that is why I used the word "most". ----- Original Message ----- From: Mary Blount To: Robert Page Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 3:11 PM Subject: Re: Theresa Friend Robert, Correcting you is out of the question. You have studied Creek Indians long enough to know we learn together and I have learned much from you and continue to do so. Your email was a delight. The Cultural practices you mentioned have long been a part of North American Native history and confusing to genealogists. I add only one proviso. Each historic tribe and tribal group had discrete cultural belief systems that did not cross over inter tribally. This is still true today. American Indians are not a "one size fits all" population. There are more than 65 federally recognized tribes and an untold number of non-federal tribes and Alaskan villages. Each distinct tribe or tribal group has a discrete belief system and we must use care in using phrases like "most all Indians", "all Indians", "many Indians" or "Indian nations in general" when writing about specific cultural beliefs. We Creeks are especially sensitive on this point and have a saying: "that person does not speak for me". Your insight about the overlay of many cultures during the pre-colonial and colonial periods is accurate. These were times in American history that were especially "hazardous to Indian cultural system health". And, you rightly suggest that world history in any period or location is a story about minority community survival given assimilation and adaptation. Thank you for a vision of Teresa crossing the land bridge. I picture her as a very flexible woman with good adaptation for survival. She made it here safely and stayed because we know you are here. Her experience flows in you now and my personal knowledge tells me you used it wisely and have done well by your children. Confusion will never all be eliminated in Native American ancestry research. You make that clear by showing no one person can ever know the acculturation level of our early ancestors, Nevertheless, I am sure your positive story of success in finding Teresa will encourage others. As a Native Indian psychologist, I have had the pleasure to work with adult patients taken away from families as children, adopted out to white and other racial groups where they became strangers to their heritage. When the "calling of Blood" gives rise to questioning and the journey ends in rediscover themselves as Native people, the event defies written words and spoken explanations. MVTTO Chief Seattle once said, "Today is ours but tomorrow belongs to our children." Friend Robert, if today is ours then we must continue to encourage research that helps identify all of our Native children so they may be restored to their today. Your friend, Mary Sixwomen Blount, Principle Chief, Apalachicola Creek Indians --- On Sat, 10/17/09, Robert Page <flkeybob@terranova.net> wrote: From: Robert Page <flkeybob@terranova.net>Subject: Re: Theresa To: wapage@citcom.net Cc: "Mary Blount" <sixwomen@yahoo.com> Date: Saturday, October 17, 2009, 10:13 PM Most Native Americans (Indians) followed the custom that the wife was the dominate one (of the family) and one did not "marry" a male within the same tribe and the same clan, which meant another clan for sure and often it also meant another tribe. (How in the world did they know how smart that plan was, so far back in history?) So, if that is the case with our clear paper trail line, then THERESA, who is clearly a Menominee Indian, got that, from her mother and that her father might have been a Chippewa Indian. All children of the mother took up the tribe and clan of the mother. As female Indians (often daughters of chiefs) began to marry whites (British/Scotch/French/Americans) (usually for commercial trading reasons) they began to slowly follow white mans customs and as time went on, this Indian custom became blurred, with white mans rules . As many Indians (especially males) began to use their English/French name, sometimes also with their Indian name, it added to the confusion. Spelling of the English version of the name was also a problem. As this was occurring, the female name was, most of the time, never really indentified, by name, in official records, but the male usually was, and "sometimes his children" but again ... almost never mentioning the mother's name of his children. Then to further complicate this issue, and really makes it very difficult, to back track a blood line, is the custom, by most Indians, that if something happened to the father (remember warfare and disease), then the wife "remarried" by necessity, and the bloodline was changed, but if both parents were killed, the children would normally go to a relative, of the wife, for raising. Many times, when a male was being raised, he was not subject, to the blood father's influence, but usually raised, by a brother or uncle of the wife, especially, as he approached manhood and the tests that went with that elevation. I did not mention the word "divorce" because that is a white man's term that does not really exist in the Indian language. If an Indian man and wife, did not get along, it was a pretty simple thing to handle. No attorneys, no divorce courts, no fight about ownership of land, house, the dog or TV set, no haggling over the kids, because they all belonged to the wife, by long standing custom. The split occurred and that was the end of it. No hard feelings, no visitation rights even discussed. (Has things changed much?) Divorce was not the problem, it was disease, brought by the whites and warfare over land for trading rights and land ownership (by white rules, in treaty negotiations, that was almost always violated by the whites). As the whites proceeded to run the Indians "out of their lands", where the Indians raised their families for centuries, as the new American nation was expanding westward, the Indian Nations, were decimated, by one way or another. Just for the record, I offered my DNA sample to Family Tree DNA project in year 2005 for my Mitochondria "mtDNA", which is the study of the female genetic lines within human populations. BUT.....I need to reveal that my genealogical and Y-DNA results are clearly English and clearly "White". I knew my family line want back to NC/SC,and when I got my Y-DNA results, it backed me up to Isle of Wight, Va ...then with further research, we finally learned our line came out of County Suffolk, England. My DNA study of my MtDNA in 2005 revealed my "Native American" heritage and my results were: Haplogroup "C" sample # 2932. Since I had already established a "Paper trail" of my mothers female line backwards, to Wisconsin, it was easy to see where the "missing link" was and just needed some additional research, which provided a partial answer. MISSING WAS THE NAME OF THE MENOMINEE WOMAN, and that we now know. Since I was among one of the first in the United States, to learn my MtDNA results, and was puzzled by the results, there have been over 20 others that have joined, my very select "C" grouping, and it is very interesting to study the movement of this MtDNA, provided on a map by FTDNA, from the original female birthplace in northern Africa, up through many countries and my most distant female ancestor "Theresa" crossing the Bering Straights (land bridge) into what was finally the United States, but many of this line continuing down to Mexico and South America. My THERESA LINE appearing in what is now Wisconsin, in what is now the United States. I am sending copy of this to my good friend Mary Blount from the Florida Creek/Seminole line out of Blountstown, Florida (now relocated to Texas) for her comment. This is a very confusing genealogical topic and rarely understood in the white world. Mary, please feel free to correct me, in my simple explanation, if I misstated anything. I want the record to be correct. ----- Original Message ----- From: wapage@citcom.net To: Robert Page Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 4:17 PM Subject: Re: Theresa Bob 10-4 Don't know answer to the tribe question. I asked Tim if he could explain. Don't know where you found she was Menominee but the letter and document from Mr. Hansen of Wisc. Historical Society said Menominee but the hand written note by Brunet (aks Brunette) her husband clearly says Chippewa. I know both tribes were in that area. Actually the Chippewa fought with the Sioux and ran the Sioux off from that area and which resulted in Sioux moving into the Dakotas. I seem to recall reading that Menominee were more "peaceful" so I would tend to think we are more in line with Chippewa. Along with Viking I think that accounts for my desire to hit some people in their forehead with a tommahawk. Will keep you posted. Bill ---- Original message ---- Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:47:25 -0400 From: "Robert Page" <flkeybob@terranova.net> Subject: Theresa To: "Bill Page" wapage@citcom.net Great work! will try and see what additional facts you have discovered to add to my chart "Female line of R. and W Page. and my old chart AD1A-3B that I renumbered to AD1A-3D. I have slowly been pulling out some of our Page line documents to send to you and will try and put some in a box and send. I have sent 9 boxes of stuff to the Marion Co, SC Archives to save it from the trash pile, when I am gone. I have one question, we know Theresa was a Meminee Indian but I see a tie to the Chippewa Indians. Not clear what that means. GREAT WORK