This is an excerpt of an email that I have had going back and forth for a while now... Maybe someone might be able to figure some of this out.
About 7 or 8 years ago we participated in a study on population movements. I received an email, which I still have somewhere because I don't get rid of anything, the email came from one of the Bioanthropologists working on the study and thanked us for participating saying that we were the oldest lineage of Native Americans in North America, and that our DNA had helped verify the Laurentide Ice Sheet hypothesis. so if that was the case my next question was "How did we end up on the east coast"?
Supposedly, they took the northern route that was open due to thawing and were able to eat fish and kelp. But we also participated in the Nat Geo study. You might know that study closed once they reached one million members, and if you didn't take screenshots when it was open you don't have the data because there was no download option. I took screen shots, this is what the Nat Geo study said.
There were two populations that crossed the Bering Strait. Nat Geo's Population "A" and population "A-B". Our ancient ancestors were part of population A-B. Population A-B, like population "A" went south into modern day Mexico and South America. But A-B came back out, then began moving east. But the genetic line cut off at modern day western California and starts up again in modern day Carolinas and Georgia. Another anthropological paper said the reason for that was Indians east of the Mississippi refused to take DNA tests for anthropological purposes. So, there is a big data gap there.
Today, our DNA shows something some might consider weird. Aztecan DNA. Except that it is not Aztecan DNA as in "THE Aztecs". It's Uto-Aztecan, from the Uto-Aztecan language speakers. The Uto-Aztecan Languages are spoken in South America, Mexico and all over the western United States. This also explained what came up 15 years ago (we have been taking DNA tests over 20 years, I think I was first in our family because I am the only one with a 5 digit code), but 15 years ago in the earlier days of DNA public testing they said we were related to the Comanche. The Comanche language is Uto-Aztecan. It's our ancient DNA that has us related to them.
A few years back, a paper was published by IIRC, Max Planck Institute, and republished in The Journal Nature and other places. They had "discovered" the Indians DNA in the United States, in Southeast Georgia. Yes, us. That DNA was oldest, they wrote "this group exists genetically but are traditionally extinct", or words to that effect. I agree, we no longer wear furs, hunt proboscideans with atlatl and eat kelp (Well some of us don't eat kelp). But modern day, far from factual.
Autosomal DNA is junk DNA for the purposes of genealogy other than to locate cousins. And once you get out past the 5th cousin it really doesn't matter, is not accurate because we are all related autosomally, every human on earth. It's good for mass population movements and in some cases medical. But individually, it means nothing and is only a fraction of the DNA that is specific to any single group. Every single human on earth has African DNA. There is no African DNA in my line other than paleolithic. You don't see any African DNA that even reaches the Mesolithic period. I don't even bother with Autosomal DNA any longer and haven't for some years, and here's an example of why. You can have 1-4% Neanderthal DNA. The highest percentage of Neanderthal DNA found in North America is found in Indians. According to Nat Geo, I have 4% Neanderthal DNA. They use autosomal DNA to study mass population movements. But according to ancestry, I have 4% east African. Neanderthals went extinct 40,000 years ago. So autosomally I carry 4% of DNA from a group that went extinct 40,000 years ago and 4% of DNA from a group that went extinct in Siberia and East Asia almost 2 million years ago, the genetics was just carried forward, same as with our Neanderthal ancestors. . When you start going back that far, it's irrelevant except for anthropologists studying mass human population movements. I'm going with Thad's opinion on this one, companies like Ancestry have an agenda. Because that African means nothing. For the purposes of family histories, neither does Neanderthal.
A couple more things on that. If there were a male African in our bloodline, that would have been the end of the Indian bloodline (genetically) on the Y Chromosome. There is no such person going back more than 40,000 years. Also you would see epigenetic changes from generation to generation and that did not happen. so no African entered our genetic line, say back in the 17th century, then an Indian afterwards, because the African genetics would show due to the Indian being biracial or triracial. It didn't happen, we have been Indians for 16,000 years.
A couple of years ago 14 or 15 of the Osceola's down in Florida decided to participate in a genetic scientific study. It was assumed they were triracial, if you look at their old photographs they certainly look triracial. Except that the men had no African genetics and only a couple of the women had a minute amount of African genetics.
Bioethicists have a term for this. Genetic Essentialism. Expecting someone to look a certain way or be a certain way based on genetics. A group of bioethicists tried to get these genetic genealogy companies regulated because of genetic essentialism. They were causing, and are still causing massive problems with their autosomal racial makeups. It's all bogus. If it's not scientific and a group with Ph.D. 's behind their names didn't publish it, I ignore it. .
