IN SEARCH OF MY SWEDISH ROOTS A road trip through Skåne

I was driving down a bumpy dirt road somewhere in the Skånska countryside, wincing every time the unlikely rental car, a Prius, jolted. I doubt that the car rental employee at the Circle K in Ramlösa knew that our destination was a series of villages in the country. Hanna, my Swedish friend-cum-navigator, was seven months pregnant. She had gamely volunteered to go on my “heritage trip,” perhaps not expecting the rural roads that we would encounter on our journey, even despite her husband’s earnest warning to watch out for tractors on narrow lanes.

All but two percent of Americans’ ancestors come from another country, and thanks to the prevalence of at-home DNA test kits, Americans desperate to gain a sense of perspective about their ancestry have made both the kits