What is up with family members INSISTING there is native American blood in the family?

Question

Ever since the early days of my family research I was informed by the members of the family that I reconnected with that we had native blood in us. Since then I've been keen not only to map out our family tree but to follow the verifiable document trail. My old new reporter background is still engrained in my style. Now for most all of our relatives from the 1880's on we have concrete source info for their bloodlines. And I have found not a drop of native lineage. And I know I've aggravated a few family members by saying this and they've doubled down on the story of having native blood due to our "high cheek bones." Not too convincing. But to make it worse we are led to believe the native blood comes from one of our female lines. Which one we are not sure. And what makes it worse is the possible women involved we can not find their family info (yet) which looks also like it's going to be either in the St. Lawrence valley of NY or Canada, where much of our family comes from. It's led to my recent research line for that family.

Comments

Has anyone done DNA in your family? Results?

Answer 1

There are endless articles, books, and dissertations attempting to explain why millions of Americans claim to have a Native ancestor.  Theories range from white guilt, to the rise of Native American advocacy in the 1960's and 70's, to romantic visions of "living in harmony with nature."  Far too many people announce that because they cannot find any documentation for an early female ancestor she must have been a Native American.   In most cases actual documentation for families shows that no one lived with or even near any Native people at any time.  There are hundreds, maybe thousands of fake "tribes" to accomodate these folks for a small fee.  As you have learned, it's next to impossible to get the true believers to give up their claims.

Here's a link to one of the articles: Cherokee blood: Why do so many Americans believe they have Cherokee ancestry? (slate.com)

Comments

Fascinating discussion! I have no "dog in the hunt;" my ancestry that I most identify with happens to be Scottish (and the more cantankerous, the better). And I have a lot of Scottish surnames in both sides of my family tree. But this thread reminds me of someone I encountered over 20 years ago in an IRC chat group. He called himself "The Injun" and claimed to be (you guessed it) a full-blood Cherokee. He even would often post a block of alleged Cherokee-language text with its alleged translation into English. (I can't remember what it was supposed to say.) When I became suspicious I found a Cherokee forum online and asked the question. Y'all can guess the answer... it was complete gibberish with MAYBE one or two loosely-translatable words in the Cherokee language. (One of those words was "salty" which, naturally, was not present in the alleged translation.) Later some of the members of the chat found out that at MOST this character MIGHT have been one-quarter (or less) Native American, tribe not necessarily known.

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>"The Injun"

Ughhhhh why is it when people want to cosplay as Natives, they always have to be so racist about it??

There's an interesting blog exposing people who fake being Native to take jobs, write books, or otherwise promote themselves as authorities on the Native American experience while not being actually Native. FakeIndians (ancestorstealing.blogspot.com) There's a whole cottage industry of these fakers.

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And the worst part is because the average person knows nothing about contemporary Native Americans, they see a guy dressed up like someone from a John Wayne movie and believe he's the Indian, not the next-door neighbor who teaches at your kid's school or the lady who checks you out at the grocery store.   Remember those ads with the "Crying Indian"?  His ancestors were Italian.  Got some buckskin and feathers and a name like "Chief Big Running Deer"?  You must be an Indian.  If you are interested in Native Americans or think you have Native ancestors, read up about the tribes in the area where they lived.   Sign up for programs at places like the National Museum of the American Indian, or a tribal museum.  Read some books like Angie Deboe's "And Still the Waters Run" or Dee Brown's "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee"  or just read the text of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 Introduction - Indian Removal Act: Primary Documents in American History - Research Guides at Library of Congress (loc.gov)

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I have to admit to an occasion when I was wrongly accused of attempting to impersonate a Native American.  The story, however, provides an eye opener about how labels applied to people get changed and the old label becomes politically incorrect or racist or whatever you want to call it, while many people are unaware of the change.

It was 1979 and I was filling out the financial aid forms for my son's college application.  There was a question about race (although I don't remember the word used - it might have been ethnicity or something different) that offered 4 choices to check - African American, Hispanic American, Native American, and Other.  I scratched my head, since I was accustomed to being able to select Caucasian for this item but it wasn't there.  I had never before heard the term "Native American", but looking at the choices, I decided that fit me best, since I was born in the United States.

