Monday, June 6, 2011

Too Bad I'm So Pale

I have no idea why I felt like sharing this, but I found it interesting.

I'm part Native American. No, really! I have some Cherokee and some Choctaw.

Anyway, Kwiddens called me a little while ago and asked me how the back of my two front teeth were shaped. I thought it an odd question...but I answered. They're thin at the bottom, then they widen very quickly, like there's an extra shelf back there. I hadn't known this, but apparently that's a genetic trait known only to Native Americans and a very small number of Asians.

I was curious, so I looked around online and found a few sites that describe some other genetic traits that I have:

The "shovel teeth", of course
High cheekbones
Crooked fingers, particularly the pinky
Little toes that lie under the next one
A second toe that's longer than the big toe (but only very slightly in my case)
Larger gap between the big toe and the second toe
An extra ridge of bone along the outside of the foot (Mim had to have parts of this removed, as it was causing problems for her)
Thyroid problems (mine is low-functioning)
The ability to tan deeply (but I never go in the sun anymore, so this hasn't happened since about...8th grade or so)

I also have a very square jaw and very thick, very straight hair.

I mostly look white, so I don't bother telling people unless they specifically ask, because I don't really look much like it. But now you know something interesting about me.

(The rest of me is almost entirely Danish. Perhaps this explains my love for pastries.)

4 comments:

kwiddens said...

Which of those do I have?

Anonymous said...

it's always fun to find neat little twists about your lineage. the man got bored one night and started screwing around on ancestry.com, and through nine mouse-clicks, he figured out that he's most likely related to the people who founded the neighborhood in which we live. all the funnier, given that we're not natives of the area, and that's the line of his family that came south to alabama. strange, strange, strange...

Anna W said...

Well, Kwiddens, I know you have the teeth thing...look at your feet and tell me what else you have!

Kim said...

Huh. I'll be damned. I never knew that there were such things. Now I'm all inspecting my teeth.