Indigenous self-ID/"Pretendians" (merged thread)

[foresterab]

Our family tree likely has an indigenous woman that married in. Or so we suspect. Several generations ago. Family has been here since the 1600s. Not an uncommon thing for French canadiens at the time.

No one is claiming anything on that basis as she likely adopted our culture and any children would have been raised in that culture.

It gets even more confusing as the French would only keep records as a marriage between "Canadians" - i.e. a person born there and a "frenchman".
So whether you were a poor french farmer "le habitant de Canada" or Iroquois native you were still recorded...under an European name...as a Canadian. Metis were not recognized as such but more of a "country marriage" between cultures and it was not uncommon for folks on either side of the ancestry to go live the others. Young men going to live with the natives as "courrier de bois" or boatmen, women marrying traders...lots of blood flowed on either side.

So like you the family history going back to French Canada means that it's an almost certainty of indigenous people married into the family tree. And despite having a complete record back to France...it means nothing. I am a Canadian which is all that matters and no hyphen/second classification is required.

 

[RangerRay]

Don’t understand estimate the power of family myth. If all your relatives are telling you about your indigenous great-grandfather, or your grandmother told everyone she’s indigenous, a lot of the family will probably take that at face value.

I just reread this and realized I made a bad spelling mistake that changes the meaning of this away from what I meant to say.

The first sentence should be “Don’t underestimate the power of family myth.”

Hope that makes better sense.

 

[OldSolduer]

If I ever discover there’s any French DNA in me this will happen;

Never mind I do that already