Finding Identity in My DNA

Old Bathos
Old Bathos
3416
 

This just in: I am 0.00% Cherokee! According to Ancestry.com DNA I am 96% Irish and Scottish, 4% English, Welsh and NW European.

My Irish last name originates from a Norman guy who fought in the battle of Hastings in 1066 and was awarded lands somewhere in Devonshire, England. Three or four generations later, one of his descendants (probably a second or third son with no shot at inheriting the family estate) joined the Norman invasion of Ireland around 1170 and secured land for himself somewhere in County Tipperary after which my Norman invader ancestor went native.

I guess I could claim to be Norman nobility but (barring some other source of Norman lineage – they did rape a lot of Irish women) that would be about 30 generations or about 1 in 1,073,741,824. Even Liz Warren would laugh at that.

Almost 50 years ago, I was given a month in Ireland by my parents. At my aunt ‘s direction, I went to the tiny, dumpy little town where the Norman forbears established themselves and our last name began. There was a stump of a ruined castle just outside of town where I imagined my forbears drinking while the place fell apart over time.

I went to one of the two pubs in town, ordered a shot, and raised a silent toast to those who decided to leave that dump and others like it so I could be an American. I have never needed any other identity since. I don’t understand why any American ever would.

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  1. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad
    11:26 AM EDT ⋅ Oct 19, 2018

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    Hmm. That’s not how it was explained to me/

    You were taught correctly. Siblings can share DNA, theoretically, from zero percent to one hundred percent with the average being about 50%. If the parents have very diverse backgrounds, meaning they are of mixed, but different mixed races, the variation is more likely to show than if all of the ancestors for six hundred years lived in Ireland, for instance.

    But there are fraternal twins, and identical twins.  These two girls cannot be identical . . .

    • #31
  2. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy
    11:39 AM EDT ⋅ Oct 19, 2018

    Stad (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    Hmm. That’s not how it was explained to me/

    You were taught correctly. Siblings can share DNA, theoretically, from zero percent to one hundred percent with the average being about 50%. If the parents have very diverse backgrounds, meaning they are of mixed, but different mixed races, the variation is more likely to show than if all of the ancestors for six hundred years lived in Ireland, for instance.

    But there are fraternal twins, and identical twins. These two girls cannot be identical . . .

    I assume they’re fraternal twins and their DNA would be just like that of me and my sisters. Different.

    • #32
  3. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist
    11:45 AM EDT ⋅ Oct 19, 2018

    Stad (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    Hmm. That’s not how it was explained to me/

    You were taught correctly. Siblings can share DNA, theoretically, from zero percent to one hundred percent with the average being about 50%. If the parents have very diverse backgrounds, meaning they are of mixed, but different mixed races, the variation is more likely to show than if all of the ancestors for six hundred years lived in Ireland, for instance.

    But there are fraternal twins, and identical twins. These two girls cannot be identical . . .

    Correct. The point is, between non-identical twin or non-twin siblings, the parents’ genes get mixed up (each person has a lot of genes) and only partially expressed. One will inherit one set of genes and the other another. Once you go back several generations, you may express very few of the genes your great-great-great grandparents expressed. By the time you get to six or ten generations (ahem), it’s pretty meaningless.

    To give Warren a little break, though, her family may have more native American in it than she expresses in her genes. It’s possible. Still not enough that she should ever have labeled herself “Native American,” though.

    • #33
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant
    12:28 PM EDT ⋅ Oct 19, 2018

    Stad (View Comment):
    But there are fraternal twins, and identical twins. These two girls cannot be identical . . .

    I did not say they were, but they are expressing two very different sets of genes. Their parents are both mixed race.

    • #34
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