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There is a "family" story about being related to an Indian Princess. Only one section of the family is telling it, as it's from one daughter of a six times great grandfather. As far as I can tell, it's not true -- records are scarce, and it appears he married once. She can't have been an Indian Princess for only one child. I guess I'll have to do the DNA test to find out for sure.
Hubs side -- same thing. One man, very common name, seems to have married about four Lakota/Dakota women. At the same time. It's funny, all these people seem to using this rather undocumented nondocument that's on the 'net. I found it once, it was just a listing with no documentation, no references, nothing -- just like a grocery list. No way to check ANYTHING.
People using it seem to be picking one of the women at random. And all four names are very Catholic, like Katherine, or Jane, or Anne *dash* A Lakota Woman. Like that's a last name.
And frankly -- from what little research I did, I can't imagine how anyone could think that our guy was that guy, because he would have to marry these women, and then take them back to Scotland and come back again to have his son in Bedford County... That's just a headshaker.
Bee-zarre. To me that's wishful thinking. To be honest, in a lot of cases, I don't think people are trying to claim Native American ancestry as much as they are trying to fill in holes.
Wife's grandmother was half-Cherokee, family on Dawes Roll. But she denied it all her life, didn't want to be considered an American Indian due to discrimination at the time. Do we acknowledge it? Yep. Do we go to gatherings? No. Unless you are actually raised in the culture, you are a wanna-be. The Cherokee and other tribes look very harshly at those who were not 'reservation' members. The Cherokee will not accept members who did not move west on the Trail of Tears and the family recorded on the Oklahoma rolls, rejecting those who stayed in the Carolina's, stopped in Texas, Arkansas.
Just to let you know there are still thousands of Native Americans in New England. Maine, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts still maintain "reservation" lands for some tribal groups, while other groups in all the New England states have a more informal relationship with government rolls. In southern New England many Native peoples tend to look more Anglo or African-American due to years of intermarriage, but several tribes in Maine and Vermont are clearly Native with their own respective language groups. Some still have ties to Canadian tribes like Micmac as well. My own family members were very active with some of the Schaghitcoke and Wampanoag events in the area. You might want to check with some of the records keepers.
I know. I've seen those pow wows set up locally. I meant full blooded Native American. I had an uncle who said he had been told that we had Indian blood. Last year I found a "cousin" who still lives where my family did in Vermont and I asked her. She said--Oh yes, one of the XXXXXX family wrote an entire book about it. It was an Indian Princess.
I just do not know and there is no way of proving any Native American blood. I came out with 0.1% Asian ancestry, the rest is northern European. Could that teeny % be the Native American? I'm sure it was no Indian Princess. LOL
To have full blooded Native American blood here in New England and to have had it before it became "popular to have", it would have been long ago, I would think. Whoever the person was it was not within living memory when my uncle was still alive.
I know. I've seen those pow wows set up locally. I meant full blooded Native American. I had an uncle who said he had been told that we had Indian blood. Last year I found a "cousin" who still lives where my family did in Vermont and I asked her. She said--Oh yes, one of the XXXXXX family wrote an entire book about it. It was an Indian Princess.
I just do not know and there is no way of proving any Native American blood. I came out with 0.1% Asian ancestry, the rest is northern European. Could that teeny % be the Native American? I'm sure it was no Indian Princess. LOL
To have full blooded Native American blood here in New England and to have had it before it became "popular to have", it would have been long ago, I would think. Whoever the person was it was not within living memory when my uncle was still alive.
You would find more full blood Native Americans in northern states like Maine and Vermont where they have larger, more insulated communities.
Once you found out, di you "become' a member of that tribe?
Through dna testing, I found out that I'm 24% native. I have no idea what tribe my native ancestors came from. I'm Mexican descent on my father's side.
I'm just now looking at the DNA data from the 23andMe test. At the bottom of my list is a (combined) 4% African. Initially I misinterpreted what I read on the site, and thought *everyone* had this sort of data at the bottom of their list, because the human race originated in Africa.
But I had misinterpreted what I'd read; found out today, in the forums, that the data covers only back to the last 500 years, that not everyone has the African data, and that I likely have a black great-grandparent.
