The family story goes like this: My Grandma Nanny was adopted by a white family, who raised her. She was half Cherokee, which makes it more intriguing. Who wouldn't want to find out more about this?
Upon researching, I found that Grandma was sent to live with a distant cousin after her parents abandoned the family.
The family still insisted that we have Cherokee ancestry even after they realized that the DNA did not support that. They believed that we all had high cheekbones and some indigenous ancestry.
I have a theory that in the past when someone got married, they were considered as a part of the family they married into. This means that the family of the spouse also becomes one's own family. So if there were any native American ancestors, the whole family would claim that ancestry. As I delved deeper into my family history, I found out My 3rd Great-Grandfather - Philip Low married a gal named Sarah Nancy Carroll Low. She was the adopted daughter of my 4th great-grandfather, John Drury Carroll. She was a full-blooded Cherokee.
I then discovered that my Grandpa had some Cherokee ancestry,
Oh when will this ever end?
Recently I found this so-called connection with a 6th Great-Grandfather.
Ludovic Grant, a Scottish emigrant, came to the Cherokee country about 1726, where he married a Cherokee woman of the "Long Hair Clan" and lived in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina.
Ludovic Grant is listed by some sources as a clan chief of the Grant clan in Scotland in 1710. He joined the Jacobite rebellion in 1715, which sought to restore James II as King of England. He was captured at Preston and transported with many others who had been captured from Liverpool, England to South Carolina aboard the Susannah in 1716. In a statement recorded on page 301 of the Charleston, South Carolina probate court in the book of 1754-1758, in a sworn statement of January 12, 1756, he says: "It has been thirty years since I went to the Cherokee country, where I have resided ever since, I speak their language". His wife was a full blood of the Long Hair clan and lived in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina. Grant's "morganatic" marriage to Elizabeth Tassel of the Long Hair Clan is said to have been the first intermarriage between a British officer and chief's daughter
He is regarded as the first white man to marry a Cherokee.
Does it even matter? Of course not. While during the 60's I would have loved to have laid claim to authentic Cherokee's ancestry. I am comfortable enough to understand and believe that there was most probably some Cherokee woven into the family. It was a LONG time ago.
I have since found out that at this time, there is no DNA testing that shows Cherokee or any Tribal affiliation. It comes up as Indigenous Americas region. DNA doesn't exactly follow our Family Trees.
An article I read explains it better than I can:
The most common reason that someone with Native American ancestry does not see this on their Ancestry DNA results is that they did not inherit any Native American DNA. This can happen even if the ancestor really was Native American.
What is the meaning of this? We don’t – can‘t – share DNA with every single one of our ancestors because our genome isn’t big enough.
In fact, according to Ancestry DNA, after about seven generations, we probably only share about 1% of our DNA with any specific great-great-great-great-great grandparent. In addition, there is about a 5% chance that we won’t share with some of those 5th great-grandparents.
A person inherits 50% of their mother’s DNA and 50% of their father’s. The exact 50% from each parent is selected at random through a process called recombination.
Most of the DNA that we inherit from our parents will be matched with regions on the Ancestry DNA test, like the Indigenous Americas region.
So there you have it. You're never going to be able to prove it 100% unless you have a more recent Native American Heritage with a name on one of the Tribal Indian rolls.
Oh, I'll probably keep looking - because it's fun as long as I document and share with my sons the probability along with the stories and let them go, cray cray, if they want to.
https://whoareyoumadeof.com/blog/why-does-my-ancestry-dna-not-show-my-native-american-heritage/
I had no idea about the percentage and what can be found. I know I do have Native American but not enough to be anything other than a bit of family history. I haven't ever done the DNA route though, to many half relatives that don't need their worlds upended by my existence :)
ReplyDeleteI still think it's cool that your long gone relative eas the first to marry a native American. It makes sense..if icing a cake, the more you spread the icing the thinner it gets.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a lot to be said about native Americans and settlers living and working together. The amount of DNA you get from some ancestors can be quite lopsided. I had a 2nd cousin that I could not figure out. They were more like fourth cousin to me. I just got a load of that families DNA passed to me.
ReplyDeleteI looked Indian as a young person. I had to claim it in that I did not want people think I was ashamed of it. With DNA, there is no native American. I think the Scots could be dark.
The DNA in Ancestry has been interesting to research. I wrote in the Traits section in the A to Z this year.
ReplyDelete