Should I Worry About My Future Bride Being A Distant Relative? Help Me Love Doctor
Why not send former Kingston-resident Love Doctor your relationship queries? Use the form to submit your question(s).
Question:
I have decided to discover my DNA heritage before I have children because I want to leave a legacy on the island. Do I need to find a woman with similar DNA for a healthy child?
I worry about meeting someone who turns out to be a relative, because my father played around and so did his father. What are your thoughts?
P, Westmoreland
Love Doctor’s Answer:
Most people have a certain type of potential partner that they find attractive, so are emotionally and physically drawn towards those with similar traits again and again.
Through our individual DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) we each have many genes that contribute to physical traits such as the colour of our eyes, hair and skin as well as our height and even baldness.
With recreational genetic tests proving popular in the United States, by promoting the ability to guide and improve diets, there is suddenly a trend for DNA tests.
Of course certain DNA tests can be used for much more useful purposes, like you are seeking for reproduction. These tests can determine whether there are rare genetic conditions and/or disease risks, including for your offspring.
My advice is that you should first of all learn about your ancestry from your family before you consider investing in a commercial DNA test to find out whether you are likely to have healthy enough genes to become a father.
On the subject of becoming a father, you should sit down with your father and be direct about your concerns regarding both his dalliances and those by your grandfather.
I suggest that you explain to him that you would like to continue the family name and settle down. No doubt your father will be delighted to learn this. But you need to reiterate that as Jamaica’s population is only 2.9 million, then you do not wish to risk your child possibly suffering from multiple medical problems because of your future wife being an unknown distant relative.
It is crucial to undertake any findings from your father and grandfather straying, however uncomfortable this makes any of you feel.
I would imagine that something more than wishing to become a parent and leaving your legacy has triggered this query. Maybe you have reservations about a certain lady that you got on well with, but for some reason or another felt that she could be a distant family member.
When you next meet someone so special that you consider her to be a potential bride then you need to unearth her family background in a subtle manner. Should you propose and both decide that you want children then it is prudent to show her your DNA test and sensible to suggest that she also undertakes a genetic test.
You are after her registering a healthy DNA test result, and not such a similar result that could mean she is a distant relative.
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