Adventures in genealogy: Ahmadinejad and me
You may have seen the report in the Telegraph last week claiming that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is of Jewish ancestry. Wrong, according to this article. So wrong, in fact, that I’m wondering why the Telegraph ran the story in the first place. The facts don’t seem too difficult to track down. It turns out that the Ahmadinejad family’s original surname is not Jewish, and in fact Mahmoud’s mother is a direct-line descendant of the Prophet. Anyway, if you were planning on brewing up a pop psychology theory to explain Ahmadinejad’s antisemitism as a form of over-compensation and/or self-loathing, you may want to look into other hobbies.
Speaking of genealogy, my own family is currently engrossed in some rather surprising DNA results on my mother’s side. She should be part American Indian, but her results are heavily skewed towards South America. All in all, her DNA looks more like that of a mixed-blood South American than a North American part-Indian, though genetically I suppose it all comes out in the wash. The number of matches with the Quechua people of the Andes is just wild, though. (My mother is looking at her chart, going “Peru?”)
On the other hand, perhaps this explains my mysterious deep-seated love for New World camelids.
A Quechua girl and her llama. No wonder I love this picture.
5 Responses to “Adventures in genealogy: Ahmadinejad and me”
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Sis says:
You must have a look at your mother’s teeth. http://www.uic.edu/classes/osc.....Metric.htm
October 5th, 2009 at 11:12 pm EST -
murphy says:
whoa. how odd. great way to wake up — thanks Violet.
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RKMK says:
Where’d you get the DNA analysis? I suspect I’d just be a generic British mutt, but it’d be fun to see what surprises cropped up that could point to an unknown scandalous past.
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Violet says:
DNA Consultants: http://dnaconsultants.com/
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Aspen says:
I also think the girl and her llama make a great picture — both subjects are beautiful.
