> Q. Any other clues to finding an Indian before 1880? > > I, too, had rumors of Indian blood in my family. I think this > was a romantic notion, among those with ancestors who arrived > before 1750, attesting to mountain men and other adventurers in > the distance past. My brother asked me, not long ago, whether I > had found the Indian in our mother's history. "She had those high > cheekbones and black hair," I told him I hadn't found any > Indians, and since I had found most of her ancestors back to the > immigrants, I didn't think there was an Indian ancestor. But he > was not about to take that for an answer, going over more of her > physical characteristics. "Well," I said, "she did have one > ancestor named Mary Crow, who was married to a Gilmore ancestor, > but I am pretty sure she was Scot-Irish." "That must be it," he > said, not listening to the rest of the sentence. I am sure he > tells his children about the Crow Indian who was grandma's > ancestor. And so, what may have started out as a family joke, > becomes family history. > > "Joan Best" <joanbest1@earthlink.net> Great story, Joan. The "high cheek bones and black hair" are an integral part of the American Indian heritage tradition in many cases. I had a distant cousin and fellow genealogist, a professor at an Ohio University, who was convinced we had an American Indian ancestor. Each summer she would come and visit her brother who lived nearby and she spent many an hour trying to convince me she was right. The high cheekbones and black hair were part of the "convincing." One summer I don't think she even stopped at her brother's house - she came directly to show me her discovery. Of the 19 children of our common fourth great grandparents, only three had lived into the age of photography - and she had found a photo of one of the two youngest boys! "There," she said, poking the picture in my face. There, by golly, was the spitting image of Sitting Bull! It was a photo of my 3rd great grandfather's younger brother Benjamin, taken in his late years after the Civil War. The story is longer, but after my cousin died I went on to document a great many things about our fourth great grandparents, including solid evidence that both were born in Germany, where there weren't too many Native Americans. For that matter, there were no Indians living anywhere near them when brother Benjamin was born about 1790. Two more genealogical truths: You can't determine relationships by how a name is spelled. And you can't determine ethnicity by the relative position of cheekbones or the color of hair! <g> Regards, Richard "Richard A. Pence" <richardpence@pipeline.com>

> Two more genealogical truths: You can't determine relationships by > how a name is spelled. And you can't determine ethnicity by the > relative position of cheekbones or the color of hair! <g> > > "Richard A. Pence" <richardpence@pipeline.com> what about skin color Richard?