Feel sad/a fraud interest after finding out about adoption?

[plue]

I'd spent years and years researching my ancestry. My grandmother was Scottish and her parents were from way up in the Highlands and lived in a croft. I felt very proud to be 1/4 Scottish. I'd always tell people I'm a quarter Scottish mind you!

I did lots of travelling around the highlands to places 'my ancestors' were buried. I felt a connection to them.

Then I found out my grandmother was adopted. Her birth parents were both English. So I am not scottish at all.

This makes me really sad and I feel a bit of a fraud. I know my grandmother's adoptive parents are still my great grandparents. But I just feel different now.

I know what you mean. Not the same, but in the past I’d been researching one of my ancestors and found someone with the same name who’d produced a well known item in the area and it was on display. I felt a sense of pride and was planning to visit it, did lots more research etc. and then discovered I’d got the wrong person.
In your case, at least there is a genuine connection. Although they’re not related by blood, you can still research the family of the person that (hopefully) gave your grandmother a better life.

Being a quarter Scottish means fuck all though, really. You're still your grandmother's granddaughter and that's what counts.

Isn't being raised 'Scottish' what affected your grandmother and influenced how she saw the world / her cultural references / the kind of person she grew up to be?Once you've got past any inherited illnesses, genetics of distant generations aren't really important. Your own biological parents' identity would be important to your appearance and immediate place in the world, but biological great grandparents aren't that important in terms of long term identity - cultural and linguistic influences are surely more important. You are still as 'Scottish' as you were before ...