I always thought my grandfather was Puerto Rican. I realize for most people this would be a simple problem to fix, you would either ask your grandfather directly where he was born and where his parents were born, or if he had passed away, ask his wife or children where he was born. For me, and for my Mom, neither was a possibility.

Raised by her Mom and for a brief period, her foster family, my Mom never knew her biological father. Add to that the abyss of record keeping for African Americans before 1870 or so, and you end up with a person (me) who has never really been sure where his nationality lies before distant relatives "immigrated" (according to Ben Carson) to North Carolina. They probably read a nice brochure and weighed their options between that spot or somewhere in the Caribbean and chose the balmy tobacco fields of Tarheel country. Snarkiness aside, I have always wondered about my pre-American heritage.

For those of you who can trace your relatives back to the colonies or a specific ship, I am in awe. Growing up in a predominantly Italian town, I learned that families' records were sometimes murky, but common family names and Ellis Island archives have allowed many people I know to be able to trace how their last name's spelling has changed over the years, the town in Italy where their family spent much of their lives, and other knowledge tidbits that allow them to proudly fly an Italian flag below the American one.

For me, my knowledge of Africa is sparse at best. American history was the largest segment of history I learned, and that was heavily centered on lessons of the first Thanksgiving, Civil War battles and other trivia which I appreciate but leaves many other parts of the world forgotten. So, with a very thoughtful gift from my girlfriend, I sent in to AncestryDNA to have my heritage defined more explicitly.

AncestryDNA takes the data from my DNA markers and compares it to population data from 26 different regions. After running this comparison 40 times to get the best estimate of what regions my family genetically connects to based on current research, AncestryDNA gave me an ethnicity estimate. It is just that: an estimate. The estimate could change over time, depending on what new research might reveal.

After this whole process, my results narrowed down to the regions below. West Africa, parts of the Mediterranean and a concentrated area of North Carolina.

My first reaction was frustration. Really - after years of science progress, I know now that my roots are somewhere on the coast of Africa? Some economics and straight lines drawn with a ruler could have given me that answer.

But, I suppose there's more.

The results show me a lot about what's not there. I had always been under the impression that I had some Spanish or Latin American heritage from what my Mom told me about her father and where he and her Mom met. The numbers show differently. Not a trace of Spain or Latin American anything are in the results. I had taken a kind of DNA grouping test before and had results come back from Sudan and other parts of Northeast Africa. I am told I look Ethiopian by many Ethiopians. Nope, not in the numbers.

It appears that whether it's Nigeria, Cameroon or Benin, my family's roots are in West Africa. I know there are debates about how accurate these results are, how they are populated by a small number of black or African samples, and other evolving scientific conerns. But what do these results tell me? With this process, I was hoping to have a better answer for the eternal ambiguous question "But where are you from?" which follows the question "where are you from?" From these results, I do not have a solid nationality I can point to. But at least now I have a place I can start.

I can start with the basics of these countries - Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin. I can begin to follow their news, I can begin to learn about their leaders. I can read basic history and start to understand how such a vile slave trade began. I can visit. I can read the countries' literature and solidify my family's connection to other countries before America at family reunions and gatherings. Down the road, I can point people in a better direction when they group Africa into one country or appropriate what they do not know much about.

And most importantly, I now have a legitimate excuse to learn how to make another great rice dish, some Jollof Rice to be exact. What's more exciting than learning about a new country through their food?

However, the exact percentages above made me think of some other questions. Above what percentage do you get the right to claim a country as your own nationality? What is the highest nationality percentage out there? Is a 90% nationality something to be proud of at this point in human history? What answer from Ancestry would have satisfied me?

I don't have the answer to any of those questions right now, and if you take a DNA ancestry test, I'd love to know your reaction and what you did with the information. President Obama had a unique perspective on matters of race and an outlook that he shared more and more in his second term. In his graduation speech to Howard University, he said:

"We cannot sleep walk through life. We cannot be ignorant of history. We can't meet the world with a sense of entitlement... We have cousins and uncles and brothers and sisters who we remember were just as smart, just as talented as we were, but somehow got ground down by structures that are unfair and unjust and that means we have to not only question the world as it is, and stand up for those African Americans who haven't been so lucky."

I know now that my grandfather probably wasn't Puerto Rican, and I also know that for whatever reason, I have been lucky enough to have been born in a time and place where many things are possible. More background in my heritage gives me a greater personal reason not to be ignorant of history and to not only question how many of us got here, but more importantly, where we can go from here.