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Looks like Trump agrees with me. She will need to come up with better lies.
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The fact that she persists in this farce tells you a lot about her. A normal person would have shrugged off any comments by saying, "Well, that's the family story. Take it for what it's worth."Comment
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Several thoughts on this:
1. Genetics is real hard science (unlike "Climate Science" which relies almost entirely on empirical data.)
2. I had a favorite uncle who once told me that after 50 years history starts to become legendary.
With that in mind:
Genetic analysis has found some fascinating stuff. For example in a study of Chinese traces of Southern European ancestry popped up. Where did this come from?? Welllll The Romans fought several wars with the Parthian Empire. These wars included some notable disasters with tens of thousands of Roman soldiers taken captive and sold as slaves. Now the Parthians did not keep chattel slaves themselves so some would have been retained as state slaves but most were sold off to other nations. That would have surely included China since a trade rout to China ran right through Parthia (Persia.) Mystery solved.
When I was at L.S.U. in the late 1960s to early 1970s I had an anthropology professor who said that research, in this case archival and anecdotal evidence, indicated that 1/3 of white Americans have some black African ancestry. DNA analysis has largely confirmed this and given a number - 2% to 3% of the genetic material of white Americans is of black African origin and that 2% is spread through 30% of the population. That's a very small amount but enough, in this very large sample, to be definitive (unlike Elizabeth Warren's) How did this happen - well before Social Security when many Americans didn't have birth certificates it was not uncommon for black people who were light enough to "pass" for white. That meant moving and severing all family ties and moving a long way away but if you were light enough and willing to make the break it was worth it to many black people to escape old "Jim Crow." There was a political boss named Leander Perez in Plaquemines Parish Louisiana who was corrupt even by Louisiana standards of the time. Perez had a "side hustle" in which a very light skinned person could get a Plaquemines Parish birth certificate showing him/her to be white. Yup, that stuff happened. Once you have changed your race from "black" to "white" your DNA will be spread through the entire gene pool over time, which in this case is well over 100 years and thousands of "passers." There were actually movies made on the subject. "Pinky" and "Imitation of Life" come to mind. The point is, especially in this country, nobody is probably as "pure" as they think.
Warren's test shows her original claim that a grandparent or great grandparent had been Cherokee. It is also inconclusive. An interesting aside is that there is evidence that Warren had ancestors in the Virginia militia that "frog walked" the Cherokees along the "Trail of Tears."
This brings me to the "Legendary Part." My mother's family lived in Southeast Texas when it was part of Mexico so I am a 4th or 5th generation Texan depending on how you figure it. Our daughter for a while was a member of the "Daughters of the Republic of Texas." Classy huh? Well not as much when you look into the actual facts. People want to be proud of their ancestors and for them to be at least admirable. A fellow named Colombus Moss wrote a genealogical history of my mom's family. The family tree part was fine....except for the monograph on the original settler; a fellow named John Turner. Moss, who was born sixty years after the fact (remember my uncle's comment) said that John Turner signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and fought at San Jacinto. Well I checked the archives and the first is provably false and the second is almost certainly false. The "Jno. Turner" who signed the Declaration of Independence was a lawyer from Allen's Landing (now Houston.) My John Turner ancestor was so illiterate that he couldn't even "draw his name" and signed everything with an "X." He sure could count though because he became quite rich, lot of land, lot of cattle and some slaves. He appears on no Texas Army Roster at San Jacinto, furthermore he did not receive the normal land bounty warrant of a section of land (640 acres) but received a half section in Bexar County 200 miles away so the chance he fought at San Jacinto is as minimal at best.
We know people in the Cherokee Nation who not only are on the Tribal Registry but have actually served on Councils. The Cherokee is very restrictive concerning the Registry and if you aren't on the Registry you are not a Cherokee. One reason is that being Native American has become fashionable; a second related reason is they figure if you weren't on the Registry because you didn't want to go through hard times with the Cherokee you weren't getting on now which leads to another reason - there's money involved in being a Cherokee and the more people on the Registry the smaller the slices of the proverbial pie. Ethnicity alone doesn't make one a Cherokee because numerous non ethnic native Americans were adopted into the tribe including a large number of black Americans running from one thing or another. The daughter of this couple looks as white as Elizabeth Warren. She is of Cherokee, Southern European and Black African ancestry. She said, when I asked about the black part, that she had a black great grandfather who was a runaway slave named Smith (this would make her technically I believe an "ocotroon." She said it was a joke among some groups of the Cherokee that having an ancestor named Smith gave your some Afro heritage because Smith "got around." I mentioned that to another Cherokee girl (who looked more Indian) who I also had as a student and she got a funny look on her face and said "I have a Cherokee ancestor named Smith." I chuckled and said "maybe you two are related."
If Warren was smart, which I question, she would have said that she relied on family tradition that she now realizes is in error. Instead she doubled down and is now getting slapped down by the above mentioned Cherokee nation.
I have a personal attitude about my ancestry. I refuse to take credit for the wonderful people in my ancestry, the credit for their lives is all theirs. I also refuse to take the blame for the sins and transgressions of my less than admirable ancestors including some real scamps and a few outright scoundrels.Last edited by Art; 10-16-2018, 10:00.Comment
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As has been pointed out, "Indian" can also mean "Mexican," "Peruvian" and so on.
For sure, she isn't a Cherokee, as she originally claimed.Comment
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Turns out the guy who did the DNA tests didn't have
any Cherokee DNA so he used Mexican DNA.
So, she 1000th part Mexican. (Boston Globe/Rush)Comment
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'Mexican' is not a race, its a Country. The average Mexican person is part Spanish and Indian. May even involve different tribes of Indians. Percentage of Indian blood would be a real puzzle.You can never go home again.Comment
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