Into the past and back again to our roots

For all of my family's information's sake, I will keep the background of my family's history to a minimum. Just know that my blog is purposely and intently for me and my descendants thereafter.

My father has always entertained the idea that his family was rich in history (abundant in interesting stories of old). I firmly believed it was so. He fashioned a story so believable, during my childhood years, that my imagination took it further than what reality has revealed from this DNA test.

My great grandfather was born in a small province of Amoy, Fujian - a farming village in the outskirts of Quanzhou. Be it as it may, my grandfather was a merchant and set his dreams to make a fortune in the big city. While he lived there, he got married, and became a successful tradesman. When Emperor Puyi was made a puppet ruler for Japan in Manchukuo, my great grandfather left his family and fled to the Philippines.

He met a beautiful Tagalog (from Maynila) woman and settled in the city of Naga where he set up his restaurant and other business entrepreneurship. My father did not specifically say how long his grandfather settled in the Philippines, before meeting his grandmother; however, his father was born about the time Britain's empire was recognizing Egypt as a sovereign state, and had held Mahatma Ghandi in prison for creating civil unrest in India. When my grandfather turned 5 years old, his father brought him home to China. His half-sister, who is currently in Hong Kong, was the only relative of that side of the family, who accepted him as a brother.

The interesting story about my grandfather was, his adoption of a new identity and naturalization, as a citizen of the Philippines. It was concluded that my grandfather had a legal battle between a rival businessman, who complained to the authorities, that their name was stolen by him. My grandfather won the legal case and thus added the, "Imperial" to his given surname. He also took a Spanish name to appease the maternal in-laws.

My father didn't elaborate much about his life after that. Regardless, my father was a self-sufficient man. He found help to become the only one in his family with a College Degree. Despite his accomplishments, his father left him with nothing but grief. In due respect to both my late father and paternal grandfather, I was never considered an heir of what's left of the estate. Somewhere in China, there is either a land or condominium in my grandfather's name.

I have done most of my research offline, since the Internet didn't become a public resource until 1998. I have traced most of my paternal heritage from the lineage of the Negritos tribe, who have intermarried with the Malays and expanded their exploration throughout Luzon island. The surname, "Yap" derived from a small province of Henan. "Ye" in Chinese means Green, or Leaf as the province was a beautiful countryside enriched with trees and Forest Mountains. My ancestors were mostly noblemen who served the Imperial court as lawyers, advisors and accountants. I was hoping to be a distant relative of the legendary Ip Man, a hero and martial arts master of Wing Chun. Sad as it is to say, that was definitely not the case. *Sigh* (So close... but no cigar 😂)

As for my mother, the stories she told were a blur to me; as her family had more people to take into account than I did for my father. Her father has 3 siblings. Her mother has 8 siblings; 2 of which were blood 1st cousins. My grandmother was adopted by her aunt when her mother fell ill. I don't know who in the family was sexually violated during the Japanese immigration or Japanese-Sino War. It's not something I want to ask or get into either. There are a lot of blood feud within the family; so much so, it's nerve wrecking to open up about it. Her side of the family were prestigious land owners. They were able to settle in the US comfortably in the early 60s or 70s. Both my uncles sponsored their parents (my maternal grandparents, of course) by way of military service in the Navy.

The DNA test in my blood doesn't show any signs of lineage from Mongolia or Japan. I have no idea why the story was related to me.

Nevertheless, I was nervous taking the DNA test with 23andMe.com since there were rumors speculating that this was another government tactic to keep track of you. The thing is, my information is so limited, there's nothing the government can find either from or about me. The only thing Facebook has done was falsely advertise products, which I'm either not even interested in or have already purchased. Amusing as it sounds, no government has time to rifle through the nonsensical or trivial things that I do.

For any family members who wish to connect, you can ask for an invitation to login to MyHeritage.com website. You can add or connect your own genealogy; if you wish - so that we can compare notes, write letters or even social media with each other. I'm not here to disrupt your livelihood. As I have stated earlier, this is to benefit my child's historical lineage and possible future generations to gain knowledge of where they came from.

When you buy the kit, either from a local store or from their website, be sure to keep in a cool, and dry place. I've had the kit with me for a year. I was happy that I was able to afford to pay for the DNA test 2 weeks ago. Along with other tests I was badgered to take.

	I bought this kit at Target. The instructions were very simple
As soon as I opened the box, there was another box which included more instructions. I went online and registered the test tube.
This was how much saliva I produced after 2 minutes	I was bemused that it stated most people produce saliva within 2 - 5 minutes. Oh, we're going to be here a long time if I did that! Do you know how much saliva you can produce while singing? Enough to fill the test tube 3 times versus multiple times (As Brandon Farris did. Yes, this was what prompted me to go ahead and submit my DNA sample)
This was how much saliva I produced after singing a 4 minute song without swallowing the build-up	After 15 minutes, I was able to fill up the line in the test tube. I tried my best to minimize the bubbles, but it was unavoidable. As you can tell from the picture, the bubbles were above the line. It took an additional 2 minutes to understand the next step. Before I broke the seal in which had the liquid-filled top, I gave the test tube a little swirl just to make sure my saliva was still at the line.
Once I broke the seal, the liquid stayed on top while the bubbles were kept intact between it and my saliva. Not that it matters to you, but the science behind this method was fascinating. Thus, my intention of writing this blog and showing you pictures of what I did.

The downside to the last instruction was, the bag wasn't big enough to fill the empty space in the box they had provided. I hate for the tube to be broken; considering the label printed showed "First Class Mail." In respect to who I work for, I've known enough complaints from customers demanding refunds for damaged goods. I'm one of the rare and lucky people, whose mail gets delivered without any drastic issues. There were a few incidents when I had to report stolen mail; but never for damaged ones.

I didn't mail it off immediately because we were still in lock-down order where I live. I have been weary leaving the house because I wouldn't know if there were crazy people out there, who would see my masked Asian butt roaming about - dropping off mail to a USPS Blue Collection box. Leaving the premises of my safe Asian populated neighborhood, reminded me of my time at Keesler Air Force Base.

The thing I didn't realize when I registered my kit was, their system did not automatically create an account for me. I have two profiles in my 23andme account. One that has my registered kit and the other where I have my personal information and survey participation.

I am actually happy to prove that I am more Filipino than I am Chinese. My husband was amused because he had heard the stories about how I was racially mistreated. I am, however amazed at my father's recollection of his roots considering he did not have the privilege of obtaining accessible resources such as Google, Ancestry.com or MyHeritage.com. I do have an account with Ancestry.com, but it is in a physical file in my computer. I bought the software a couple of decades ago. If you're interested of comparing notes, let me know.

My social media accounts can be found using my full name as posted in this blog.