This is an analogy about your DNA.

Recently, a Kona low flooded a lot of Oahu, HI – particularly the North Shore. I watched many videos of torrential rains and swollen waterfalls (one after another); and videos of flooded areas as all that water made its way to the sea.

Close your eyes and think of each waterfall as one of your Ancestors and then imagine each waterfall representing part of your DNA. The water flows in branches to rivers and finally into the Pacific Ocean. Each waterfall is like your DNA, flowing from a distant Ancestor and combining with DNA “flows” from other Ancestors to your parent, and then to you (you are the Pacific Ocean in this analogy).  Many different paths over time and geography winding up with you. And the same is happening on the other side of the mountain, also flowing to the Pacific – representing the DNA from your other parent…

I think it’s a good visual analogy – many Ancestor sources of parts of your DNA flowing and combining until it finally reaches you.

[22DK] Segment-ology: From Waterfalls to the Sea by Jim Bartlett 20260329