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Hi,
I’ve missed you guys. Been sick and still am but having a quiet couple of moments wanted to weigh back in on the general topic. First, I agree with you on the political stuff, and further, want to add that at least for me, it’s easy to get caught up and lose my own perspective at times, so it’s good to have the reminders that I’m not the only one who values different things. (I live in a very rat-race part of the country.)
About the blackfoot theory stuff from that other site, I elaborated about my interest in it offline but I guess it mostly amounts to I’ll take whatever I can get to help figure out who these ancestors of mine were. And by ‘who’ I guess I mean where they came from, what they were running from (besides poverty)… and even things like what they looked like. I’d just like to know their story and how it got started, as much as I can.
About labeling, everytime you do anything, you are asked to label yourself, it seems. Just today, to make a doctor appointment, I was asked my ethnicity and religious preference. Should have just said ‘none’ to both. Instead, not expecting the questions, I answered off the top of my head, saying none about religion (really meaning ‘decline to state’), and gave them what they wanted to hear about ethnicity. White. ( Even though the whites didn’t accept me as a kid as being white.) Because if they saw me that’s the color they’d see. And I don’t really know enough to answer anything else.
Gad, this has me crying of all things. I’ve got to be ready for this kind of stuff. When it’s in writing I always just checked ‘other.’ I’m not trying to be something I’m not, and the majority of my genetics is likely European, so I guess ‘white’ is a good an answer as any. So why does it feel so bad. And like I’m knucking under or something.
Anyway, on a completely other topic (and the one that got me interested in that Melungeon article), I just found out that there may be some African ancestry on one of my Moore lines. Why do I want to know this? Partly because I’m ornery, and anything they were trying hard to hide, I want to know.
Partly because I think that some of what messed my family up was keeping things hidden. It didn’t protect us from much. The rumors were still there. And I think, maybe, all the moving, and the hiding I’m assuming they were doing, twisted some of my ancestors inside. I’d like to turn that back around in this generation, if I can. If my theory is true, maybe in this generation, pride can replace shame.
Hana,
🙂 I am so glad to hear from you. Ya’ know when I got the card you sent me, it moved me so much I cried. Thank you for that, I mean really, thank you.;)
What ever you do, when it is done with good intent, that’s all that matters. The way I see it, good intent, even if it goes bad, there wont be any bad karma. And what ever your reasons for searching out your history, do it if that’s what you want in your heart. That is the best way I can put it. But you may get a letter in the mail from me one of these days, ya’ never know. And we can get chatty!:D
I’m glad you’re back and hope you feel better really fast! Cause you have a lot of research to do!:D Love & Light, Lynella.
Thanks, Lynella, sweetie, for that. And thanks for the thanks! You know (I hope) you are welcome to write anytime and be as chatty as you wish. (You know I can sure get going!) 😉
Hi Hana,
Sorry to hear you were under the weather.
Anthropologically speaking, let me add a little more noise to your head…
Humans have this need to establish our place and purpose in the universe in order to understand ourselves. In other words, we’re driven simply for survival and propergation. You decide what drives you and how you wish to propergate!!!
PS. I would love to have someone send me a greeting card.
Please have it state: How does it feel to be single again!
LOL
PS. Hana,
You sound as if your ashamed of having European ancestry. Remember, Creator made us all.
Look at me, people are always making fun at the way I Look. I’m asked if I eat wild animals in live in the forest and do I kill people.
Just walk your walk girl, and the **** with everybody else.
LOL
Originally posted by Julie Jennings
PS. Hana,
You sound as if your ashamed of having European ancestry. Remember, Creator made us all.
Look at me, people are always making fun at the way I Look. I’m asked if I eat wild animals in live in the forest and do I kill people.
Just walk your walk girl, and the **** with everybody else.
LOL
Nah, not ashamed. Hard to explain though. Part of it is that I want to embrace all of me and it hurts my heart that apparently my ancestors were rejecting part of theirs.
The other part I don’t even know how to explain without using a lot of words and perhaps not even then. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Will try a bit though.
The European side, my mother’s side, which is also the side with Native-American ancestry, is the side of my family I knew the least about. I’m Jewish, like my father, and that’s the side of the family I always identified with. Both sides rejected us because of the ‘mixed-marriage’ to some extent, but my mother’s side much moreso. Come to find they seem to have been hiding things about their ancestry. (And the ones I’ve met online have actually been quite friendly. ‘Course I don’t mention the Jewish bit. I’m proud of being Jewish, I just have more interest in finding out about this genealogy stuff than I do in finding out how prejudiced my Texas relatives remain.) There is a lot not to like about some on that side of my family but I still want to know about them.
Ah heck, I probably shouldn’t get into all this here. Ethnicity is such a weird topic. I grew up an an African-american neighborhood, and neither blacks nor whites considered me white. It’s weird to grow up and suddenly be white.
And everyone, including distant relatives, are looking into this genealogy stuff for their own reasons. For some it seems to be pride in ‘breeding,’ and there are those in my mother’s family whom I’ve met online who seem to be quite resistant to even considering non-European heritage.
It was rather appealing to read about Melungeons, to see being mixed as its own culture. It seems to me to be the wave of the future, in any case, as we don’t live in such isolated worlds anymore. Back when my parents married, people from their backgrounds rarely even met.