A couple of weeks after sending in the form, I received a letter asking what tribe I belonged to and what reservation I lived on.  I just figured they were nuts, so I politely replied that I am not an Indian and don't belong to any tribe and live in a suburb of New York City, not a reservation.

The next thing I received was a nasty threatening letter, telling me that it's illegal to misrepresent myself as a Native American in order to get financial aid, etc., etc.  I finally figured out that I should have identified my race as "Other", but still didn't understand why I am not considered a native American, nor why it is now considered a race.

I often wring my hands about words that I grew up using, without any racial connotations, have now morphed into being considered racial slurs.  Now we have European Americans (with subsets for specific countries), African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and who-knows-how-many-other-kinds of Americans.  What ever happened to Theodore Roosevelt's idea that a person who identifies as a hyphenated American needs to make up his/her mind which nationality their loyalty lies with and use the single term to designate it ... and since when has nationality become blurred with race?

Sorry to have run on so.  Now I'll wait to see how long it takes for someone to flag this comment as either a rant, off topic, or offensive ... honest, I really don't mean any of those things - just a comment on how language changes, trapping older folks who never knew there was anything wrong with a word they used all their lives, but are now accused of racism when they haven't kept up with language style changes.

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The son of a close friend of mine ran into that exact meat grinder, in all innocence. He figured hey, he was born in the USA, so he's American by birth. A native.  And now I've gotten to wondering why, if I'm allowed to say I'm a native of California, am I NOT allowed to say I'm a native of the United States of America....

In my 40s I became a re-entry university student to finish the education I had abandoned 20 years earlier. With all the forms I had to fill out, I got tired of looking at very long lists of (a) Hispanic ethnicities (Mexican, Colombian, Ecuadoran, and every other country south of the US border), (b) Asian ethnicities, (c) Pacific Islander ethnicities, and there may have been a couple more categories, but there was only one box that said "white." My 9 generations of British Isles ancestors living on the west side of the pond had little background in common with, say, my Italian immigrant landlord, or a Syrian teacher of Arabic at the language school, but we were all lumped together into the "white" category. (I take issue with that as I am actually beige). I finally rebelled. I checked "other" and wrote in "Scottish." I never heard a word about it.

And I just remembered the story of a young woman enrolling at the same university a few years before me. Her father was "white" (British isles variety) and her mother was Hispanic, so she listed herself as Hispanic, with average grades on her transcript. Well, apparently that wasn't what the university was looking for, and her application was rejected. She reapplied but listed herself as Navajo (her mother supposedly was 3/4 Mexican and 1/4 Navajo, making her daughter 1/8 "native American") and the looniversity could not wait to sign her up. Go figure.

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Interesting you should mention the websites devoted to the fakers. The person I was talking about  ("the Injun") was also a Vietnam POW faker. (He never actually served in the military.) There used to be a website where such persons could be reported and, if the evidence indeed showed they were fakers, "outed" for all the world to see.

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There is a book called "Stolen Valor" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Valor) about people who claimed all sorts of action in Vietnam to get veteran's benefits to which they were not entitled.  Some just lied about their war experiences, others had never even been there, and still others had never even been in the military at all.  I recommend it highly, but be prepared to be shocked if you read it.

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Yes, I have heard of that book Stolen Valor. I haven't read it. One of these days I'll try to get to it. Sad to say, there's not too much out there anymore that has the ability to surprise me. :(

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my favorite FamilySearch Native American profile is 

Princess Two Pony (Deceased) • Person • Family Tree • FamilySearch

Honestly who would believe this

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All I want to know is where is One Pony and what happened to him/her?

Answer 2

Hey Keith!  Funny: I always thought high cheek bones was a source!  (kidding, of course)   I have an uncle, Joseph Draper, who the family always insisted was a cousin of Elvis!  I thought they were stretching it a bit using facial genealogy as a basis for their claim.  Turns out, he is related to Elvis! ( I have a picture of Joe and Elvis side by side in his profile.

That being said, I have a cousin, William Barnett who was a ggg grandson of Pocahontas so I was curious, because of your post, and checked my connection!  Nope, not related to her! I'M RELATED TO HER HUSBAND!  John Rolfe

Thanks for sharing!

Comments

Heh, turns out I'm linked to a very famous Canadian singer myself. But don't ask me to get autographs for you. We have to go back to the 1600's where my family links to hers through her "maman"

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So glad I clicked on this post, William Barnett's profile gives me a lead to check out for my 3gg Elizabeth Barnett. I just got excited, she is my brick wall. BTW, Barnett is a surname associated with the Indian families that  lived in Brunswick Co VA in the Fort Christanna/Meherrin region. Orange is one place they settled in. I see we are wayback cousins.

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Cousin Teresa, On my Draper Stories by the Draper Family free space page, look at story 1.4 Nancy Kerlin Barnett 1793-1831  "Grave in the middle of the Road" story!  There is much more info here than in the profile.  Enjoy!

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Thanks David, I will check it out!

Answer 3

1880 on is relatively recent. Where were your ancestors say 1607 to 1619? If they were in Jamestown, some hard choices were made. Just a guess but, I suspect that the men were of a mature age and sought companionship. As the first European women didn't arrive until 1619, I suspect some sort of fraternization occurred between colonists and indigenous people of the area for at least 12 years. Rolfe married the Chief's daughter. That suggests these relationships did occur and were acceptable to all those involved. The lost colony of Roanoke? Some theories have them assimilating with the Indians of the area. Some have them exterminated. Now that UFO's and alien life is a hot topic, I'm waiting for an abduction theory to explain the "Lost Colony". Lacking concrete evidence, take human nature into account. After every war, there is a portion of the population that exhibit traits of the Victors. As cultures mixed, so did bloodlines. I'm not big on DNA, but I am curious as to what is considered to be the "purest" bloodline defined by percentages.

Answer 4

Dawes Application (ie. Appropriations, Land Allotments, a way to legitimize one's heritage)

It's my belief that the family lore of coming from Native American family lines (true or not) was reenergized in the late 1800s and early 1900s by the Dawes Application. My Uncle's genealogy research helped me understand how/why this family lore remained a part of our family's oral history.

An act of Congress approved on March 3, 1893, established a commission to negotiate agreements with the Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Cherokee Indian tribes. The commission became known as the Dawes Commission, after its chairman Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts. The commission's mission was to divide tribal land into plots which were then divided among the members of the tribe. As part of this process, the Commission either accepted or rejected applicants for tribal membership based on whether the tribal government had previously recognized the applicant as a member of the tribe and other legal requirements. Applicants were categorized as Citizens by Blood, Citizens by Marriage, Minor Citizens by Blood, New Born Citizens by Blood, Freedmen (African Americans formerly enslaved by tribal members), New Born Freedmen, and Minor Freedmen. 

Comments

Not just the Dawes process.  In 1906 the Cherokee were awarded a settlement of 4.4 million dollars (an uninmaginable sum at that time), and thousands of non-Cherokee people applied for a share of the money.  Unscrupulous attorneys filled out the forms for people complete with invented relatives and paid for false affidavits supporting the claims.  Out of 90,000 people named on the applications only 30,000 were legitimately Cherokee and eligible for a share of the money.

Answer 5

The Native/"Cherokee princess" ancestor is usually a cherished family story and you can see even here on G2G how people get ANGRY when told it's not true. We've even had one or two people here on G2G try to say genealogists are prejudiced against them because "my oral history says I'm a Native and if you disagree then that means you're racist to a Native American, i.e. me".

I've mentioned this before, but my DNA test results show a small amount of African ancestry -- but curiously, no one in my family seems to be excited to find that out, whereas they'd be thrilled to be part Native. Hmmm... I can't imagine why.

We also had one person on G2G who tied themself into knots to explain why they had no Native DNA. Get this... they earnestly argued that we do not inherit DNA from our maternal grandfathers, and that's why their Native DNA didn't show up! While it's true you don't get YDNA or mtDNA from a maternal grandfather, you absolutely do inherit 1/4 of your auDNA from him. Imagine believing in all earnestness that maternal grandfathers do not pass down their DNA. How does that even work? Does your maternal grandmother just magically clone herself? But that's what they had to believe to cling to this myth.

