Massachusetts

that issue, but I've known Native American people (lived with a Mohawk guy for almost five years, and met people of other tribes through him) who basically scoffed at whites who claimed to have Cherokee blood in them.

They said if true, then it would appear that nearly 75% of the US population must be of Cherokee descent. That's how many whites claimed to have Cherokee blood.

Family tales are just that. I know for years my dad told us that we had Penobscot ancestry. It wasn't true. We're almost 99% French Canadian on his side, except for one woman whom a cousin told me is of M'ikmaq ancestry...from Nova Scotia. This is more plausible, but I still have to verify it somehow.

Anyway, this whole thing doesn't lessen Elizabeth Warren in my eyes from a political standpoint, but I do feel embarrassment for her when I think of how people who claim to be Cherokee are ridiculed by Native Americans who are only a generation or two removed from actual reservations.