I am thrilled! And this relates to this thread because the family stories of myself and many, many others, of NA ancestry actually refer to African people of mixed parentage who claimed to be NA because the stigma of being black was so horrendous, not to mention dangerous.
In the forum, many posters shared that this claim of being NA, when the person is actually black, is a very, very common occurrence on 23andMe.
Wife's grandmother was half-Cherokee, family on Dawes Roll. But she denied it all her life, didn't want to be considered an American Indian due to discrimination at the time. Do we acknowledge it? Yep. Do we go to gatherings? No. Unless you are actually raised in the culture, you are a wanna-be. The Cherokee and other tribes look very harshly at those who were not 'reservation' members. The Cherokee will not accept members who did not move west on the Trail of Tears and the family recorded on the Oklahoma rolls, rejecting those who stayed in the Carolina's, stopped in Texas, Arkansas.
Firstly, that is incorrect. Eastern Band Cherokee are a federally recognzed Cherokee tribe who reside in the Qualla Boundary of North Carolina. Separate Cherokee tribe with a different constitution. They are in their original homelands in NC Smokey Mts. EBC is noted on a series of Eastern Rolls. Secondly, Cherokee (at least not the EBC) will not call anyone of authentic Cherokee ancestry "wannabe's" because they were not raised within Cherokee culture. A "wannabe" (across the board) is pretendig to be someting you are not. There are Indians they were adopted like Jay Tavare and actor....He's American Indian but not raised in his culture. Is he a wannabe? he's racially "Indian."
The Cherokee Nation of OK, considers "connection" not "Blood Quanta" for membership. As long as you can prove your lineage "BB" (no matter how little Indian blood you have), to an ancestor of the particular rolls (Dawes) you can apply for membership. Many tribal members of Cherokee tribes are citizens by descent (having a Cherokee forebearer) not because they racially "Indians." Many people are of other races with minimal or very small amount of Indian blood.
Last edited by AppalachianGumbo; 02-19-2014 at 01:06 PM..
The Cherokee Nation of OK, considers "connection" not "Blood Quanta" for membership. As long as you can prove your lineage "BB" (no matter how little Indian blood you have), to an ancestor of the particular rolls (Dawes) you can apply for membership. Many tribal members of Cherokee tribes are citizens by descent (having a Cherokee forebearer) not because they racially "Indians." Many people are of other races with minimal or very small amount of Indian blood.
I'm happy you pointed this out. You're exactly right - Native American, for many tribes, is meaningless as a genetic trait.
For many reasons, Native Americans tended to not birth many children and those they did all too often died in infancy/childhood. This didn't bode well for maintaining population and as a result tribes had a extremely lenient attitude toward adopting 'outsiders', both child and adult. The Cherokees were especially notable for doing such. Many a full-blood Scot or other Caucasian was quickly assimilated through marriage or adoption. Fair-complected, blue-eyed, sandy-haired Cherokees abound in the Cherokee nation. If two such Caucasians married, their children were fully assimilated into the Cherokee nation even though they didn't have a single so-called Cherokee gene.
Other tribes did the same to a lesser extent; Choctaws and Irish had an affinity but not so much that fair-skinned Irish genes dominated. Choctaws more than most other tribes adopted or intermarried with persons of Latin American, Spanish, and Caribbean descent. As a result, the Choctaw tribal roll abounds with Hispanic surnames. Some of these genetically might be 100% Latin or Hispanic but as far as the Choctaw nation is concerned, they are true-blood.
Rarest of all is a true-blood Comanche. Comanche infertility and child mortality were so high that the tribe would have quickly become extinct without liberal assimilation.
A "wannabe" (across the board) is pretendig to be someting you are not. There are Indians they were adopted like Jay Tavare and actor....He's American Indian but not raised in his culture. Is he a wannabe? he's racially "Indian."
I beg to differ. Jay Tavare is a wannabe. His real name is Nader Janani, he is Persian and not Native American. He was born in Tehran, Iran and his family left the country before the Islamic Revolution. He went to a British boarding school and his family lives in Sweden and the U.K. His sister´s name is Negar Janani.
A racially "Indian" -as you describe it- is Yvette Melanson who is Navajo and was raised by a Jewish couple.
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