Connecting with Community and Herself by Knowing Her Roots
with Dana Humphrey

Dana Humphrey | Connecting with Community and Herself by Knowing Her Roots

Heather Murphy: Hi, Dana. Thanks for joining me today. I'm looking forward to talking with you. Could you introduce yourself a little bit,

Dana Humphrey: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. basically I was born in Canada. I grew up in London, England, and I mostly was raised in California. And I graduated from college, got a degree in public relations and moved to New York city and started a PR firm. And I've been doing lots of different types of marketing endeavors since then, and I still live in New York. I live in Queens on the beach with my two cats, Chance and Sassy.

Heather Murphy: Great. So , how did you start researching your family history?

Dana Humphrey: Well, I have an aunt who, on my dad's side, who has done a lot of research about our family and put together a really awesome family tree. but my sister and I have our entire lives have been asked by a lot of people if we are Latina and we, you know, kind of like that idea and think it's fun and wanted to be, want to be Latina.

And. We decided to do the 23 and me test a couple of years ago. And I'm on my mom's side of the family. My my grandparents are from Denmark. So in Danish it's means mother's mother and mother's father. And they moved to Canada after world war II. And so my mom speaks Danish and, you know, we have quite a bit of a Danish heritage there.

So my sister and I always thought we were Danish. And then on my dad's side, they're Scottish and German. And we kind of thought that that was it. And maybe there was like some nice, you know, Spanish in there or Italian in there, something, well, it turns out what the 23 and me that it said that we are more than 50% Irish.

And so that really came as a shock because that's not in any parts of the stuff that I had known about. And I was, you know, I've been in New York now for 13 years and I used to live in a place called Astoria, which is a very Greek neighborhood. And now I live in a place called Rockaway, which is a very Irish neighborhood.

So all of a sudden I found out that I'm Irish and I live in the Irish neighborhood. And I think also something that's kind of funny about this is that I've traveled a lot. I've been to over 80 countries, but I did go to Ireland with five of my girlfriends a couple of years ago, and I found it really hard to connect with with Irish people.

And that's one of the video that actually one of the heritage testing companies has put out it wasn't 23 and me, it was a different one, but they put out a video that a lot of times where they interviewed like 80 people and they asked them about their prejudices and it turns out usually people who have prejudice to a certain type of person, that's what they are. So I just found that very interesting. I was like, you know, found myself in Ireland, finding myself, like, you know, confused by the language, not finding the jokes, funny, having a little bit of an issue. And then here it is like I'm in this Irish community and it turns out I'm Irish. So that was a little bit about. The journey of the 23 and me test, which, you know, I know is always getting more perfected as time goes on.

Heather Murphy: So have you gone in, you said. Couple years since you first, did it, have you gone in say in the last year and see how those percentages have changed?

Dana Humphrey: You know I keep, I keep making a note to do it and I never go, I never go back in and check. Maybe I'll do it right after this show and just see if it's changed at all. But really, I mean It was pretty high Irish. And then we really, really small trace amounts of a few other places like France. And you know, there was no Denmark at all on there. And like trace amounts of French and a few other countries that were kind of surprising as well.

Heather Murphy: So how far back do you know in your family, on the paper to kind of match that up to the DNA that you've taken?

Dana Humphrey: Yeah. Well, so my, my aunt that I mentioned on my dad's side of the family, that's been doing a lot of research. She recently found out that we have a relative that came through Ellis Island And you know, both sides of my family go back to our. Canadian roots. And I'm the only one in New York.

So it's like fascinating to me that actually, you know, we, we maybe have a relative that did come through Ellis Island and so she learned this fairly recently, maybe in the last year. And so it's actually been my intention to go to Ellis island and look in the library cause they have whole you know, list of records that you can go through.

Heather Murphy: And they actually do have those passenger lists online, available for free for people to look

Dana Humphrey: Oh, great.

Heather Murphy: So I can get to the link to that. But yeah, those DNA tests are really interesting. Like when I first took mine, I used took mine with ancestry DNA and it said that I was like 33% Swedish. And I knew like, one of my great, great grandparents was from Sweden, but that, that didn't match up at all.

And then the two or three years later, it dropped clear down to 3% as they adjusted the algorithms and everything. And it totally changes. It's almost a little bit tricky to like look at those DNA tests and say that's who I am, because it changes all the time as they narrow things down, so it's really interesting how people, when they see their DNA results, they, they think that that's, that's it. Yeah. But the science changes and that's why it's so important to go and look at the, what the papers say as well.

