I probably should stay out of this, but I have to agree with Karen. From my personal research over the years, many, many of my cousin families who I share NA ancestry are the descendants of Native American lineage whose families refused to be removed, hid out, aren't on any rolls, who the women often married white men and thereafter tended to identify as white, etc. My mother told me when she was growing up in Mississippi, it was better to be black than to be indian, and she was raised to distance herself from claiming NA ancestry. To this day she will only discuss it with me and my sister. Her mother and my eldest maternal great aunt told me what they knew of their NA ancestry and that they were taught to run hide if strangers came on the property, because they were afraid of the children being taken away to the residential schools. There was a LOT of fear in identifying as NA, for those and other reasons. Not everyone was 'eager to be on a roll'. And to this day there is a big division between those whose families got on rolls and those who didn't.
I've got cousins whose families are enrolled, whose Dawes card I have copies of and they show on census records sometimes as white, sometimes as NA in some cases - for the same person. I've seen too many of those type discrepancies, even in my son's paternal family, to put much confidence in identifying NA or not based on a census showing them as white.
My direct Creek ancestor who had a sister go to Okalahoma and enroll died before the Dawes roll was even implemented. She and her siblings had grown children, grandchildren, etc. in Mississippi, having had a maternal Creek uncle die in the removal and having relocated from their Creek village in Oklahoma over into what would become the state of Mississippi, they her descendants preferred not to make the trek to Oklahoma and stayed in Mississippi. My 3rd great aunt Patience (Strickland) DePriest did make that trek when she was in her 70s and I have enrolled cousins on her branch who I have been in communication with for well over a decade. We share the exact same Creek ancestry but his Patience enrolled and her sister Viannie 'Ann' who is my direct was already dead. Their parents are listed on Patience's Dawes card and they're my 4th great-grandparents same as they are the ancestors of my enrolled cousins on Patience's line. The Strickland family was large and has many descendants. As far as I know, the majority of them were never enrolled. But, on Ancestry and other sites, we show matching Native American DNA in our ethnicity comparisons on our matches. Lots of those coming off those lines. And this is just one family and one example. I have multiple NA lines from both my parents, DNA proven by DNA Consultants that I have Native American alleles from both parents. I don't have a single ancestor who was enrolled. And yet 23andme shows that my Ancestral timeline began in American prior to 1680 and was totally Native American until about the mid-1700s.
Bottom line, a census saying white on a person whose family tradition holds them to have had NA lineage doesn't mean the family has it wrong and the census has it right. Lack of enrolled ancestry doesn't mean much of anything. The majority of today's NA descendants, I've read, actually come from non-enrolled ancestry because more avoided removal and enrollment than not. The DNA is proving that.
Believing you're Cherokee or whatever and applying but being denied is also inadequate 'proof' of not being Native American. I've seen at least a couple of cases where the person was denied because they actually applied to the wrong tribe. For example, in my family I have a grandfather who has Lenape-Delaware, Cherokee and Creek ancestry. He married a woman with Choctaw, Redbone and Cherokee ancestry. Their children are all those things. So who would they apply to? My eldest great aunt told me my great-great-grandmother was Choctaw. I could never find anything to confirm that, for over a decade. Then earlier this year the Choctaw application of one of her brothers, listing their father as Choctaw surfaced. I thought my great aunt must have gotten it wrong, thinking they had Choctaw just because they were born and raised in Mississippi, but she knew what she was talking about it. I had called the tribal office of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw back in the 90s, seeking more information and was told that their records are a mess, sketchy, etc. and unable to be used to verify lineage. That was a major disappointment. Poarch Creek won't even talk to non-enrolled descendants, much less help them validate their lineage. Cherokee Nation Oklahoma doesn't accept the enrollment of an ancestral aunt with your ancestors listed on it to validate eligibility. So the system is set up not to help folks like my family and so many others. The system is set up to minimize enrollment and inclusion. But, family histories and now DNA to validate the tree work, plus new documents like my ancestral uncle's Choctaw application coming to light after so many years help us our lost histories in many cases- lost because there were just enough generations who lived in fear and hiding, denying their heritage in order to survive, that scant info got passed down. There are many who don't even consider that they have NA ancestry until they get their DNA results, because their family lost their stories, their lineage. I read years ago that about 42%, I think it was, of the people in the Southeastern USA have NA ancestry and don't even know it.
