Quarter Japanese
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No. You can say May is one eighth Japanese, but only if her parents, grandparents and her other great-grandparents were not Japanese.
(Not a genealogist)
(Not a genealogist)
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Skrej
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If you're asking if the sentence "May is a quarter Japanese" is grammatical, then yes. You might also hear 'one quarter', 'one fourth', or 'a fourth'.
If you're asking if this is true for May, then the answer is "Maybe".
For this to be true for May, both her great-grandparents on one side would have to be 100% Japanese. That would make one of her grandparents full Japanese. If the spouse to that grandparent had no further Japanese ancestry, then one of May's parents could be half Japanese. Assuming May's other parent also has no Japanese ancestry, then May could be a quarter Japanese.
That's ignoring the fact that we don't actually inherit even distributions of DNA from our ancestors. We do get half our DNA from each parent, but not necessarily an even split of what each parent has. May could actually end up having less than twenty-five percent of her genes being Japanese. The genes she gets from her father won't necessarily be an even split of Japanese and whatever makes up the other half of her father's DNA. Only a DNA test can reveal for sure the actual breakdown.
This assume you're talking about ethnicity, not nationality. Even then, (as with any ethnicity) you'll have various smaller ethnic groups lumped under the mantle of "Japanese".
If you're asking if this is true for May, then the answer is "Maybe".
For this to be true for May, both her great-grandparents on one side would have to be 100% Japanese. That would make one of her grandparents full Japanese. If the spouse to that grandparent had no further Japanese ancestry, then one of May's parents could be half Japanese. Assuming May's other parent also has no Japanese ancestry, then May could be a quarter Japanese.
That's ignoring the fact that we don't actually inherit even distributions of DNA from our ancestors. We do get half our DNA from each parent, but not necessarily an even split of what each parent has. May could actually end up having less than twenty-five percent of her genes being Japanese. The genes she gets from her father won't necessarily be an even split of Japanese and whatever makes up the other half of her father's DNA. Only a DNA test can reveal for sure the actual breakdown.
This assume you're talking about ethnicity, not nationality. Even then, (as with any ethnicity) you'll have various smaller ethnic groups lumped under the mantle of "Japanese".
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