Everybody is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day — especially in Canada
Posted March 15, 2016 9:24 am.
Last Updated March 15, 2016 9:25 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – They say everybody is Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day — and for a lot of Canadians, it’s actually true.
A popular genealogy website suggests we have a lot of Emerald Isle cred.
“We found through our DNA testing results that one in five Canadians actually have Irish ethnicity,” says Leslie Anderson at Ancestry.
“That makes it the second-most common ethnicity in Canada, right behind British at 27 per cent.”
The online history resource also found nearly one quarter of Canadians don’t know their family’s immigration history, so if you want to do some digging and find out how Irish you might be, Ancestry has opened up some of its records for free.
“You actually have access to all Irish records — about 120 million of them — on Ancestry until midnight on St. Patrick’s Day. Now’s the time to take a look and investigate that possibility,” Anderson tells NEWS 1130.
Note: If you don’t find anything, don’t turn to green beer to drown your sorrows. We have it on good authority that food colouring doesn’t actually increase your Irishness whatsoever.
