65 percent believe that there would be less prejudice in the world if
people travelled more
• 61 percent believe that there would be less intolerance in the world if
people travelled more
• 53 percent believe that there would be more peace in the world if
people travelled more
So whatever degree of separation there is between all of us, it is, indeed, a small world after all.
[Now good luck getting rid of THAT earworm … exit with nefarious chuckling]
RESOURCES
http://www.today.com/news/momondo-s-new-video-dna-journey-beautiful-argument-diversity-t97901
http://www.momondo.com/inspiration/momondo-the-dna-journey-how-it-was-made/#QxsFOijuqkbVt7Jp.97
12 Responses to “Friday Fun – Six Degrees of Separation”
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Ancestry dot com, the parent of Ancestry DNA (we just can't get away from replationships here, can we?), also sponsored (I hope still does – I hope there will be more shows) "Finding Your Roots" with Henry Louis Gates Jr.on PBS. Of course the people he had on the show were all celebrities and all had requested help with tracing family. The show referred to what it called "DNA cousins" from time to time, by which it meant a chunk of DNA so similar that two meople must have had a common ancestor sometime, though they might not be able to identify when or who. Since "a common ancestor" is what defines cousins, I suspect when AncestryDNA says "distant cousin," that is what they mean also, but there may be some difference. Where I am going with this is that Bill Maher and Bill O'Reilly are DNA cousins. Wow.
In case you never learned how to count cousins – you start with the common ancestor. If that is a grandparent, your parents were siblings and you are first cousins. If the common ancestor is a great-grandparent, your grandparents were siblings, and you are second cousins. If it's a great-great-grandparent, you are third cousins, and so on. You go down this way until one of the parties has more generations that another – example: Let's say that I and your mom have a great-grandparent in common, so are second cousins. You, however, are a generation younger, so you and I are second cousins once removed. (I actually have some second cousins twice removed – I have one second cousin who is now a grandfather. I also have a couple of first cousins once removed and I think both have kids now, so I also have first cousins twice removed. The rest of us didn't reproduce.) I knew a girl in college who was a fifth cousin twice removed of George C. Scott. That's pretty far away, but she clung to it, wanting to be an actress herself.
I didn't know that AncestryDNA was involved with "Finding Your Roots". I've really enjoyed that program, but have only seen Dustin Hoffman, Mia Farrow, Gloria Steinem, Lidia Bastianich (KCMO has a "Lidia" restaurant – it's a favorite of mine), Sandra Cisneros and Azar Nafisi … I think. They were great!
Way back in my high school days I remember either Ann Landers or “Dear Abby” had a great explanation of how to figure out first-, second-, etc. cousins along w/ the once-, twice-, etc. removed.
She used the rungs of a ladder as a visual aid, and then showed how it worked.
I found this diagram that really makes it pretty easy to figure it out:
https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-when-I-read-cousin-once-removed-twice-removed-thrice-removed-and-so-on
Yes, that is very clear indeed. The one thingI didn't address is that "common ancestor" is in the singular, yet I (and probably many) tend to assume without thinking that if we are talking about your grandparents, thet would be both of them. But it doesn't have to be. If the sibling is only a half sibling, you are just as much cousins as if he/she were a full sibling.
I found this to be fascinating, and the video was inspiring to see the reactions of those who were related.
I can't offer my heritage that far back as my parents didn't talk about it, so my sister and I are out in the loop.
Maybe, one day, we will do this, so that our kids, and their kids, will be able to trace our ancestors through DNA.
Really enjoyed this post.
Thank you, Nameless, for post, and Joanne for cross posting.
Isn't it remarkable how differently people react to other nations or regions as soon as they learn they have some personal link to it, even though it is through something as abstract as a percentage of their DNA? It's equally remarkable that people nowadays think differently about other people and cultures once they've traveled there. In earlier times traveling to other countries didn't do much to change the traveler's opinions but often only confirmed their feeling of superiority, especially when traveling through conquered countries or through their country's colonies. Some forms of tourism often keeps people from truly interacting with other people and cultures too, but those may not be the type of traveling this article refers to.
The explanation may lie in the fact that many of us have become more open minded than our parents and grandparents without realizing it because the world has indeed become smaller through modern forms of communication, and when given a more "physical" link through DNA or through personal experience when traveling, we're able to connect even more.
It doesn't always work, though. I remember that some American White Supremist, confident of his own "pure" ancestry, allowed his DNA to be tested and was told that he had some "black" DNA, and quite a bit of it too, but he simply ignored it and continued his project of creating his own completely white community.
Thanks for this very interesting article, Nameless. Lots to ponder on again.
I may have mentioned this before, but the Dutch has no word for "cousins", only for nephews and nieces. We do make a distinction akin to first and second cousins, but I call the son of my father's brother my "nephew"and he calls me his "niece" and I also call the son of my brother my "nephew", but he calls me his "aunt". Confusing, isn't it?
Oh, yes, I remember Craig Cobb. They didn't actually say "black DNA," they said "African DNA," all though I am sure they didn't mean DNA from, say, Boers. Yes, he denies it. Yet we are all from Africa ultimately. I've heard it said, "We are all black. Some of us just don't look that way any more."
I've actually considered getting the test, just to see if the stories about my family are true.
Thanks Nameless!!
I came away from the video with teary eyes!
I had a DNA test, some years ago, helping an older first cousin, once removed. It showed that this eastern European descendent has some Kenyan blood. I have read that even within people of the same "race," there can be genetic differences bigger thanbetween some peole from different "races." WE ARE ONE!
Joanne, I believe there is a problem in your explanation, having to do with the repeated mention that one's parents would/could be siblings.
Thanks, Mitch! That's a plural "you" and the antecedent is "you yourself, and your cousin." So, an ellipsis for "one of your own parents, and one of your cousin's parents, were siblings." It's not, of course, physically impossible for one to be the child of two siblings – see the ancient Egyptian royal dynasties, and the opera "Die Walkürie" et seq. – but in that case you would be your own cousin (and that would be the least of your problems). Since you bring it up – it's also possible to be a "double cousin." Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins, married sisters, and had 21 children between them, each one of whom was a double cousin of all those from the other couple. How that would have been handled in a society which (some do, or did) makes a distinction between cousins who are the children of two brothers, cousins who are the children of two sisters, and cousins who are the children of a brother [and his mate] and a sister [and her mate], I don't know and won't try to guess.
Being from the south, and having parents who were LDS, I am well aware of most of my ancestors. My maternal grandmother was 1/4 Cherokee, and 3/4 Irish. Since I was named for her and her oldest grand child, I benefited from listening to her stories from the past. I always thought I looked Irish, but last March I attended a wedding in the Smokie Mountain area. We were early so we stopped at a Cherokee wood carver's site to look at his sculpures. The guy took an instant interest in me and brought me into his office to show me a book he had of Cherokees in the area and told me he only let fellow Cherokees look at it. I asked him how he knew I had Cherokee blood and he told me I had an aura. I was stopped cold. I have always been proud of my heritage and thankful I had people to tell me about it.
Edie, that story gives me a chill. What a lovely thing.