Of course, having said "you are where you're born," there are times when you can play the "ancestor" card to our benefit. Some years back, I was in Dublin, Ireland, staying at a guest house and watching the Irish team get into the fourth round of the World Cup. This was a first, so everyone was amazingly happy (Dublin center shut down for the evening do folks could run around from bar to bar celebrating!).
I happened to mention that my grandmother was a Finnegan, whereupon the owner of the guest house exclaimed, "Well begorrah, you're practically one of us then!" and promptly cracked upon a new bottle of his finest whiskey. Needless to say it was early in the morning when I rolled to bed - it would have been extremely impolite for a Finnegan to have refused to help empty the bottle.
So, leveraging ancestry can work in your favor.
Siggy
