They Haven't Thought Through Their Math

To be 10% of any nationality is equivalent to being 10/100. This is difficult since we have 2 parents, meaning all our ancestors will provide binary results. That is some fraction of multiples of two. That is 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, . . . 2n, where n is any positive integer. The closest we can come to 10/100 is probably 3/32= 0.09375%. Now there is NO WAY we can get to 3/32nds by researching one ancestor only. To achieve the necessary “2n” value, the value in the numerator must be an even number. We will only get an odd number if 2 of our ancestors from the same generation are included. For example, of one ancestor has 4/32nds (1/8ths) and the other 2/32nds (1/16th), we would inherit ½ of the sum of those two ancestors genes from that nationality of ancestor. 1/8+1/16= 3/16ths. Half of that is 3/32nds, which is 9/96, which is approximately 10/100. Now this might be 1/16+1/16+1/16= 3/16ths as well. Divide that I two and we still have 3/32nds, which would approximate 10/100 or 10%. So we could have 2 or 3 ancestors with the DNA of this nationality in our bodies. There are many other ways to come up with approximately 10%, but these are the easiest to deal with.

We receive 1/2 of our autosomal DNA from each parent. How many generations to go back to reach 1/16? Well, we receive 1/4th from each grandparent, 1/8th from our great grandparents, and 1/16th from each of our great-great-grandparents. We would receive 1/32nd of our DNA from each great-great-great grandparent.

Using me as an example, I know mama was 100% Caucasian; with makes the calculations easier. I need only look back to dad’s great-great grandparents. Dad’s grandparents were surnamed Hawkins, Byrum, Richey, Brown, (unknown wife of Hawkins), (unknown wife of Byrum), Wayland. Gist/Guess. Photographic evidence suggests the Hawkins and Byrum’s ancestors that we now of were Caucasian, as were the Richey’s. That leaves us Wayland, Guess/Gist, and Brown. These three surnames all originate from the British Isles. NONE of them are Portuguese or Gypsy in origin. Thus I can be confident that if anyone says we are Portuguese or Gypsy, I can be confident in calling them a liar who knows nothing of my family. It is all in the simple math you probably learned in either Grade School or Junior High.

If we assume thirty years per generation, and we assume the last generation was born was born 30 years ago, and we give that a date of 1990. Then the second generation was born 60 years ago, about 1960. Our grandparent’s generation would have been born about1930, and the great-grandparents can be given the date of 1900. The great-great-grandparents generation would have started 1870, while the great-great-great-grandparents would have been born about 1840. THESE are the generations that would have had to have been FULL BLOOD Gypsy or FULL BLOOD Portuguese to give the present generation a DNA result of 10% Gypsy or Portuguese TODAY. Yet those who claim a Portuguese or Gypsy ancestry say it goes back to the origins of the earliest Caucasian settlements on North America.

The math just doesn’t work. Where are the Portuguese surnames of the 1840s? If we go back to 1720, then we go back to our g-g-g-g-g-g-g-grandparents. That Portuguese or Gypsy DNA goes from 3/32nds t0 3/512ths or 0.005859, or half of one percent, about 0.5% -- either that or claim dozens of Portuguese or Gypsy ancestors, when the only surnames you an discover back to the 1700s are either English or Scots-Irish.

The math doesn’t work.