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Question:What would be the child's percentage on the three genes? The way I understand it, the child would be half Apache, quarter German, and quarter Irish. But someone told me I was wrong because one parent had to be full blooded in order for the child to be half. Is that right?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: What would be the child's percentage on the three genes? The way I understand it, the child would be half Apache, quarter German, and quarter Irish. But someone told me I was wrong because one parent had to be full blooded in order for the child to be half. Is that right?

If you are talking about genealogy then the person would be half Apache, quarter Irish,and quarter German.
However that's not the way genes are inherited. When a person is born half the genes are taken from the mother and half from the father. The body, though, doesn't have a scheme so it can select a quarter of the Apache genes and a quarter of the Irish. The process just selects genes for each trait and they could be equally (doubtful) from each grandparent, or they could be from just one, or any variation in between. So, it's entirely possible, though unlikely, that the child would possess no Apache genes at all, for instance.

You're right. You go by percentage/fractions/ancestors, not by "pureblood"*. The child in your question has four grandparents, two of whom are Apache and one each German and Irish, so 2/4 (or 1/2) and 1/4 and 1/4.

I just watched an interview with Vanessa Williams in which she mentioned she was biracial- about half-black and half-white because her mother is the child of a black father/white mother and her father is the product of two parents who each had one black and one white parent. All of this makes her 8/16 black and 8/16 white, or 1/2 and 1/2.

*It's really doubtful anybody anywhere is a "pureblood" anything. Trace the Apache lineage and you'll probably find a Navaho or a Spaniard or a Ute somewhere, and with the Irish and German you'll pretty definitely find other nationalities, so you have to go with what's known and predominant. (About 15-25% of white Americans who have been tested have non-white ancestors in the past 3 centuries, most of them with no idea who it was or how they got there.)

Nope, not right.
The person has little understanding of heritage beyond only his/ her parents. You are a composite of ALL ancestors.

In simple terms, your assumption is correct. However, there is so much technical stuff involved when it comes to genetics, and genealogy is not quite that simple, so in the end, your assumption is not very accurate. However, for your purposes, you are right.