So, as I've said before, lack of official documentation of the nature that is used here on Geni to prove lines shouldn't be the measure of disproving lines. I think it's wrong to dismiss the traditions in people's families. I read years ago that when you see the same stories passed down from multiples sources about the same family, it's likely true. Like my mother and others have said, it wasn't a positive thing to claim to be indian back in those days and earlier. There may have been some few who claimed to be who weren't, but the majority of people would have had no reason at all to claim to be something that would only make their life harder. And those who lived in denial to try to survive without being removed and enrolled paid a price for living in fear of discovery, of having to deny part of themselves and their heritage. That comes with a generational price that I hear others discuss elsewhere all the time and I live it myself, as someone who has the ancestry but didn't grow up with much of the culture at all. And then we're put down for that.
I personally think, and I realize what I think doesn't matter here, that people who make Native American claims on their lines here on Geni should have the same right to have errors in their trees that the many, many non-Native American lines get away with all the time - no documentation, not profile notes, no accountability for having multiple sets of parents connected and things like 30 kids connected. Those scenarios are all over Geni and seems to get nowhere near the scrutiny those claiming NA lines get.
I think most folks claiming NA ancestry want to get it right and are open to making corrections as needed on their lines if good reason can be established. But too often I read these discussions and the reasons given for why a person couldn't have been of NA lineage are in no way solid proof that's true. It's a conclusion based lack of information, which only proves one thing - lack of information. Not having been enrolled is not disproof of NA lineage. Applying and being denied isn't disproof of NA lineage. It can mean the person was denied by that particular nation because their lineage was actually from another nation or that they lacked sufficient information to pass the criteria for that particular application. There were, on the other side of that, people who were enrolled who shouldn't have been. I watched an episode last year on 'Finding Your Roots' where a woman who grew up believing she was part Cherokee because her family IS enrolled in the Cherokee nation in Oklahoma was told on the show that she has no NA DNA. She was told she was most likely from one of the black slave families who make the trek to Oklahoma with their Cherokee owners and got enrolled that way, because she is African-American. She was visibly shocked to be told this by Louis Gates who does those interviews on the show. But he showed her pie chart and it was 0% NA. But she has all the rights of an enrolled Cherokee. So, go figure. I'm sure she's not an isolated case. Point being, she has the enrollment, the 'approved documentation' to claim NA lineage but none could be found for her by the researchers of the show. That's the reverse scenario issues with 'documentation'. Neither her tree research or DNA back up her documentation.
I don't know why it seems the push on Geni is to discredit as many NA lines as possible. A good many people I know have left Geni over this. So I'm one of the ones remaining to speak out on our behalf.
I don't know the person whose profile is being discussed here. I see that she's my son's paternal cousin. But I don't follow the profile and am not a profile manager, so I don't know why I got notified about the discussion. But reading the comments being used to disprove the NA lineage got my attention. In this case, maybe it's true that she doesn't have NA ancestry. I really don't have a clue. I'm just addressing the general thinking about documenting NA lines here on Geni often seems to throw the baby out with the bath water because the only acceptable 'proof' is an enrollment card, a census record listing NA, etc. and anything else is dismissed.
If you can't unquestionably prove that a person had no NA ancestry, it should be concluded that at best the person 'may' have had NA ancestry based on family history / tradition and at worst that it's inconclusive due to lack of conclusive documentation. Anything else is a presumption based on currently available or unavailable records and is a flawed system that doesn't take into account DNA results of branches of descendants or exhaustive tree research such as done by groups of research teams like those used on 'Finding Your Roots'. I'm not aware of Geni curators having that level of expertise and resources.
Karen Jean Tanner, Penwright it was your posts that prompted me to join this discussion. I was thankful that you pointed out that not everyone wanted to be on a reservation or otherwise relocated, so they aren't on any roll. That is why there will never be the kind of documentation on them that seems to often be required here on Geni to legitimize them.
