Page 1 - Sentinel March 2018

The Perry Park

Sentinel

MARCH 2018

SO YOU THINK YOU’RE IRISH?
So how does this happen? Simple. From my mother I
Fact or just a family myth? inherited her father’s German DNA and my brother in-
Not sure? DNA tests for herited our grandmother’s English DNA. He’s also only
ethnicity are all the rage 10 percent “Ireland, Scotland and Wales” while I’m 29
these days—but if you think percent! And I’m 8 percent Scandinavian while he has
that will settle your dispute only a trace, too small to measure. I figure the Scandina-
with Great-uncle George vian sneaked into England through the Danes—or maybe
about your national origins, through the Orkney Isles—Scottish territory, Viking tar-
you’d be wrong... regardless get for raids.
of what the ads say.
DNA results are great fun—but don’t count on the eth-
DNA can tell the difference between Celtic genetic his- nic portion to be accurate like the cousin connections are.
tory and, say, Saxon history or eastern European history. Those are indeed accurate. DNA will tell you when an un-
Different gene quirks. But DNA cannot tell the differ- known half-sibling appears in your matches. It just won’t
ence between Irish, Welsh and Scottish any more than it tell you whether you’re Irish or not.
can tell the difference between someone from Larkspur
and someone from Castle Rock. They’re all Celts and If DNA can’t tell you whether you’re Irish or Welsh,
all grouped together when you get your results. Ancestry why worry about it? If you feel Irish this March 17, go
used to lump them all under “Ireland.” Pretty funny in my on, wear green, drink the green beer, enjoy the day! St.
case since I’m a lot Welsh and a little Scottish—and not Patrick’s Day is, after all, the celebration of an attitude
Irish at all. The only ancestors I have who lived in Ire- toward life—not a genetic makeup. From time to time we
land were Presbyterians who got there from Scotland and all feel Irish, right?
stayed only one generation before fleeing to the Ameri-
can colonies. I guess enough of us “other” Irish protested
because Ancestry has now started using all three country
names—but still only one group.

In fact, the ethnic “pie chart” all the ads talk about is pret-
ty much a joke. The percentages are meaningless—and
only estimates. Consider: my brother and I are two years
apart, same parents, and we share vast amounts of DNA—
slightly more than average siblings, in fact. But. His pie
chart says he’s 79 percent “Great Britain” (which we as-
sume means the Angles and Saxons) while mine says I’m
only 8 percent “Great Britain.” What??? My chart says
I’m 52 percent Western Europe (which means Germany,
France, etc.) and he’s only three percent western Europe.
Crazy, right?