When Ralph Taylor was born in Sacramento in 1963, his birth certificate indicated that he and his parents were Caucasian. But, like many white Americans, he grew up hearing vague family lore about long-distant Native American ancestry.

In 2010, Taylor took an AncestryByDNA test, he said, “just to confirm what we’d already known.” The results said that he was 90 percent European and 6 percent indigenous American, as well as 4 percent sub-Saharan African.

Whether the test was accurate is an open question. Still, the results were enough for Taylor to update his birth certificate last November. He acknowledges that he looks white. But despite being “visually Caucasian,” as he puts it, he considers himself to be multiracial.

“I’m a certified black man,” he told The Post. “I’m certified black in all 50 states. But the federal government doesn’t recognize me.”

After he was rejected from a program for minority business owners that would have given him an advantage when competing for lucrative government contracts, Taylor sued. His case, which raises complicated questions about how race is defined, is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.