DNA updates

New ancestry report for Jake Cosmos Aller

Genonomelink has updated my DNA ancestry report I did through Ancestry.com back in 2017.

The new findings confirm I have some Native American ancestry, but do not show any African American ancestry.  It shows that I am mostly:

Northwestern Europe

72.0%

Dutch, French, German, English, Irish, Scandinavian (Danish, Finish, Laplander, Norwegian, Swedish), Scotch, and Welsh.

Other European

16.0%

Basque, French, Italian, and Spanish

East European

12.0%

Polish, Russian, Ukrainian

Native People of the Americas

Cherokee from the lost tribe of the Cherokee

Asian

1.0%

Mongolian is no doubt due to mass rapes by the Mongolian hordes as most people with Eastern European backgrounds have such ancestry.

African

1.0%

Other

2.0%

Jewish, perhaps Nigerian

The Ancestry com report found no native ancestry, and no German ancestry, but found Basque, Mongolian, and Nigerian ancestry.

Here are some articles on the Lost Tribe of the Cherokee Indians which I and my “cousin” Bill Clinton are members of.

The official Cherokee Government position, discussed below is that there is no “lost tribe of the Cherokees”.

This was confirmed to me in 2000, when I attended the second annual Indigenous Nations consultations hosted by the State Department under the UN Treaty of the Rights of the Indigenous which the US joined in 1998.  The treaty called for annual consultations between the central government and indigenous tribal governments.  The Department of Interior held the first consultations, and the State Department hosted the second one, which is required to be held annually. I was invited to attend the reception and some of the consultation public meetings, as a self-described Cherokee as were other Native American State Department staff.

At the reception, I met the self-described Ambassador of the Cherokee nation. The Department had told him and others that they could not use that title as the Indian tribes are considered to be dependent on governments and not foreign governments.  He did not care and continued to call himself that, as did the other self-describe ambassadors – each tribe appointed one, which pissed off the Secretary of State.

He looked like the spitting image of my mother’s brother whom I had met years ago.

I mentioned that my mother was part of the so-called lost tribe of the Cherokee Nation, and mentioned her maiden name, Aldridge from North Little Rock,  He laughed and said.

“We know about them and know that we share Cherokee roots, and many of them are distant relatives, I have a few cousins who are members we are probably related to each other, and Bill Clinton as I have distant cousins with the last name of Aldridge from Little Rock.

But official recognition?  Ain’t going to happen because the official Cherokee governments do not want to share resources including gambling resources with them.

And their DNA is all messed up.  They are part of the five Civilized tribes (Creek, Chickasaw Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, and Seminoles) and runaway  African American slaves,  part French, Scot, Scot-Irish, and who knows what else.  They were never enrolled in any tribal census and they have very little connections to the tribe, few speak Cherokee anymore.  Their only claim is that a distant relative who was part of the five civilized tribes, and may have been part Cherokee, had run away to the Ozarks around 1800 to 1830 to avoid being relocated during the Trial of Tears Indian relocation.  They were never enrolled in the tribe and had very little contact with the official Cherokee nations. And there are only 25,000 of them worldwide, with 90 percent living in the Ozarks in Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and East Texas.  And some living in California is “Okies” like your mother was.”

When I told him my grandparents spoke Cherokee he said I might have a claim and he would be willing to help me establish it and I should send him an email to follow up.

I always regretted not following up.

There is no “Lost Tribe of Cherokee”

There is no “Lost Tribe of Cherokee”¹. However, there is a group of people called the Lost Cherokees who seek to be recognized as a tribe after years of investigation². The Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has been working on the recognition petition for nine years². There is a theory that the Cherokee are the lost tribe of Israel, based on similarities between the two cultures, such as a shared history of exile and persecution, a strong oral tradition, and a deep connection to their land³.

  What Is The Lost Tribe Of The Cherokee Natives? – Indian Country

https://www.indiancountryextension.org/what-is-the…

WebApr 10, 2022 · by Mika | Apr 10, 2022 | Tribes Traditionally they were called Black Dutch or Black Irish. The Lost Cherokees, estimated to number around 9,000 in Arkansas and about 500 more in southern Missouri, seek to be recognized as a tribe after years of investigation.

  List of unrecognized tribes in the United States – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unrecognized_tribes_in_the_United_States

• Overview
• List of unrecognized groups claiming to be American Indian tribes
• See also
• External links

Following is a list of groups known to self-identify as Native American tribes but that have been recognized neither by the federal government (Bureau of Indian Affairs) nor by any state or tribal government.
1. Cherokee Nation of Alabama. Letter of Intent to Petition 02/16/1999.
2. Cherokee River Indian Community, Moulton, AL. Letter of Intent to Petition 08/03/2000. Receipt of Petition 08/03/2000.

