HispanicBusiness

Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. of "beer with Obama and the white cop" fame published an essay online today about his research on African American men that adds a surprising twist to St. Patrick's Day.

Thirty-five percent of all African American males trace their ancestry not to black men in Africa, but instead to white men in Europe -- many from Ireland, Gates writes in TheRoot.com, the online magazine he founded in 2008.

"That's right: 35 percent of all African-American males descend from a white man, a white man who most probably impregnated a black female during slavery" he writes. "And before I started the research for African American Lives, I had no idea that this was true."

Gates is among them. Through DNA testing, he traced his roots to an Irish king who is the common ancestor of eight percent of all men in Ireland.