“I remember, the first time I flew back to LA [from Armenia], the feeling I got getting out of the plane was, Why am I back here? It’s this inescapable feeling of the land having some kind of pull on the blood or something like that.” -- musician Serj Tankian during an interview with the late Anthony Bourdain
ETHNICALLY
Mark's 23andMe results reveal him as genetically 99.3% European, with the bulk of his ancestors hailing from Poland, Ukraine, and Switzerland. Others, too, from Hungary and Romania. As for a sub-national tribal identity, Mark is currently researching credible evidence in his bloodline of membership in the Zaporozhian Cossacks.
Part of diasporas spanning approximately 1875 through World War I, Mark's Slavic ancestors and Germanic ancestors emigrated to the U.S., the former ultimately settling in Cleveland, OH, and the latter in Columbus, OH.
Mark was born and raised in Springdale, OH and then Wyoming, OH, two suburbs less than a 30-minute drive north from downtown Cincinnati. Growing up, he also spent a lot of time visiting family in Springboro, OH and Centerville, OH, two semi-rural communities outside of Dayton.
Part of diasporas spanning approximately 1875 through World War I, Mark's Slavic ancestors and Germanic ancestors emigrated to the U.S., the former ultimately settling in Cleveland, OH, and the latter in Columbus, OH.
Mark was born and raised in Springdale, OH and then Wyoming, OH, two suburbs less than a 30-minute drive north from downtown Cincinnati. Growing up, he also spent a lot of time visiting family in Springboro, OH and Centerville, OH, two semi-rural communities outside of Dayton.
