Are you sick of your immigration attorney always asking you what your ethnicity is? Do you ever wish you could turn the tables and ask them? Well now you can! The staff of Sumner Immigration Law recently completed AncestryDNA kits to provide results on their ethnicities and discover where their ancestors originated. This was part of our treat for surviving the 2016 H-1B season. Read below for their exciting discoveries!

Nikita Hernandez: 85% European + 7% America + 6% Africa + 2% Asia

Growing up, Nikita was always told that she was primarily Puerto Rican (50%) on her father’s side and equal parts Irish (~16%), French (~16%), and German (~16%), on her mother’s side. She always referred to herself as an uninteresting “mutt” since her ethnicity according to her family seemed very tame. Having no expectations of discovering any exotic ethnicities going in to the DNA test, Nikita’s results turned out to be more surprising than she could have ever imagined.

The most intriguing results for Nikita were the African South Central Hunter-Gatherers and Native American traces. How cool is that! Nikita never dreamed she could be such a fascinating mix of ethnicities. Growing up she always thought of her heritage as boring and bland, and now she knows how untrue that is!

The entire Sumner Immigration Law team agrees that Nikita has by far the most interesting ethnic heritage among us!

Margaret Rockwell: 94% European + 6% West Asia

Prior to taking the AncestryDNA test, Margaret thought she was a simple blend of Irish (35%), German (15%), Italian (25%), and Welsh (Great Britain, 25%). She knew her mother’s family was a mix of Italian and Welsh and her father’s family was mainly Irish with a bit of German somewhere along the line.

Margaret greeted her AncestryDNA results with much enthusiasm. Perhaps this is why she was always drawn to traveling abroad. With Turkey, Italy, Norway, Iraq, and England on the list of places she has visited, she has been to most of the regions from which her ancestors came.

The most interesting discovery for her was the fact that 5% of her heritage is from the Middle East. Perhaps this comes from her ancestors in Sicily, as the tiny island had been colonized by so many civilizations before becoming part of Italy. Now Margaret feels excited and very pleased to know her heritage. She is definitely a product of the great American melting pot!

Emily Sumner: 99.5% European + .5% Sub-Saharan African and South Asian

Before receiving the DNA results, Emily knew her family was mostly Irish (75%) and French (25%), with maybe a touch of Native American. Emily has already delved into genealogy prior to the DNA test and was able to trace back her family history to historic Jamestown, Virginia in the 1600s! Her family’s research and her intuitions proved mostly correct. She was excited to discover a very little bit of African, Asian, and Native American. While her ancestors (European) were among the first undocumented foreign nationals to enter the U.S., she loves her career of helping foreign nationals enter and stay in the U.S. legally!

No matter how far back our American roots go (or do not go), we celebrate and embrace our diversity and yours as well!