Because that's kind of like saying that you can take tell somebody from New York or from Pennsylvania. That's how, like how close we don't United state, especially I'm when I'm out west and there's so much distance, we kind of forget how small Europe is.

Dana Humphrey: Right. Yeah, definitely.

Heather Murphy: So you mentioned that your grandparents came over from Denmark right after World War II. What was their reason for coming over?

Dana Humphrey: My my mofa was in the military. I think that at that time, You know, I think it was pretty mandatory. I don't know if he had a lot of options, but I know that they had a they had a choice. They were given a choice. They could either to flee, basically they could either go to Australia or they could go to Canada and you know, they knew nothing about either place.

And I remember my. More and more, I think like what, like they liked a TV show or liked something that had to do with Canada. And so they just picked Canada. Like, it was pretty much like, based on nothing that they were like, Okay. Canada. Sure. And and then, you know, my mom was born there and. Five brothers and sisters, and they were all raised in, in Calgary where they moved to.

But there was, you know, they kind of lived in a Danish community there. A lot of them kind of centered in the same little area. And my grandfather was a iron worker for a little while.

Heather Murphy: Okay. I was born in Calgary.

Dana Humphrey: Oh, I was too.

Heather Murphy: Okay. Never know what commonality is. That's another thing with family history is that when you, when you know your history and then you're talking to people, there's more opportunity for connection. Have you had any instances of that? As you've know your heritage. I mean, it's part of what, this is what you said about you being in an Irish community and realizing you have Irish.

Are there any other instances where that's happened for you?

Dana Humphrey: Well, it was when I was in college college in my like communications 101 class. We had to do our speech on like subculture. And so I wanted, there was a lot of different subcultures I wanted to do and my teacher kept telling me, no, no, no. And then finally I was like, Okay. , how about Danish, Christmas traditions.

And she approved that one. So that was kind of fun. Because you know, Getting in touch with my mom and my grandma asking them about the different traditions and kind of, you know, it's things that we'd always done, but I didn't really know why. And like, learning more about that. I, mean, you know, here I am in this Irish community. I mean, just the other night I learned the jig and it feels like, you know, it did definitely came very naturally. To me, it seems like something I've I've like done before. So that was kind of fun. And actually I'm looking forward to going to the Irish Fest this September in, in Rockaway in a couple months.

Heather Murphy: It's very interesting how you said that there's. These things that you would do that part of your ancestors culture, that you didn't realize why you were doing it? What's an example of something that you did and now, you know why you're doing it.

Dana Humphrey: So, I guess in like in north America, the tradition around Christmas is that you open the gifts on the morning and really in the Danish tradition, you open the gifts on the night before . I think it I'm, I don't remember all of the things that I learned during that project, but I think it has to do with like the cold, you know, it's like a colder climate and there's snow.

And so it's like impractical to think that, you know, Santa would come or Saint Nicholas would come In the morning when there's like a fresh snow, it would be like too, like too cumbersome. So they do it the night before when it's like still falling. I'm trying to think of some of the other ones. There's a lot of different, like special decorations and

Heather Murphy: Hm.

Dana Humphrey: little handmade paper decorations that you make that you weave together and they all have symbols and meaning. Another tradition is a pudding. It's a pudding in it that you have for dessert, and it has a nut in it.

And the person who gets the nuts gets a prize. And I've learned also over the years that it's a, it's a rice pudding and I've learned over the years that other cultures do this too. But sometimes the person who gets the nut, it's like a bad thing. Like you have to buy the next prize or you have to be the one who makes the rice pudding next time, or but yeah, we always did it as a positive thing that you get like a little, you know, a little chocolate or something.

Something else that's really, I think come to north America and grown in popularity is advent calendars. I know last year advent calendars were really popular and it's something that we both my sister and I, and our family has always done since I'm a kid. Because it's really big part of the Danish culture to have a countdown.

Heather Murphy: knowing where we come from can influence how we feel about ourselves or can change how we understand ourselves and could that kind of can change our perspective, looking forward as you've gone through and learned a little bit more about. Your ancestors and where they've come from. How has that influenced how you view yourself?

Dana Humphrey: So my, my great grandmother, on my mom's side was a gypsy. And so that's also been kind of interesting is that you know, we don't know a lot about that. And you know, I've done a lot of research about gypsies and there's a lot of different theories about where they come from and what their life was like. And you know, where they started. There's some philosophies that, you know, they're from Romania, others are from Egypt. That's something that I find I like to kind of grasp onto for myself and my own vision of identity of myself is that there is part of like a gypsy spirit in me where, you know, something I really believe in or that I really try to live.