The North American "historical period" begins about 400 years ago, the arrival period about a hundred years earlier. That is the only thing that matters where it concerns our family's history. That and how we got into the America's. And going back that far, 16,000 years ago, plus or minus, its pretty much a novelty. The last 500 years is what counts. The significance for us is that we have one of the oldest unbroken lines of American Indians in North America. That's the only significance.
Let me sum up this part then Ill move on.
* Our ancestors crossed the Bering Strait about 16,000 years ago. As you know the exact period is still in debate.
* They moved south into modern day South America and Mexico (population A-B) leaving their DNA along the way which still exists in two known tribes, one off the coast of California and one in Brazil. We also have Uto-Aztecan Genetics meaning they left their DNA in modern day Mexico, New Mexico, and it's all over western U.S. as far north as Utah and in some cases Michigan and Canada. Also, but further back, Peruvians who have tested for bioanthropological purposes.
* The population began moving east, and there is a genetic gap between Western California and Alabama, Georgia and the Carolina's and as far north as southern Virginia due to lack of genetic data.
* They arrived in modern day Virginia and North Carolina about 1600 years ago, IIRC (I'm going off the top of my head on this email, there's more to it but I have to dig out all the studies and go over the dates and genetics to be exact). This creates a problem because ere were told those years back that we were Algonquian-Siouan. Because the most recent dated variants do not coincide with the Algonquian expansion. But it also makes Gaylord Hinshaw wrong.
Getting back to genetics. About 4 years ago through consanguinity tests, one of the things I discovered was John and Mariah were related. Their families were related. Closely. Whenever I come across some weird results like that I go back to my documents, letters and so forth. Fifty years worth. I don't know if you know who Vivian Hughes is, or was, she's now deceased, but we regularly exchanged letters and cards on families for about 25 years. She's John Lee Jarriel (Bennet's son) granddaughter. But she was also related to John Jarriel (Snug), the Rewis's and everybody. She sent me a letter, something she was told by the older women at a Jarriel Family Reunion. They told her that the reason no one talked about John and Mariah was they were not only husband and wife, but brother and sister.
Now that's pretty weird but that would mean that Mariah was also descended from John Rewis. I looked more into it and it turned out that was not uncommon with Indians. Remember that polygamy was allowed and common. When the Cherokee Phoenix was being published, the editor complained in one writeup that Indians had to stop marrying their cousins ``How can we expect the white man to not see us as savages when we continue to marry our cousins' '. It needed to stop. Among whites there were no laws against consangual marriages between cousins, 1st cousin marriages were common until 1867 when laws were passed to put a stop to it. So why would whites see Indians as savages for marrying their cousins? Because they were marrying their half brothers and sister.
At the time, when Towns still existed within the boundaries of Georgia, in some cases even after the removal, and polygamy was accepted among Indians. "Indian Joe
might have a wife and kids in one town and another wife and kids in another town. A study was conducted on it some years back to determine if it may have been a cause of the collapse of certain Indian groups. The answer was no, because marrying a half brother or sister would only result in a 1% chance of children with defects. But even today, certain tribes that have a "marry within the tribe" policy have problems with consanguinity, in closed groups eventually you run out of people to marry.
Which brings me to the next point. Nicy Saturday was not Mariah's mother. Mariah's name was not Mariah (As in Mariah Carey), it was Maria. James Saturday was not the husband of Susannah and James' kids were not Susannah's kids. Maria's surname was not Saturday, it was McDonald. And the Saturdays are not genetically related to the Rewis-Jarriel's except through some lines due to later marriages. But the McDonald-McDaniel's are.
Here's how we know. It was already known in Tattnall County prior to 1847 that Nicy was not Maria's mother. It was also already known that James and Susannah were not husband and wife. But then Boone wrote it again in 1935. Maria's name was McDonald. Then, I interviewed my 92 year old aunt. I interviewed my 92 year old aunt. She says "Her name wasn't Maria, it was Maria. I asked her how we were related to the Saturdays. She says, we aren't related to the Saturdays. We didn't even really know the Saturdays other than Henry Saturday and only knew him because he would walk every Sunday from Collins and play piano at the Cedar Creek Baptist Church.
James Cowart knew all this and said it in 1847, it's right in the original court transcripts. Which I found not in Georgia, but in the Tennessee State Archives in Nashville. Boone wrote it in 1935, so we tested it.