And yet, some of us have a yearning for a sense of family. To discover that my four year old son who loves the sound of the violin had a ggg-grandfather (who btw, was the one who told his kids that we have NDN blood) who was a fiddler and made his own. I want to find what is lost.
Some mixed feelings about the European ancestry, and moreso, what it meant to my mother’s family, but I haven’t found much to be ashamed about yet. If anything, I’ve been surprised by some good things.
Julie,
give me your mailing address and I’ll send you lots of cards & stuff!
Hana,
I think I know where you’re coming from. I’m not ashamed of my European parts either. But those are parts that dissed my NA parts, so, sometimes I feel a little angry at them, but I still love them, cause they’re mine! I think, as we go, we may find that there was some NA on my dad’s side as well. I pretty much consider him plain English. But there was a lot to that ol’ man and he taught me a lot of things that to me are much more NA beliefs than not. I was always closer to him than to my mom. And since my mom was the NA side, and I did learn A LOT of ways from her, we were never as close as we should have been. That’s part of this for me. Finding the rest of mom!:) And having had 6 older sisters and 2 older brothers who had all pretty much gone from home by the time I could remember, I always had a bit of an identity crisis going. A part of each of them in my upbringing, like parts of them but no part was me. Does that make sense? Anyway I’m searching for the rest of me. And I’m meeting a lot of truly beautiful humans along the way.
Julie,
And I think, if anyone can help us find us Anthropologically or otherwise, it would have to be JULIE. She’s cornered the market on one fine specimen of humanity. AND BRAINS, girl, Julies got em all! And sense of humor, again, Julies got that too. I say she’s deffinately a KEEPER!:D And HANA SO ARE YOU. Love & Light, Lynella.
Julie,
Seriously, give me a mailing address for you. If ya’ don’t want to leave it out in the open on the forum, e-mail it to me at lynellarainhawk@yahoo.com 😉 I love sending cards:D Thank you two for being.;) Lynella.
Lyn and Hana:
Have youe ever thought that the “white” part of your heritage loved Indian people so much that they wanted to inter-marry, and make beautiful rainbow people?
Hey, I’m no different, dispite what I look like, I an a mixture of black, white and red.
My address is: Julie Jennings; 40 Union Avenue; Warwick, RI., 02889.
Julie,
Ya’ know, I never have actually looked at it that way!:) Thank you! See, You’ve got the brains!;) Actually, I love the intermarriage part. I have no qualms with that at all. It’s those Ashby snobs who fought with what’s his whos-it’s in Bacon’s Rebellion and all of those who killed NDN’s. That’s the angry part. It’s like I just want to go scalp me a couple a English dudes!:D Of coarse I wouldn’t, but ya’ know? I printed out your address I’m putting it straight into my address book. You’ll hear from me soon!;) Love & Light, Lynella.
Originally posted by Patty
I find this very interesting as well. My father-in-law is Italian. My mother-in-law is Irish. Both are first generation in the US, so no chance of mixing up the genes over here.
My husband has shovel teeth and the bump on the back of the head thing (anatolian bump?)
Many people think my husband is either Mexican or Asian.
Could be something about that Italian side of the family……..supposed to come from the Italian Alps area.
OK, New information…..my father-in-laws father was from an Italian family living in ARGENTINA!!! ….who moved back to Italy where he met and married my husband’s grandmother……that should explain the shovel teeth, etc.
Looks like I’m a descendent of North American Indians, and my DH is a descendent of South American Indians.
LynellaRainHawk,
For 30 I have searched for my ancestors. I am told they are Blackfoot. Montana, Dakotas, Tenn, S.C., N.C, Delaware. Pa, Colo., Arizona, even Maryland. I followed the nation from Delaware because of a great move when the white man was going to either kill or imprison them.
This Blackfoot nation, also called by other names, moved south into the Carolinas, Tenn, Kentucky etc. People set up camps and remained, while others of the nation pushed west and north. I am also told of a movement of white men coming from Canada into the Dakotas, Montana etc. Just as some of the Blckfoot people sought women of other cultures while they fled the white man’s brutality, the french canadians sought out the women of the indian nations, including Blackfoot. I know this to be true because I have spoken to a Council Chief of the Seven Nations, and he has told me of people there bearing my current last name. But the name I search for is not found as of this date.
Ms. Hawk, often when people meet there hearts soar.Such people do not see skin, only eyes & heart. Such meetings outside the race were not allowed & are still frowned upon.
Perhaps it is not shame, but a nations teachings that does not permit a person to love other races. It was a brave man who took an indian wife & more brave the indina woman.
Respectfully,
Sand & Spur
Sand & Spur,
Respectfully, I think I’m a little confused!:) Are your Blackfoot originating way back from NC, and places back east? Then moved upward toward Montana, etc.? Or is it more the other way around? Or, a bit of both? I have a feeling we could learn a lot from you. 😉 I’ll write more in a bit.
Hi Lyn!
I got your card. Thank you, that was very thoughtful. I’m getting ready to exhibit my baskets at an Indian art show. I just finished creating a deer antler basket. I’ll never make another one!
Also, school starts up again for me, so I’ll be out of the loop for a while. I’ll be sending you something in the mail soon.
LOL
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