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Category: Shawnee Heritage Fraud
Categories: Frauds and Fabrications | Native Americans Frauds and Fabrications
This category compiles the WikiTree profiles that are based on the largely fictional work of Don Greene, called Shawnee Heritage.
From Bill Deyo:
"The Shawnee/Cornstalk children listed on the site (Wikitree) have no basis in fact that I know of and appear to be from that...book on Shawnee heritage that published a mass of incorrect information and outright lies.
"Red Wolf" (who was probably not of Shawnee or Cherokee Heritage contributed to the controversy. See: example
Please help to work these profiles. If you've come across this category, here is an explanation of the next steps to take to correct them.
Background
Profiles have been created in Wikitree (and elsewhere on the Internet, including Find-a-Grave) based on the work of Don Greene, a self-published series called Shawnee Heritage. Serious genealogists, including the Tribal Historian for the Virginia Tribes, call this book a work of fiction.
This page seeks to explain why researchers should be extremely cautious if family links in your line are drawn from this work; the page also gives direction to those who want to correctly mark these profiles and identify the profiles that are much more fiction than fact.
Read what others have said:
Serious genealogists have voiced their opinions:
http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ethnic.natam.nations.shawnee.shaw... (archived here in case Ancestry deletes message boards.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Shawnee_Heritage_I.html?id=6Ou... read the reviews
From Bill Deyo, current Tribal Historian VIRGINIA GENEALOGICAL BOOKLETS by William "Bill" L. DEYO:
"Besides the Powhatan ancestry, the Shawnee/Cornstalk and most of the Moytoy children listed on the site (Wikitree) have no basis in fact that I know of and appear to be from that horrid book on Shawnee heritage that published a mass of incorrect information and outright lies."
When you find a profile that appears to be one of these profiles
- Make sure there is NO valid research in the Biography and/or Sources sections
- Add the profile to this project (Shawnee Heritage Fraud)
- If there is no independent source supporting their existence, add the following text to the prolife:
- This person's existence and relationships were introduced by Don Greene in his book, Shawnee Heritage. There is no independent, historical documentation of this person's existence or relationships.
- You may also wish to tag the profile with the image from this project (“Research suggests that this person may never have existed. See the text for details.”). The image can be tagged by project collaborators at https://www.geni.com/photo/view?album_type=project&photo_id=6000000177000504889&project_id=4495143 by copy / paste of the Geni profile URL into the “in this photo” field.
Notes
The Shawnee are not as well documented [as Cherokee]. They moved west over the same period as the Cherokee, but they lived in different places along the way and ended up in three different bands in Oklahoma. The last Shawnee group in Ohio, their home at the time of Removal, left in June, 1833. One group, now the Shawnee Nation was combined with the Cherokee after the Civil War, so those Shawnee appear on the Cherokee Dawes rolls (they are now separated from the Cherokee). The other two bands are the Absentee Shawnee and the Eastern Shawnee.. The Eastern Shawnee tribe has links to a lot of resources on their web site at https://estoo-nsn.gov/eastern-shawnee-history/
References
- Listing of persons in Shawnee Heritage, of dubious existence: < Wikitree >; (document attached)
- “Indian Reservations: Where history, genealogy and myth collide”
- “Shawnee Heritage by Don Greene aka "Chief Don Spirit Wolf"”
- “Native “Identity” Fraud is not Distraction, but the Final Indian Bounty” Opening Remarks, Unsettling Genealogies Forum, Kim Tallbear (March 27, 2022)
- “Is anyone familiar with this book and its credibility?”
- Red Wolf example
Additional Reading
~• the following were gleaned from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyY0egN0cd4&t=5352s
- Playing Indian Bill Deloria Yale Univ. Press c. 1998
- The Struggle over Cherokee Identity in the Twenty-first Century Circe Sturm; Univ. Of New Mexico Press
- Genealogy as Continuity: Explaining the Growing Tribal Preference for Descent Rules in Membership Governance in the United States' Kirsty Gover
- American Indian Law Review Vol. 33, No. 1 (2008/2009), pp. 243-309 (67 pages) Published By: University of Oklahoma College of Law