Submission Date

2021

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After conducting genealogical and historical research on my family tree, the most surprising information I found was that my ancestors did follow the practices of the Knanaya community. To stay a part of this community, one must marry another person of Knanaya descent. I always knew that my paternal ancestors claimed to be of Knanaya heritage, but I always suspected that someone would have married outside of this tradition. However, my 23andme results proved me wrong! My genetic tests revealed that I am 100% from the Malayali subgroup. This meant that my ancestors did follow the practice of marrying other Knanaya Malayali people. My results also showed that many of my DNA relatives were also Knanaya and some of them even carried the same family name! Through this project I was able to gain a lot of insight about my paternal side, but unfortunately not as much information on my maternal side. This leads to the question of how my maternal side migrated to south India and what practices they followed. I plan on investigating this further by trying to find any documentation about my maternal side.

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