Nature vs. nurture
All she wants is to learn a little bit more about you so she can figure out who she is.I don't buy this line of reasoning. But then I'm the kind of guy who only remembers he's half Irish for one day every March. I know people whose whole lives revolve around their "Irish heritage". People who have never left Ohio and couldn't tell you the last time they were more than an hour from Cleveland.
I don't believe you are who your ancestors were. You are who the people who raised you helped you to be, and who you chose as an adult to make yourself.
Thinking you have to know who your father was in order to know yourself is the first step toward thinking you know who someone else is based on who their parents were. I think they call that racism.
Sorry if this comes off as harsh. Maybe I'd be more sympathetic to the importance of good breeding if I didn't see what an insurmountable barrier it is to those of us who don't have it.