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"But my grandpa said he's Indian!" Adventures in Genealogy

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earthw7:
each week i get a call from someone claiming to be related to Sitting Bull and i wonder
what do these people think this man went around and created thousand of children across the world. >:(
I was talking to one of the relatives of Sitting Bull yesterday about the many people who make their claims
to Sitting Bull which are untrue. He had a small family and the government kept records on him.
My friend called me the dream crusher  because i have to tell people no you are not related

koyoteh:
wouldn't the cherokee thing be kind of tricky though?

they were one of the first civilized tribes and mixed with white people right away. They even took up owning black slaves , and like the white people had black slave babies.
they began to create their own mixed culture that was very different.

when a white person tells me they are cherokee, i give them the benefit of the doubt that they might be, but i don't necessariily know where they are coming from when they say that knowing that they were slave owners and were some first to voluntarily assimilate.
i admit ignorance of the five civilized tribes. i have barely begun to speak to members of these tribes that began to inform me of their history.

first one that began to inform me a little was a choctaw lady. she reminded me of their history.

koyoteh:

--- Quote from: earthw7 on October 05, 2014, 01:15:07 pm ---each week i get a call from someone claiming to be related to Sitting Bull and i wonder
what do these people think this man went around and created thousand of children across the world. >:(
I was talking to one of the relatives of Sitting Bull yesterday about the many people who make their claims
to Sitting Bull which are untrue. He had a small family and the government kept records on him.
My friend called me the dream crusher  because i have to tell people no you are not related

--- End quote ---

serious question. or maybe am just curious.

what if you do run into some descendant, that was related way way down the line. Does there relationship have any kind of status?

i wouldn't think so. but maybe they are after money or something?

earthw7:
well we have many people who have descendant of the tribes, but are not member nor they can claim
relatives unless they know thier family-being Native means family.
A person can not say i am native and not know their families

cowichan:
Earthw7 says you canot say I am native and not know your family. In the sense that you cannot claim indian upbringing without knowing your family name (and tribe and totem etc) but you can certainly be of indian blood and know none of that. My wife's mother was adopted. She managed to obtain her mother's birth certificate. Father anglo name, mother Cree name, nationality listed as native. My wife had done enough research to think she was from the White Earth reserve. For years we would attend Sundance ceremony in N Dakota and spend the weeks after or before trying to find a roll with the mother's name on it. Without success. I would not have missed it for the world. After going as far as we could checking the paper trail, we would visit the elders to see if they remembered the name. Always a dead end but always the story of those who left this reserve and moved to that reserve or " you should talk to Joe X on another reserve. We drank endless cups of tea and spent hours talking to the most wonderful old folks you could hope to meet. However cold and challenging the officialdom was, the elders always threw open the door and in short order made us feel family. My wife finally gave up the search, too painful to get her hopes up and then crushed when the trail turned cold again. At best she is 1/4 blood but doesn't appear to have a drop of white in her. Which means she has suffered from the racism all natives are subject to without the support of tribe.

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