Seraphina and Her Twin Brother
'A parent and a twin to yourself’ — said my husband when he saw the comparisons of the results of the three DNA tests that I had taken. At the time, I did not find it funny. I got offended. But little I did know that his remark was absolutely spot on.
The birth of a girl or a boy is determined as early as during the child’s conception. During this process the father’s sperm brings with it either an X chromosome or an Y chromosome. If it happens to be an X chromosome, a girl will be conceived and born. If it is an Y one — a boy.
In November 2021, I purchased my first autosomal DNA test on a leading online DNA platform, My Heritage, founded in 2003 with its headquarters in Or Yehuda, Israel. A month later, right before Christmas I was informed by an email that my sample had been processed and analysed and the DNA file together with estimate were ready. Having checked my ethnicity map and the estimate (dated December 2021) which was 66.9% — Eastern European (Russia, Belarussia, Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania), 19% — Baltic (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), 11.6% — Balkan, and 2.1% — Central Asia, I downloaded my DNA file.