ancestry question?

Question

If you receive only half the gene from each side of your parents, then would that mean you are what your father's fathers were and what your mother's mothers were? I mean this, genetically I would be Irish because my that is what my fathers fathers were and my mothers mothers were Welsh. I do not understand now what to identify myself because there were so many different types in me. So even though my maternal grandfather is German, genetically I would not be because my paternal grandfather is Irish?

actually I do know he was from Ireland and comes from a very ancient Irish family. This is well known there. The family has been there 3,000 years. so he is without a doubt Irish Gaelic.

Answer 1

Well you sort of answered your own question.

Why would you stop with your paternal grandfather (Irish??? of just from Ireland??). What about his parents who both may have been from Tunisia and moved to Ireland. Wouldn't that make your paternal grandfather (now classified as "Irish") tunisian, and your father 1/2 tunisian and you 1/4 tunisian???

See, you can't really do this. Because at some point, you are assuming 1) Just because someone may have lived (or was even born) somewhere like say Ireland, that they are "Irish" - whatever that means.

2) When do you stop? Father, Grandfather, Great-Grandfather. Each step you take will likely modify what every person born later than them "is".

What you CAN say is that my mother came from Wales, I have a grandfather from Germany, etc. Neither makes you welsh or German.

Addendum: When you added that "the family has been there 3,000 years", you just completely invalidated the source of that information. That is absolutely impossible to know because there are no certifiable records going back that far. So whoever made that claim is doing so on something other than fact. And as a genealogist, I would immediately throw out any information from that source because there would now be no confidence in anything.

Answer 2

Hun, You are what you are :). It is true Genetically that we get our characteristics from both sides of the family. It is questioned if it is actually split evenly or not tho. You are American and are proud of that. So that is what you are. To be Irish means that once upon a time somewhere in your family they lived in Ireland, the same goes for being German etc. Start your own traditions as an American. So your future generations will know that that is where they come from as well.

Answer 3

DNA

Y DNA is passed solely from father to son

Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to both sons and daughters. However, only the daughter passes it on to their children.

Autosomal DNA you get 50-50 from both parents. Most of your DNA is autosomal.
It is the only DNA that can prove paternity of a female.

Now, remember within any country there has been a blending of people. The U.S. is not the only melting pot. Britain and Ireland being islands out in the Atlantic has had many invasions of different peoples.

Your nationality is only one thing unless you have dual citizenship. I had ancestors here before the Mayflower. The Jamestown settlement(Virginia Company) was established 13 years before. Also some of my ancestors it is said crossed an ice bridge from Asia many thousands of years ago and were here to greet all the newcomers from Europe, Vikings, English, Spanish, French. However, if a person is naturalized today their nationality is just as American as mine is.

Now, my ethnicities or racial background is varied. The colonial South had English, Scots, Scotch-Irish, Germans (called Dutch in colonial days) and French Huguenot. My maternial grandmother who was born in 1873 was a blend of all those things. She married my grandfather in 1899 who was Polish, Polish Jew, German, American Indian and some English.

My father had some English on one line but he was mostly Irish, orange and green. In Ireland one marriage brought in Spanish, Italian and Austrian.

Just call me a Pedigree American Mutt.

Answer 4

ummmmm... You are you..