No direct line descendants of the Saturdays are genetically related to the Jarriel's or Rewis's. Of the three that tested, none were a match. The Jarriel's and Rewis are an entirely different family from the Saturday's and Maria Saturday is not a Saturday, she is a McDonald (McDaniel). She was a Saturday in name and claim only. The only Saturdays who are genetic matches come down different lines, married in and are only connected because of the children and grandchildren of John and Maria. There are no Y Chromosome male Saturdays connected to the Jarriel's and Rewis's. The only people who are connected are Jarriel, Rewis, Rouse, Rouise, That's it, no one else.
Supposedly when we were told about the population movements, and then Nat Geo began their one million genetic test project, well they didn’t go up, as the numbers of tested individuals rose our percentages went down. Because we are a known remnant population.
We are a remnant population of Siouan’s and Algonquians, who, because of decisions made by Georgie Washington and Thomas Jefferson with Georgia “Indians in amity with the United States” ended up as a community in 1783, as part of a decision to prevent war with the Creeks.
You mentioned “FCOP”. 99.xxx% of the people who talk about it do not have a clue as to what they are talking about. Not one person I have spoken to, including those who claim to be “Professional Genealogists”, have ever read, or studied the Georgia Act of 1817 or read the amendment, that was made one week later, where it concerns Indians in Georgia. If they did, they would know why the Phillip’s, Rewis’s and Saturday’s had to register, and why there are separate lists for Persons of Color and Negro’s. And what occurred with these families one month after it became law.
And I will finalize this by mentioning this Schnakenberg woman. She messaged me and was the person who had me get in touch with the Chief of the Shawnee in Miami who put me in touch with Greg Pitcher. In fact she said “you need to talk to Greg Pitcher” among other things. Things written to me, that I would class as uncharacteristic of a member of a federally recognized tribe. Schnakenberg didn’t even sound like a real name to me, but there were and still are Schnakenberg families in Georgia. Especially around the Atlanta area. She told me a bunch of things that turned out to be accurate. I didn’t believe them, but I verified them. On some of my hundreds of trips to the Georgia State Archives and National Archives.
Those Schnakenbergs who did take DNA tests would not match me. Or you. Because she claimed descendancy from the Saturdays and Rogers. Which we now know are entirely separate families from Jarriel’s, Rewis’s and McDonald/McDaniel’s. You can also add Phillips and the Suttons.
I will say that I insulted her, or this person, accidentally. Because she told me which rolls my ancestors were on. She told me which rolls her ancestors were on. So, I asked a question. Shouldn’t have asked that question but it did lead me to verify what was said afterwards. And it all turned out to be true. Further verified by my conversation with Greg Pitcher.
All of this has come down in the last six or seven years. This and a lot more. But it is all documented. Even some things I thought were true turned out to be false “facts” that make the rounds in genealogy circles and people I spoke to in Oklahoma gave me historical facts that were far more interesting than some of the stories other people up here have told. That I verified.
Regardless, you could raise the dead, put their documents in their hands and stand them before someone doing genealogy and they would still claim they are wrong and their story is right. I don't care. I don’t do genealogy. I do history and politics. The only reason I have an ancestry account is because my wife uses it for her family. If it was just mine it would have been deleted a long time ago.
Autosomal DNA is junk DNA. It only uses 22 of 23 chromosomes common to more than 99% of the population. It cannot tell you “what percentage” you are of anything. There are no dated variants of any significance and are only good for population movements. If someone wants to know the genetic “facts” they need to take an advanced Y or Mitochondrial DNA test and if they want to know a thousand times more than that then they need to have their genome mapped.
I know who the McDonald’s/McDaniel’s are, Jarriel’s, Rewis’s. Verified by the Cherokee Historical Society in Tahlequah. I got the letter from them after I sent all my documentation for review. The Shawnee in Miami verified what I knew (or thought I did), Cherokee-Shawnee before they gained Federal Recognition, when they gained Federal Recognition, Bill Clinton told them “Shawnee or Cherokee, you can be one but you can’t be both”. They are Shawnee. Contemporary writings in the archives verify that some of our family members were Cheraw. And the Cheraw and Chehaw in Georgia lived with the Shawnee. And the Cheraw and Chehaw were the same people.
Hinshaw was wrong on some things, but he is right on others. But he also uses junk DNA, he has never seen what I have. But now he knows. Bluejacket’s and our families. Same lines going back a thousand years.
