Which ethnic group do you identify with?

[Wren]

Before claiming American aboriginal ancestry you'd really have to do research. During the 1980's in the wake of post-racial American white guilt it become a trend to claim American aboriginal ancestry. In a huge number of the cases, if not the vast majority, there is actually no basis for the claims. While some intermarriage did occur on the western frontier, not nearly enough to substantiate the number of European Americans that claim to have some American aboriginal ancestry.

My great-grandfather was/is a Lakota Souix Native. I do not have membership in a tribe, though, because my grandmother was raised by her (white) step-father and she didn't know what the process would be to get enrolled in a tribe. However, anyone who looked at her could tell that she had Native heritage. And there's the marriage certificate...even if I haven't seen an actual copy.

I understand that it can be considered cool to claim Native heritage. I take genealogy seriously, though, and only make claims that I am absolutely positive about. Of course, I have a harder time proving some of my claims, since ancestry.com wiped out my family tree.

So really, if you can't register with a tribe any where in the US or Canada, you aren't Native American.

You know, I have the serious urge to say something immature like "Bite me." I don't know how I'd go about registering with a tribe and I self-identify as a white woman (I may be American, but I do very strongly identify with my German heritage, as I stated in my earlier post in this thread) and don't see the point in registering now. If it was with a local tribe/nation, like the Oneida or Menominee, maybe I would, though.


(Oh, and I've said in another thread that I have little cousins who are Oneida Natives. They are formally enrolled in the tribe. Don't know why I feel like I have to defend myself, but that's just the way I am, I guess.)

 

[henrikhankhagnell]

Shalom!

What I mean is: even if you're born in a certain ethnic group, you may feel you don't have the traits generally associated with that particular group. Contrarily, you may feel as if you have more in common with other groups than you do with your own. If so, what then are you? Or, more precisely, what then are you not?

Just a fun thread, so no need to 'over analyze' it.

Simon

I would say the Swedish enthical group since I am born in Sverige and look like one but i don't know much about genealogy...