They came from Germany
They came from France
They came from Switzerland
They came from Poland
They came from Lithuania
And God knows where else

What I thought I once was
I now am not
Discovering so much more
while shedding some of the mystery
But the irony is
that opens up a need
for new questions
I may never have the answers for

There is much more German
And barely any French
No Scottish, after all
Perhaps some Russian
Who knows for sure?
Most shocking of all
a touch of African blood
from a German/French
2nd great grandmother
It shows up in her face
of the only photo I have of her
It shows up in my DNA

I am the sum of all of them
To imagine
it took so many of them
to make who I am today
All of us, actually
owe our lives to these people
who came before us

It always has intruiged me
I wish to know more
To know where my origins began
doesn't need to define me
or make me who I am today
But it satisfies a burning curiosity
To look at old photos and see
bits of my relatives
bits of myself