My life is like around freedom. And, you know, I think that's kind of like this gypsy spirit of, I like to dance. I like to wear like noisy costumes and I definitely have a appreciation for like a nomadic lifestyle. And yeah, I think you know, gypsy, isn't always something that's like embraced or look towards positively. But it's something that I've always thought is really cool. And I'm like, I'm happy to claim it as part of who I am.

Heather Murphy: I think that's something that everybody can learn from. There's, there's lots of things in our past, in our families, there's the good things and the bad things, and we don't need to characterize, we could characterize part of our family. They're negative. This was all, that's all they are. Or you can choose to pull out the positive things and spin it because

Dana Humphrey: okay.

Heather Murphy: whatever we focus on grows. So if you're going to focus on the negative, then that's going to grow in your own life, but if you're looking for positive, then you're going to see positive moving forward as well.

Dana Humphrey: Yeah, absolutely.

Heather Murphy: Are there any ancestors that you've learned about that you could tell us a story of something that happened to them that was significant to you and impactful to you?

Dana Humphrey: What's coming to mind mine right now is that my, my dad's great grandmother lived till she was 101 and I met her. When I was a little kid a couple of months before she passed away. And yeah, I always remember thinking like, wow, like our family lives a long time. Like I want to live that long.

And you know, she had a hard life. She was a farmer, she was a pig farmer. I mean and yeah. I guess, I don't know that her life was hard. I assume that it was, I assume like working on a farm, you know, day in and day out has got to have its challenges and its hardships. And yeah, kind of, I think that having that experience at a young age of meeting a family member of mine that was you know, significant.

A significant age like that. I think got me thinking about this concept of like nature and nurture from a very young age. And I think I've just kind of like, I have this belief that we have good genes that lasts that, I'm going to live a long time and Yeah. And I've always been really curious about this question of, of nature and nurture.

And I think that part of it kind of started with that with that experience of meeting her and like knowing as a kid that, wow, this is significant, you know, she's really old. Like, this is amazing. And I remember thinking that but I don't know a lot of her stories.

Heather Murphy: That might be something to look into, because you said that you just assume that her life was hard and what would happen if you looked for evidence of the good things that were in her life or the stories, maybe there's other relatives that, that know sort of like, what did she like to do? What brought her joy.

And I think as we look at our ancestors, our ancestors, we have a connection to cause there's that, that blood relation. So we, we can tend to look at those people a little bit differently, but as we do that, then it Ables us to look at other people that were not related to differently and wonder what is their story? What's more of their story because I know I only know a part of it.

Dana Humphrey: Right. Yeah, sure,

Heather Murphy: Yeah.

Dana Humphrey: I mean my, my middle name I was named after my dad's mom and I've always felt Connection to her. And she was a painter and she loved to paint and she loved to eat ice cream. And I definitely loved both of those things.

Heather Murphy: And was great. I mean, just how these, the little connections, I mean, it doesn't have to be anything big just that you love ice cream. And so does she And it's when we get so many of those with our family. And then we can expand that to people that were not related to, it just makes the world a smaller place and increases our feeling of belonging. Just like you said, you're living in this Irish community and if you didn't know you had Irish in you, you probably would feel differently than you do now.

Dana Humphrey: Absolutely.

Heather Murphy: So what would you say if you had to kind of sum up in a sentence or two, what has knowing some of the stories of your ancestors meant to you?

Dana Humphrey: Understanding the path of my ancestors, especially on my mom's side, I think has really helped me with my intuition and wanting to embrace my intuitive gifts.

Heather Murphy: Okay. And, and how has, does your knowing your family done that for you?

Dana Humphrey: my grandmother, my mama was a Palm reader and a tarot card reader. And was, she was very dismissed by her whole family for doing those things. And when she passed. My aunt got from me, a few of her items, the rest, you know, was just thrown away. But she knew that that was something of interest to me. So I have my grandmother's taro cards. And while I know that that was not the modality that my grandmother liked to use. I feel like really Appreciative that I have them and that I have like a little piece of her psychic abilities. And I feel like knowing that about her gives me permission to explore that further for myself.

Heather Murphy: Well, thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your family's stories and, and how they've woven into your life.

Dana Humphrey: Yeah. Thank you.