I suspect a lot of these myths started because white people tried to steal land and money set aside for the Natives in the 19th century, and even though their claims were usually rejected, their descendants cling to the lie that "great-great-grandma was Native." Notice how the stories are all the same. The Native ancestor is always somewhere vaguely on the mother's mother's side, and she's always a member of some well-known tribe. Cherokees, Choctaws, etc. You will virtually never see anyone claiming to be part, say, Waccamaw. It's never a male ancestor. And these Cherokee princesses always married a white man and they were somehow totally accepted into white society, where they had a bunch of babies with straight black hair and high cheekbones.

For the record, I have cheekbones and no Native DNA. 

Comments

Jessica it's the internally hormonally-rewarding neural connections that'll catch the attention of the (fake news) believers despite credible external evidence to the contrary. Their minds are usually made up regardless of what they later see or hear because their belief is rooted in a reward they've already cashed in (so-to-speak). (Cognative dissonence.). I've seen honest, truthful people suddenly turn on a dime and believe with all their hearts in something that has no basis in objective fact [and no, I'm not talking about God but instead about man-made systems of measurement] yet that's how they style their belief: as a fact not realizing they're reaching a conclusion based on emotions which don't meet the objective measurement standards such as those used by genealogy.

Answer 6

Actually I have submitted to the FamilyTreeDNA site.   But I've only got a 36 Ymarker test. It connected us with a previously unknown Hooper branch. But my results came back as Ashkanazi. As in Jewish. Oh that went over like a lead bolloon when I informed my older family members. Sheesh people get a grip. The genetics don't lie. I have been told every conspiracy theory from MY OWN FAMILY on why it's inaccurate and WHY we are native american. Though I have our tree traced back to England and France on the side branches. Only my Hooper line has a dead end.

Comments

Keith, for what it's worth, my DNA says I am 97% Ashkenazi, which matches my parents' claims about family bloodlines.  My mother, like everyone in her family, had olive skin and black hair and was often taken for Italian, my father had dark brown hair but pretty fair skin.  Of course, both had brown eyes.  I have extremely fair skin, red hair, blue/green eyes, and freckles and everyone has always assumed I'm Irish - go figger (now, by marriage, I have the Irish name to go with my looks).  At least nobody in my family ever tried to claim they were Native American princesses.

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Keith, it sounds like you found your Tribe, just not a Native American tribe...

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No amount of evidence will convince a fool he is wrong once he is convinced otherwise.

Answer 7

Some of us have the same issue with claims of English Royal or aristocratic ancestors.

 I have that with a 6th cousin, insists we're descended from a king via a landed gentry daughter. Problem is the girl didn't marry, our ancestor had the same name and did marry.

 Some people just want to claim those connections, I didn't, happily of peasant/yeoman stock.

 Ironically when I connected my last great-grandmother to the big tree I found that I was descended from Scottish and English kings, King John of Magna Carta fame and 6 or 7 of the Surety Barons. Oh Damn!

Comments

This is all so very interesting.... When I was in about the 6th grade, long before there was such a thing as the internet, one of my uncles on my mother's side proudly announced that we were Queen Victoria's 8th cousins, which put us at about 3-millionth in line for the English throne (but not beyond playground-bragging, I have to confess).

Well, I cannot find any connection to Victoria on my mother's side, but on my father's side she is my 16th cousin 3 times removed. And my mother and the late Queen Elizabeth were 10th cousins, making me a 10th once removed.

Now, Victoria and Elizabeth are very closely related (2nd great granddaughter) and I am related to both. Quite distantly.

So here's a question. If my mother is indeed a 10th cousin to Elizabeth, who is the 2nd great-granddaughter of Victoria... doesn't that mean that my mother should show up as a distant relative of Victoria? The relationship finder cannot find such a relationship. (Might there be some missing pieces in between them?) The connection finder does, though, cough up a 15 degree connection, with a marriage connection breaking the bloodline in the late 1700s to mid 1800s.

