Podcast explores the unexpected costs of knowing where you came from
We know more about where we came from than our ancestors could possibly ever fathom. This podcast asks if that’s a good thing.
“Today, this parliament, on behalf of the Australian people, takes responsibility and apologises for the policies and practices that forced the separation of mothers from their babies, which created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering.”
These were the words spoken by former prime minister Julia Gillard on March 21, 2013.
She was referring, of course, to the forced adoption practices in place in Australia from the 1950s up until about 1980, where children born to unwed mothers were illegally placed with married couples by healthcare professionals and religious officials.
During that time, an estimated 250,000 people were affected by forced adoptions – babies, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, siblings, grandparents.
NSW man Peter Capomolla Moore is one of them – only he didn’t know it until he took an ancestry DNA test in 2016.
In a cruel twist of fate, Capomolla Moore had an interest in genealogy and had spent more than a decade painstakingly constructing a family tree of more than 13,000 members. He had no idea it would all come tumbling down when he spat in that tube.
Capomolla Moore’s extraordinary story is just one of dozens brought to the surface in the Radio 4 podcast series The Gift.
Now in its second season, The Gift explores the ways in which lives are unexpectedly turned upside down by ancestry DNA kits, which are – as the name would suggest – often given as novel birthday or Christmas presents by well-intentioned friends and relatives.
It explores questions of race, religion, cultural taboo, fraud, justice, health and secrecy, wrestling with the very human desire to know who we are – and the harsh reality that we may never have the full picture.
The series is hosted by Jenny Kleeman, who – like any good journalist – kicks off her investigation by completing an ancestry DNA test of her own. I could have done without hearing her spit into the tube on mic but podcasts are nothing if not intimate.
Audible spitting aside (and I assure you it only happens once), Kleeman’s style is thoughtful, considered and endlessly listenable.
Despite the complexities of the stories she tells, her scripts are simple and easy to follow. She seamlessly weaves together experiences and perspectives in a way that makes them feel simultaneously unique and common.
And her empathetic nature is on full display in interviews where her subjects are quite often divulging the details of the most-confronting thing they never thought would or could happen to them.
The profound thing about The Gift is its modernity. DNA profiling has been around for only about 40 years, yet it’s being applied to ancient and arguably unknowable concepts like ancestry, heritage, family, and identity in a commercial context.
DNA testing kits are marketed to people in their millions – and sprawling databases have been built upon our contributions. As a result, we know more about where we came from than our ancestors could possibly ever fathom.
But The Gift, ultimately, is a cautionary tale about how attempting to unravel who we are can often lead to more questions than answers. And how a bit of spit in a plastic tube can send our journey of self-discovery in surprising, shocking, and stunning directions.
Kristen Amietis the producer of The Australian’s daily news podcast The Front. The Gift is available now wherever you listen to podcasts.
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