Actress Naomie Harris' episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featured a common dilemma with family history - how to deal with the uncomfortable truths of the past.
Naomie's Carribbean heritage showed she had both slaves and slave owners in her family's history.
While finding an ancestor was a slave can, of course, be distressing, finding that an ancestor was a slave owner is troubling in a different way.
We all like to think that our ancestors were good people (or at least, that their indiscretions were more roguish than just plain bad,) but when presented with the reality, that isn't always the case.
People are people, and facts are facts. People do things that later generations are horrified by - and we have to accept that, much as Naomie did, by understanding that history is what it is, but the present and the future are ours.
A small issue I had with this episode was the DNA references. I'm by no means an expert in this as it's not my area, but I do know a little more than the general public.
Many, many, people get confused when using DNA for the purposes of family history.
Yes, Naomie's DNA showed Nigerian ancestry of 48%. Yes, she found an ancestor who is likely to have come from Nigeria.
No, this isn't 'the Nigerian link' in her family tree. It is a Nigerian link.
The DNA inherited directly from a 5x great-grandparent would likely be under 10% (possibly even less than this - as I mentioned, I'm not an expert!)
A 48% Nigerian result therefore would mean that there are several different hereditary lines of Nigerian DNA that go into making up Naomie Harris.
Several different individuals have contributed DNA to her make-up which is common to the area now known as Nigeria.
That's far less simple, I know, than proclaiming 'THIS is where your DNA comes from' - but it's also far more accurate.
(And I personally think DNA testing companies need to do more to help people understand the science and meaning of their results - but that's a pet peeve of mine!)
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