Ain't this fun?  :)

Answer 8

I found another fun story that is documented on Draper Stories by the Draper Family, which is my Free Space page where I park the stories I discover.

The story is 1.17 Andrew Jackson Draper.

Two pioneers, a Davis and a William Draper settled by the Nowase Indian tribe in California around 1860.

Davis hooked up with an Indian maidien, and they gave birth to Andrew Jackson Davis in Shasta, California. But, Davis, dies or disappears, so William Draper takes over the care of Andrew Davis.  The little boy, Andrew Davis, calls himself Jack Draper from then on.  (I think William and the Indian woman hooked up after Davis died or took off)

Andrew Jackson Draper, who called himself Jack Draper, grew up "white", married Lily May Rouse.  They had 10 children.

But what is strange:  He never seen any of his kids!

How does that happen?   Turns out, before his wife gave birth to his first child, Jack Draper was shot in the face with a shotgun!  (probably buckshot) He was blinded, could not find work, and relied on Lily for support.  But the one thing he could still do was have kids, who would grow up and support the family!

There is a newspaper screen shot account that I placed in his story. 

The man who shot him in the face went to Folsom Prison! So I could not pass up a chance to parody Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash!  

Folsom Prison Blues written by Johnny Cash (c) 1953

• I hear the train a comin'
• It's rolling round the bend
• And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when
• I'm stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin' on
• But that train keeps a rollin' on down to San Antone
• When I was just a baby my mama told me, Son
• "Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns"
• But I shot a man in Shasta, I blew out both his eyes
• When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry'

Enjoy the other stories!

Answer 9

This reminds me of a recent nhpr article regarding modern "tribes" consisting primarily of individuals with unverifiable / imagined Native American ancestry. These "tribes" consume resources that should be dedicated to real Native American tribes.

One of my great uncles belonged to one of these "tribes" - we have negligible to no Native American ancestry.

Answer 10

An interesting side note to the discussion... The 1861 Census of New Brunswick "race and where born" column records anyone born in the province as 'Native'. This practice appears in all NB counties, province-wide. Persons born elsewhere are duly noted, ie Scotland, Ireland, Nova Scotia, etc. And of course they are all European decent, many whose ancestors left Europe in the 1600s. ...Native is a perfectly reasonable word to use for those people at that time. Right?

Ancestry and FamilySearch both set the race/nationality field as 'Native American' in their indexes... because what else could it possibly mean?

The original image indexes at Library & Archives Canada avoid citing the race field altogether in the text indexes but anyone looking for justification of 'Native' ancestry will be rewarded in the census images, and random researchers surprised at their newfound heritage.

None of the other Canadian provinces use the term Native to identify those born in the respective province. It's just a quirk of New Brunswick.

I haven't found an example of an actual First Nations person living in this census to indicate how New Brunswick recorded those folks.

Answer 11

Hi Keith,

Not sure if you're aware but you do have a Native ancestor on your father's side who's your 9th GG mother (Catherine Anenontha "Anenontha-1" ) Here is your Relationship trace:

1. Keith son of Lawrence Hooper 
2. Lawrence son of Frank Silas Hooper (1913-1962)
3. Frank son of Delia (Blair) Hooper 
4. Delia daughter of Louis Blair (1867-abt.1957)
5. Louis son of Emelie (Durand) Blair (1843-1929)
6. Emelie daughter of Joseph Durant (1803-1890) 
7. Joseph son of Louis Durand (1778-aft.1829) 
8. Louis son of Pierre Durand (1738-1813) 
9. Pierre son of Louis Durand (abt.1700-abt.1776)
10. Louis son of Louis Durand (1670-1740) 
11. Louis son of Catherine (Anenontha) Annennontak (abt.1649-1709) 
 

Comments

OK I'm going to have to track down that family line now. My tree line only goes back as far as Louis Blair and Amelia (Emelie) Durand. But I know we do anyhow. I did searches on other lines and found a link to Chief Hendrick Thoyanoguen. Converted to Catholicism and was 1 of 4 chiefs to go to Europe and sign a treaty with Queen Anne.