Back in the day, it was not uncommon for someone, often a relative but sometimes just a family friend or someone who had knowledge of a family, to give an court-sworn affidavit to attest to the NA lineage of a person or family. I a line from each of my parents where this was the case - my Creek line and my Choctaw line. Even with that, back before we had DNA to work with, I had cousins in Mississippi who refuted our Choctaw lineage. Whether it was a racial bias or whatever, some of my cousins were slow to want to find that in our lines. Other branches had always known it. Some branches have enrolled cousins in them. But it wasn't until DNA became a now common part of our genealogical research that I can track the branches of the lines and cousins I share NA DNA with on those branches, going back to a common ancestor. The DNA evidence verifies the family stories and the sworn affidavit. But our Choctaw ancestor himself was never enrolled, never went to a reservation, etc. It was always interesting to me that all of his children married people from other mixed families - including other Choctaw families, and more of those are among the cousin branches who have always claimed their NA lineage.
On my Creek line that I referenced before, my branch never went to Oklahoma, never got on a roll but my Vianna 'Ann' who was a sister to Patience who removed to Oklahoma and enrolled in her 70s, as previously mentioned, is listed on the sworn affidavit given at the Wayne County Mississippi Court as being from an indian mother. Thankfully in that case, the affidavit isn't all we have to prove that particular line because maternal family of sisters Patience and Ann are well-documented otherwise by the writings of Benjamin Hawkins, Congressional records regarding Creek land owned by their maternal grandmother Hannah Hale and later by their uncles David and Samuel Hale. And Uncle David died in the removal, when the Mammoth sank off the coastline of Mississippi during the removal of Creek by waterways. Point being, not a single enrollment was involved in any of that other than later when Hannah's granddaughter Patience went to Oklahoma in her 70s after having grown up and raised her own family in Mississippi. There is not a single census record that lists any of my ancestors on that line as NA. They're all listed as white, even though my great-grandfather was 1/8 Creek and was too dark to be mistaken for a white man. So if you went by census records and enrollment cards, my lines would all be considered white by definition of the accepted documentation on Geni. And yet, his great-grandchildren and cousins of theirs on other branches have matching NA DNA on the sites that test and offer cousin matches with ethnicity comparisons.
Regarding the comment that no one would mistake a full-blood Cherokee as a white person, it must be kept in mind that most people claiming a full-blood in their lines are usually wrong. Even 'way back in the day' Chief John Ross was only 1/8th, no more than my great-grandfather. Unless each generation married another Cherokee, there is no way the lines were 100%. Additionally, as I illustrated about the multi-NA mixed lines in my family, that is not at all uncommon. Those folks got around and mingled for a long time going back in time. I have no idea how anyone could prove an ancestor was full-blood of any one thing. The lines have been in the process of being diluted since colonization began. In many families, each generation has become less obviously NA by appearance. Like many of the best-known Creek chiefs were Scot-Creek mixed, Cherokee Chief Bowles was red-headed and freckled. And that was generations ago. Today NA descendants come in every skin shade, eye color and hair color. Often the ones who have the most NA lineage least look it. I've been in forums where folks born and raised on a reservation got 0% NA DNA in their test results and a blonde-haired, blue-eyed reservation-born young woman shared her experience of being discriminated against by other reservation indians because she looks too white. Additionally, as today, we're asked what race / ethnicity we are. The census taker wasn't always the one who decided that for a person or family. Sometimes the person or family specified how they chose to identify. If a person could 'pass' for white, it was usually to their advantage to do so. I've got profiles in my tree where one sibling is on a census as white and another as mulatto. I don't know if that's what they specified or if the census taker decided that the various children on the census were different based on skin tone alone, regardless of being from the same family.
