The morning of my eighteenth birthday started like any other special day in the Weston household: my dad, Oliver, woke me with a pancake breakfast, flipping chocolate-chip batter in a skillet and singing off-key.

My mom, Celia, gave me a bear hug and ruffled my hair, telling me how proud she was that I’d grown into such a bright, caring young man. We were a tight-knit trio—Mom, Dad, and me, Billy.

My life felt comfortable, stable, and honestly pretty close to perfect. I was an only child, cherished and nurtured without question.

But that day, I also received an unexpected gift—an ancestry DNA test kit.

Dad joked it was my chance to prove, once and for all, whether I had Viking or royal blood in my lineage. I laughed, never suspecting how drastically this “fun” test would change my understanding of who I was.

Two weeks later, on a drizzly afternoon, I found the test results in my email inbox. Curious, I clicked the link and scanned the color-coded chart. Mostly, it was what I expected: