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View Full Version : tPF No, you are not part Cherokee; neither is Elizabeth Warren



Peter1469
07-12-2016, 05:57 PM
No, you are not part Cherokee; neither is Elizabeth Warren (https://timeline.com/part-cherokee-elizabeth-warren-cf6be035967e#.ndhgqvu37)

An interesting article about the Cherokee people and why so many people wrongly believe they are part of the tribe.


There’s a running joke in Indian country,” a spokesperson for the Cherokee Nation in 2012. “If you meet somebody who you wouldn’t necessarily think they’re Native, but they say they’re Native, chances are they’ll tell you they’re Cherokee.”

But “Cherokees are among the best documented people in the world,” says (http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/10/open-letter-defenders-andrea-smith-clearing-misconceptions-about-cherokee-identification)David Cornsilk, the nation’s preeminent Cherokee genealogist. “We probably come in third after royalty and Mormons.” Between U.S. government records and the multiple existing sets of very thorough tribal kinship records, if you have Cherokee ancestry, there’s bound to be documentation somewhere.

Elizabeth Warren can’t provide that documentation. In defending her claim, she says only (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/is-elizabeth-warren-native-american-or-what/257415/), “This is what my brothers and I were told by my mom and my dad, my mammaw and my pappaw.” Many people’s mammaws and pappaws have told them the same thing. The interesting thing is not why Warren’s clung to her family lore for so long, it’s why so many white people in America claim Cherokee heritage to begin with. The answer is paradoxical: it’s a way of communicating authentic white Southern identity.


“My grandmother was one-quarter Cherokee.” — Bill Clinton to Sherman Alexie, 1998 (http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jul/09/news/mn-2235).


First, let’s look at who claims to be Cherokee: Elizabeth Warren, Johnny Cash, Johnny Depp, Miley Cyrus, and Bill Clinton for starters. Their families are from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee/Kentucky, and Arkansas again, respectively. White people claiming Cherokee heritage are especially common in the Southeast United States, where the Cherokee lived between 1000 A.D. and the 1838–9 forced relocation known as the Trail of Tears. That makes these claims somewhat plausible, because early on Cherokee people did intermarry with white settlers at an uncommonly high rate compared to other Native American tribes. Still, the number of people claiming Cherokee heritage far outstrips the number of possible descendants from these intermarriages.

Ethereal
07-12-2016, 06:15 PM
I had my genes tested by ancestry and they didn't find any Cherokee DNA. But the records on ancestry show that my 6th great grandmother was born in the Cherokee nations (North Carolina) around 1770, so that would make me 1/256th Cherokee if true. No idea what that would mean, but there it is.

sachem
07-12-2016, 06:20 PM
I had my genes tested by ancestry and they didn't find any Cherokee DNA. But the records on ancestry show that my 6th great grandmother was born in the Cherokee nations (North Carolina) around 1770, so that would make me 1/256th Cherokee if true. No idea what that would mean, but there it is.Now I will be up all night trying to figure that out.

Ethereal
07-12-2016, 06:23 PM
Now I will be up all night trying to figure that out.

Her daughter was also born in the Cherokee Nations (Virginia) around 1789, so I strongly suspect that they were Cherokee. But my blood quantum might be too small to detect in genetic tests.

Peter1469
07-12-2016, 06:40 PM
Her daughter was also born in the Cherokee Nations (Virginia) around 1789, so I strongly suspect that they were Cherokee. But my blood quantum might be too small to detect in genetic tests.

I am not sure how sensitive the Ancestry test is.

Tahuyaman
07-12-2016, 07:06 PM
I had my genes tested by ancestry and they didn't find any Cherokee DNA. But the records on ancestry show that my 6th great grandmother was born in the Cherokee nations (North Carolina) around 1770, so that would make me 1/256th Cherokee if true. No idea what that would mean, but there it is.

Just because she was born in the Cherokee nations doesn't necessarily mean she was a Cherokee.

She could have been a pregnant euro-American heading west and just happened to give birth there.

Ethereal
07-12-2016, 07:17 PM
Just because she was born in the Cherokee nations doesn't necessarily mean she was a Cherokee.

She could have been a pregnant euro-American heading west and just happened to give birth there.

My ancestors didn't head west. They lived in North Carolina and Virginia since 1699.

Tahuyaman
07-12-2016, 07:18 PM
Ok, just relocating in general.