Families and the Stories They Invent About Their Origins

For a long time, I thought I was the only person whose family had created a story about their ancestry. In my family, it was always said that my maternal great-grandfather was half Moroccan and half Spanish. Since he never married my great-grandmother and did not officially recognize his daughter, the story was difficult to verify.

However, after taking several DNA tests, the results do not support that theory. I am from southern Galicia, near the Portuguese border, and most of my family comes from Galicia, with some ancestry from northern Portugal as well. According to my DNA results, I have a level of North African ancestry that falls within the normal range for Iberian populations, with nothing unusual that would suggest a recent Moroccan ancestor.

After reading about the experiences of others, I discovered that many people have similar family legends or stories about their origins that do not always match the genetic evidence. It seems to be a much more common phenomenon than I had previously imagined.