In search of the True Guern

What makes a True Guern?
 
Can’t be just being born here. After all, if you’re born in a stable it doesn’t make you a horse does it?
 
So perhaps both of your parents need to have been born here as well. Not too sure about that though, after all we’ve got plenty of 3rd generation Portugese about and they can’t be proper Guerns can they?
 
Best to go back and make sure that all sets of grandparents were born here as well. That’s starting to make sense but I guess that we’d better check their parents as well and their parents as well and well, where do you stop?
 
This line of thought started because some Proper Guerns took objection to the term “inbred”. Well, to my way of thinking they’re either not Proper Guerns or they’re inbred. They can’t have it both ways, the maths doesn’t add up.
 
Let’s take a fictitious Island. They’re an odd bunch because everyone insists on marrying someone of their own exact age and from outside of the family; that’s outside of anyone ever connected to the family in any generation whatsoever. They also only produce one child when they reach the age of 25. Now let’s look at the fictitious Le Gallez family from that island.
 
So we have young Jayden Le Gallez now 13 who was born in 2000 to his two parents who were born in 1975 from their four parents who were born in 1950 and from their eight parents who were born in 1925.
 
Now, if there is to be no inbreeding whatsoever and every parent of every generation is to be a True Guern, where does that get us?
 
That gets us back to 1600 and a population of over 65,000 to accommodate the strange rules of the Le Gallez family if they are to survive to this day unpolluted.
 
Was there a population of 65,000 here in our real Guernsey in 1600?
 
No.
 
So either there must have been inbreeding or the Le Gallez family and all the rest aren’t really True Guerns. Oh, there may be some families that can trace back to the 11th century or whatever but if they kept going back they would eventually find that their ancestors came from somewhere else. It’s actually the same with all of us until you get back to prehistory and Africa. We all originated from somewhere else.
 
So I guess that at some point you have to turn a blind eye and you can be a True Guern if some of your ancestors going back not too too far were born here, regardless of where they or their parents actually originated from.
 
It’s just a matter of time.
 
But should attitude have something to do with it as well?
 
Is young Kevin Le Cras, who doesn’t give a monkey’s about anything, more of a Guern than Charlotte Smythe who came here to work as a teacher and has served the Island for 35 years?
 
Who has more regard for the good of the Island? Or doesn’t that matter?
 
Maybe this True Guern lark is a bit of a red herring and just an excuse to throw in a few broad brush racist remarks against any imports regardless of their worth. An excuse to ignore the worst of the Island because it’s always been that way and you know where the boat is if you don’t like it. An excuse not to change for the better.
 
And before you ask, no I wasn’t born here but my son was, so perhaps his great grandchildren might become True Guerns one day. Shame he’s left the Island and married a foreigner, or might that not matter in a few generations time?