My son had no idea he had African ancestry until he got his results back showing 2% African. This prompted me to dig into his family history and I found some cousins on the lines to collaborate with who had a lot of information my son's branch had either known and buried or had lost in a short time. To the point, there is a census record that lists my son's paternal grandfather and all his siblings as Negro. They all look and have always identified as white. We were told that when one of his great aunts found that census years ago, they believed it was a big error and that ended their research. I got some family photos from the cousins and my son's paternal great-grandfather was a handsome, dark-haired, dark-skinned man who has no African features and looks Iberian or NA. Turns out, it was his maternal grandmother who was mulatto. He was listed on census records as white, but it was his young widow and their children who were all listed as Negro on the next census after his death. My son's grandfather was about 10 years old on that census, I think. My son has joked that from the mulatto ancestor, they went to being listed as white and then his branch was listed as Negro and then back to white. So, this and so many other reasons are why I find census records to be questionable 'proof' of race / ethnicity and should not be used as evidence that a person has no NA lineage. People may not have known they did, they may have chosen not to disclose that they had, or the census taker may have gotten it wrong. It's not always reliable, which means - it's unreliable. However, keep in mind that if it lists white, they could actually be anything. If it lists Negro, mulatto, Native American, Indian, those are more likely to be a good clue if not proof of race / ethnicity.
My son was born with blonde hair, fair skin and blue-grey eyes. He doesn't look NA or Black. Yet he is mixed. Most sites show him as 2% Black, Genomelink shows him as 7% Native American, and My Heritage shows him as 21.8% Iberian. This is not at all an atypical admixture for folks from the Southeastern USA, regardless of what they 'look like'. Any census taker would have automatically, without question or hesitation, listed him as 'white' because we grew up in a time and place where that was the most desirable designation. Going by the attitude on Geni about census records, you would rule out his other ethnicities and the argument made above would be that he couldn't have NA ancestry because the census record says he's white. My son says his mulatto grandmother worked really hard (by marrying a white man and her daughter doing the same) to earn that 'white' designation for her descendants so they'd have easier lives. It's only now that it's 'cool' to explore our mixed ethnicities and embrace them. Even a generation or two ago, not all our ancestors felt they could.
My generation is among the first to have both internet and DNA to work with to rediscover our lost heritages. It's a work in progress, as new people join that road of discover all the time. Please don't be so hasty to erase the clues and road signs that might help others find answers regarding the complexities of their families.
As for people being eager to be on a roll and get money, that's not the main story of the removal and what happened to people and families. My Creek family was given permission by Congress to keep their land during their lifetime but not to leave it to their descendants and then in the removal they had to forfeit everything, even the lives of some like uncle David Hale, which is why my branch relocated from Alabama to Mississippi. In the early days, they were more like concentration camps and people starved, died of diseases, etc. Children were taken away from families and put in horrible residential schools where many died. Hitler modeled his treatment of the Jews on how indians were rounded up and forced to remove. The news last year was full of discoveries of graves of children at residential schools in Canada and America. In some cases bodies were being returned to their tribes for tribal re-burial after all these years. Removal wasn't something indigenous people were celebrating and running toward! In fact, Cherokee Chief Bowles led families of people from the Southeastern USA into Texas to avoid removal and just be able to settle and live freely.
So to state, "Indians weren't afraid to be Indians...People were eager to be on the roll and get their money..." dismisses the history of every family I personally know or have read or heard of. It dismisses the family's that were moved off their lands by force, who died on the various removals, who had their children taken and often never saw them again, just dismissed the whole history of what happened to the indigenous people of this nation. And when you can so easily dismiss all that, it's easy to dismiss their family traditions and oral histories and even cut their lines here on Geni.
I would apologize for writing at such length and I find having to repeatedly address these issues here on Geni to be stressful and I totally understand why people with Native American leave Geni, because they feel that nothing they say on here matters when trying to address these issues. I got messaged about it on Facebook quite frequently. It's mentioned in Facebook research groups how the Native American lines seem singled out here on Geni. It's hard for me to defend Geni practices in this regard, for the reasons I've gone to lengths to once again try to address. I told someone I feel like I'm whistling in the wind when I voice these things though. I don't come on Geni to debate, to have to defend lines, etc. No one does. But yet we either have to remain silent or engage. I try my best to stay out of these discussions because it has never once made any difference what I say. But being silent 'gives consent', which in this case I could not.
