Brando's ancestry was mostly German, Dutch, English, and Irish.[3][4][5] His patrilineal immigrant ancestor, Johann Wilhelm Brandau, arrived in New York City in the early 1700s from the Palatinate in Germany.[6] He is also a descendant of Louis DuBois, a French Huguenot, who arrived in New York around 1660.[7] His maternal great-grandfather, Myles Joseph Gahan, was an Irish immigrant who served as a medic in the American Civil War.[8] In 1995, he gave an interview in Ireland in which he said, "I have never been so happy in my life. When I got off the plane I had this rush of emotion. I have never felt at home in a place as I do here. I am seriously contemplating Irish citizenship."[9]