Day 22 - New York

Sitting in my favourite coffeehouse in New York, we were eating breakfast while reading. The sun wa still low and was pouring in at our seat, enticing us to return outdoors. This being Father's Day, it was fitting to read a piece about Y-chromosomes and paternity in The Atlantic.

Lately, I've been intrigued by the DNA testing services that provide detailed reports of lineage, including whether you were descended from Genghis Khan. Being from Asia and after reading teh statistics estimated 15-30 million men are his descendants, I did some research into which service to explore. The most reliable in Oxford, England was about $325 (this prior to teh pound sterling breaching the $2 mark); but Steve the Atlantic's Steve Olson points out that volunteer DNA testers are being sought by the folks at the Personal Genome Project at Harvard.

Since we are expecting a baby boy in about ten days, I thought it would be timely to know more about our past as our son is (so far/or as far as we know) the only descendant of my paternal grandfather with his Y-chromosome.

By the way, the delicious bagel was from Balthazar and the coffee, deserving of this accolade: