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This is my first time posting on this great site. I must start by saying that I’ve learned more about my native ancestry in the last week than I have in almost 30 years. In fact, I was a doubter, a skeptic, someone who didn’t believe half the people who claimed Native American ancestry.
I always marveled at how many people claimed to be Cherokee, and how few people claimed other nations or tribes. My wife is Mestiza. That is to say that she is a mix of European and Native American. Most people would call her Mexican American even though her family had been in Colorado and New Mexico for at least a hundred years before the Spaniards conquered the area. Interestingly they claim to be Navajo, or no one seems to want to claim the Apache and the Comanche
I come from a family of people in which brothers and sisters appear to be of very different ethnic background. In my father’s family he had two sisters who looked Native American and one who could pass for having had African ancestors.
My dad was always of dark complexion as were these sisters while two brothers and two other sisters looked like their German ancestors, blue eyed and blonde with much lighter skin. My dad always tanned more of a red/bronze color and my mother told us “that was the Indian in him” Aunt Esther always joked that they were the “black sheep of the family”
In 1986 my father passed away and in his possessions was a genealogy that Aunt Esther had compiled. In it she noted that one of the great grandparents was said to have Native American blood and she thought it was the great grandmother. It was also told that they “were of the Blackfoot tribe” and that “Uncle Tommy FOREMAN’s daughter, Delores had webbed feet which is a trait of the Blackfoot”
The grandmother to whom she was referring was my second great grandmother, Sarah Anne THOMPSON, born in Ohio ca.1828. In all my research I could find no Native American connection and because of the surname and birth location, I decided the family story about the Blackfoot connection was just that, a story and not based in fact. Besides, I’d studied Native Americans enough to know that the Blackfoot are among the plains Indians and not likely to have inhabited southeastern Ohio around the turn of the 19th century.
Over the weekend I got a message from my niece asking about our Blackfoot connection. My nephew, her brother, has the Blackfoot district as part of his sales territory out in Washington. I started to tell her that I didn’t believe the family story, but hesitated just long enough to Google “Blackfoot Thompson Ohio” Number one in the search was this site where I learned that Thompson is a surname associated with Saponi “Blackfoot” Indians of the southeastern US.
I’m very glad I got over my skepticism at least long enough to find this site. I look forward to learning more all the great people here, and who knows, I may be the person in my family who verifies our Native American ancestry.
Greetings Bigwave and welcome,
Yeah, things tend to go in bursts around here, your message may have slipped through the cracks. I don’t get to post as nearly as much as I’d like to here, but I make time to check the site every day I’m near a computer, which is getting less and less frequent.
I too was skeptical of the term Blackfoot in relation to eastern tribes til I researched it. Since I’ve learned about it, I’ve met a number of folks who claim Cherokee/ Blackfoot, who follow the same family and migration patterns this site has dug up. Maybe some brave graduate student will eventually research it for their thesis.
Part of my family is from Virginia, Carolina, Tennessee, etc where any Indian back in the day was referred to as “Cherokee”, regardless of actual tribal background. We claimed “Cherokee” from all over the east coast, from further west they were “gypsy”. Turns out that most of them weren’t Cherokee, but mostly descent from neighboring tribes, including eastern Siouan.
I’m currently focusing on family history unrelated to this forum, my grandpa and his sisters are all in their 90’s. They were raised in an orphanage not knowing their folks, and through many years of research, I’ve been able to reveal their family to them. But I’m still finding cousins here, and you never know, some distant cousin may find your post and say howdy.
Yeah, sorry for missing your post, BigWave. That’s a great story. I just googled “Blackfoot Thompson Ohio” and we came up #8. Guess it’s good you googled when you did, maybe you wouldn’t have spotted us otherwise.
Allen;36052 wrote: Welcome. This is a slow site and sometimes people just don’t respond. But welcome.
Thanks for replying Allen. I was a bit afraid that out of ignorance I might have offended folks here.
I’ll look forward to learning more here with the knowledge that it may seem a bit slow.
Regards,
Dave
spilleddi;36053 wrote: Greetings Bigwave and welcome,
I’m currently focusing on family history unrelated to this forum, my grandpa and his sisters are all in their 90’s. They were raised in an orphanage not knowing their folks, and through many years of research, I’ve been able to reveal their family to them. But I’m still finding cousins here, and you never know, some distant cousin may find your post and say howdy.
Thank you for replying. I would suggest Family Tree DNA testing. I have had myself tested, and my wife and her father. We have had many “matches” with some interesting leads. I only mention this because I wish I had my collateral lines tested via aunts and uncles, but unfortunately that generation has all but passed away.
Thanks again, and I’ll look forward to learning from all of folks here.
Regards,
Dave
Linda;36058 wrote: Yeah, sorry for missing your post, BigWave. That’s a great story. I just googled “Blackfoot Thompson Ohio” and we came up #8. Guess it’s good you googled when you did, maybe you wouldn’t have spotted us otherwise.
Thank you for replying Linda. Do you know if there’s anything to the story “webbed feet” being a characteristic of any particular tribe or nation?
Regards,
Dave
Nope. Never heard of it. And I dont’ think anyone who’s posted here in 12 years has ever mentioned it, so it doesn’t appear to be something running in our families. Have you googled it and seen what the incidence of it is?
Wiki doesn’t mention any ethnic propensities, it just seems to happen when it happens, sometimes in family groups, sometime hapharzardly. The only effects are a lesser incidence of Athlete’s Foot on the up side, and embarrasment on the down side. Marge Simpson (the cartoon character) has it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webbed_toes
Yeah, they did that DNA testing when it first came out years ago. That helped to determine that my granfather’s grandfather was adopted. Other descendents of the man that adopted my ancestor had different results.
As far as figuring out other lineages, check out the surname projects they have. You might find a distant cousin that tested, and see the results. Several of my distant Ivey cousins got tested, and I found out that our common Ivey ancestor had a west African male lineage.
Linda;36069 wrote: Wiki doesn’t mention any ethnic propensities, it just seems to happen when it happens, sometimes in family groups, sometime hapharzardly. The only effects are a lesser incidence of Athlete’s Foot on the up side, and embarrasment on the down side. Marge Simpson (the cartoon character) has it.
Thanks Linda,
My research into the subject turned up similar information. Funny you mention Athlete’s Foot and Marge Simpson. Those were the two most humorous facts I turned up also. Aunt Esther, God rest her soul, had a few things in her work that hadn’t been veritied. This looks like another of those. I have to excuse her since she didn’t have Google.
Regards,
Dave
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