What’s In a Name?

Adrienne Gibbs recently wrote about the type of fascinating and surprising stories that can be revealed when we delve into our family trees. I’m lucky to have two people in my family tree who have already done the research, made the connections, and shared their trees. One is my aunt, another is a man I have never met. I found that research on Ancestry.com along with posted documents and photos that tell the stories of many lives.

These are the kinds of stories that are shared at Thanksgiving and often conjure more questions and more stories. Even if you were adopted or have very limited information in your biologic family, you can learn a lot from your genes. 23 and Me, Ancestry, and others can get you started by evaluating the DNA variations that make you uniquely you.

Around the year 2006 or 2007 I was working for a company called Illumina. They do the chemistry and make the automation that makes genotyping possible. Genotyping is evaluating known variations in a person’s or animal’s DNA. In those years new markets were forming for this tech. Cows were big. Falcons were of interest. You know, bragging rights and such.

Partnerships developed and Ancestry, 23andMe and others bought our equipment and started selling spit kits and linking people together. To create a splash and launch the company, 23andMe needed some big names to test the tech and the brand. Who did they choose? Warren and Jimmy Buffet. Could these two seemingly opposite personalities somehow be related? I won’t spoil. Here’s the story published in 2018.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/02/08/warren-buffett-and-jimmy-buffett-took-a-23andme-dna-test.html