The nature of Trump’s apish bullying may have left Warren with little choice. Stupid as Trump’s blather was, Warren had no good answer to “Where’s the DNA?” Now she can repeat “Where’s the Million dollars, you wretched liar?” She had to get this out of the way. One error she made: she knew that the amount of Indian blood was, at most, a mere 1/32 and should have lowered expectations to start with.
I admire Elizabeth Warren, but would prefer to see her stumping for another candidate rather than running herself. Still I think “giving in” to Trump’s obnoxious bullying by releasing the DNA result was her best move; I am glad she got it out of the way.
The Bush family, BTW, also have an alleged (and allegedly debunked) descent from a Native American. (Bush-41’s grandfather George Herbert Walker was 6-gt grandson of Austin/Augustine Bearse, an early immigrant to the Plymouth Colony who, being Romani, wasn’t welcomed by the nubile Puritan girls and, allegedly, had to marry a Native. I see via Google that Bush-43 bragged about this Native American connection on the WhiteHouse.Gov website! (Anyone have the requisite Google-fu or Wayback_Machine-fu to find that old whitehouse webpage?)
That Indian hookup in Plymouth, even if true, is much diluter than Warren’s; yet Dubya bragged about it! (I wonder if any descendant of Austin Bearse has shown their DNA result?)
In the remainder of this post I comment only on the genealogical question, which has some interest independent of politics.
A key question to ask is: How many Americans with distant ancestors in the American colonies have seen 'Native American' on their DNA results? We'll start with me. No. ***The score is now 0 out of 1. Others?***
The reason the question is relevant is that a genealogist may wonder: "Does the DNA test suggest that family lore that Neoma Ocie was Native is, after all, correct? Or is the Native DNA just typical for descendants of early American immigrants, and thus tells us little?"
Note that descendants of at least two *different* sons of Neoma Ocie (Preston Crawford and William Crawford) have the same family lore that she was a Native American. Although 20th-century folk look with pride on Native ancestry, most 19th-century Americans would find it shameful and, instead of preserving a document proving a Native link, might seek to destroy it. In fact, IIRC, some claims of Native ancestry were intended to explain non-white characteristics actually due to even less desirable Negro ancestry.
Does any of this constitute Proof? Obviously not. But any serious genealogist knows that 100% proofs are hard to come by. In fact, many links accepted by experts appear *very* flimsy. (As just one example, check out the marvelous way genealogists conclude that Hawise, grandmother of the 1st Earl Stafford, was a Despenser.)
