Tracing our ancestors: secrets of the Árpád dynasty and Jewish Hungarians revealed 

DNA is arguably the closest thing to a “god” that science has yet discovered. The double helix shapes nearly every facet of life on this planet. DNA as evidence is more powerful than a group of eyewitnesses or a book of photographs. A strand can put a criminal in prison for life, or exonerate an innocent person, decades into their sentence. And it’s not really surprising that a good while before criminal cases were routinely settled by the science of DNA, parents, or accused parents, were using it to determine the age-old question: Who’s your daddy? 

As early as 1988 a process known as DNA fingerprinting began gaining prominence for use in paternity tests. With DNA, the ‘maybe’ element of blood type tests was over. To the delight of some and the consternation of others, a child’s father could be definitively determined. Today untold thousands of both mothers and possible fathers, use home DNA paternity tests.

Other kinds of “paternity tests”, can of course, give us much more than information about the father of a single offspring. In 2020, Hungarian and other European scientists sequenced the genome of DNA from the skeletal remains of Hungarian King Béla III, along with that of an unknown Árpád family member found in the Royal Basilica of Székesfehérvár. The fascinating results indicate that the highly influential Árpád dynasty , Hungary’s first royal dynasty, likely traces its ancient origins to a region near modern northern Afghanistan. The road to what became Hungary appears to dip into parts of now-Iran, fuses with peoples once living in parts of Russia and also seems to have a Serbian connection. Those scientifically-minded and or curious should definitely try to read the full paper published by the European Journal of Human Genetics. 

What such a finding means about Hungary and its people is up to individual Hungarians, but if nothing else, it’s greatly interesting. It would also seem to put to bed any ridiculous notions of anyone being “pure-blood” anything. Every human is an amalgamation; multiple entities united into the person we see in the mirror.   

Another recent interesting find, again courtesy of DNA testing, is that Hungary may also have many more people of Jewish heritage than once thought. A 2019 study by the popular find-your-ancestor website MyHeritage revealed that Hungary has the highest percentage of Jewish ancestry outside of Israel. Based on samples of close to 5,000 people living in Hungary, the director of the European Jewish Demography Unit at the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Dr. Daniel Staetsky, says the study concluded that some 130,000 Hungarians have an ethnic ancestry that is 50 percent or more Ashkenazi Jewish. 

The double helix is a double-edged sword. For those simply seeking knowledge, DNA provides strong indicators of where you came from and is harmlessly educational. It may also help medical professionals better understand conditions more commonly found among certain ethnic groups. But there are concerns that tasting the fruit of the tree of DNA knowledge may lead to journeys into the dark side. 

America’s largest DNA testing company, Ancestory.com, was hammered for an April 2019 advertisement that showed a white man asking a black woman to “escape to the North” with him, while giving her a ring in a marriage proposal. It’s almost certain such a scenario did occur in the United States during the horrific period of legal slavery, but what’s much more certain is that for centuries, white slave owners preyed on and impregnated untold numbers of African and native peoples against their will. Ancestory.com pulled the 30-second ad and in a statement to Wired magazine, somewhat weakly apologized for “any offense that the ad may have caused.” 

There will probably always be a minority of people stupid enough to believe that the color, race, ethnic group or even deeds of their ancestors somehow reflect positively on their own lives and actions. But hopefully this group will remain a minority. It shouldn’t need to be said, but as DNA proves; we are one; the human race. 

According to Time Magazine, the year 2017 was when – at least in the U.S. – the genie was let out of the bottle. That year Time reported an estimate that over 12 million Americans had had their DNA analyzed; which means roughly one in 25 American adults have given a company their genetic information. Those numbers have undoubtably grown since 2017. 

It’s not crazy to wonder if this thirst for tracing our ancestors might someday come back to haunt us. The advances in genetics that might occur over the next few decades is not only impossible to predict, but virtually impossible to imagine. But until the day your third illegally-made clone petitions an AI court for access to your cloud-stored emotional memories, let’s enjoy the simple pleasures of what DNA testing provides today: learning more about where people came from, whom they mixed with and, of course, determining who needs to sign child support checks.