Trail of Tears – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

• Summary
• Overview
• Legal background
• Choctaw removal
• Seminole resistance
• Creek dissolution
• Chickasaw monetary removal
• Cherokee forced relocation

The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the “Five Civilized Tribes” between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern Unit…

Wikipedia · Text under CC-BY-SA license

• Motive: Acquisition of American Indian land east of the Mississippi

• Date: 1830 to 1850

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Every year thousands of people are told or “discover” they have Native American blood. Sometimes it’s true, sometimes not. And the tribe people most commonly associate themselves with is Cherokee.

Usually, it’s harmless. But sometimes people take illegal or unethical steps to form “tribes” and sell membership. Some claim treaty rights and seek state and federal recognition, while others take federal money intended for legitimate Indian nations.

A group of Cherokee Nation employees and officials recently formed a task force to deal with these “wannabe” Cherokees.

The group consists of Dr. Richard Allen, policy analyst; Troy Wayne Poteet, executive director of the Arkansas Riverbed Authority; Tribal Councilors Jack Baker and Cara Cowan-Watts, Webmaster Tonia Williams; Teri Rhoades, Youth Business Loan Center councilor; and Richard Osborn and John Parris of the Justice Department.

And even though their task force has no official name, it does have an agenda.

“It looks at protecting our sovereignty,” Allen said. “We have so many individuals and groups who are using the Cherokee name and a lot of times it’s in a very inappropriate manner. They scam people. They charge for genealogy. They charge for DNA tests that might suggest that people could be Indian. In essence, we are looking at groups that claim to be Cherokee but have no real status and who are just distorting the culture and history.”

Allen said he dealt with wannabe Cherokees for several years before Poteet became involved. From there, they got the other six task force members interested because they also deal with wannabes at their jobs.

Sometimes the situations are humorous. Allen recalled two Caucasian men from a Georgia “Cherokee” group walking around Tahlequah during one Cherokee National Holiday dressed in leather outfits and carrying a bow and a spear. Tourists began taking pictures while real Cherokees were laughing at them, he said.

But it’s not funny when wannabes scam people, schools, and government officials, or come together to establish tribes seeking rights.

“We don’t deny that there are individuals out there who might have Indian heritage, but coming together as a group doesn’t make them a tribe,” Allen said. “They are creating an identity that is false.”

There are only three federally recognized Cherokee tribes in the U.S. – the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, both in Tahlequah, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. The rest, task force members said, are either bogus tribes or just Cherokees coming together to celebrate their culture.

“I don’t think anyone (on the task force) has an objection to someone having a Cherokee heritage club and not trying to be a tribe or nation,” Rhoades said. “A large part of our objection comes from when you pretend to be an Indian tribe or nation and lay claims to treaties you have no right to. That’s just wrong.”

Rhoades said there are more than 200 bogus Cherokee tribes. One of the biggest is the “Lost Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri” in Dover, Ark., which has about 7,000 members. In 2005, it petitioned three state legislators to support its bid to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for federal recognition. This led the Arkansas attorney general to state that the Arkansas legislature could not recognize any state tribes.

“A lot of people try to use that (state recognition) as a stepping stone by stating that a state has already recognized them, therefore they have some sort of government-to-government relationship,” Rhoades said.

However, the first step to federal recognition is that a tribe must be identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900, something most fake groups can’t accomplish, Allen said.

According to a recent news story, the “Lost Cherokees” are again asking the BIA for federal recognition. The story stated the group has tried gaining federal recognition periodically for about 20 years.

“We are the Cherokees who never walked,” group leader Cliff Bishop said in the story, referring to the Trail of Tears.

Another group asking for federal recognition is the “Cherokee of Lawrence County, Tenn.” The tribe’s principal chief, Joe “Sitting Owl” White, said he eventually expects his tribe to be federally recognized because he and his 800 fellow members are Cherokee, and he cites photography as proof.

“We’ve been called every name in the book, but we are Cherokee,” he said. “We can take photos of our members and hold them up and see the Cherokee in us.”

He also said his tribe has scientifically proven with DNA evidence that the Cherokee people are Jewish.

Lola Smith Scholl, leader of the “Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri,” said her organization is also attempting to get federal recognition but declined further comment.

Task force members said wannabe groups asking for federal recognition are the reasons why it takes so long for legitimate tribes to go through the recognition process.

However, in some cases, federal recognition hasn’t been needed for bogus tribes to receive federal money. Allen said two years ago the “Lost Cherokees” were receiving money from Arkansas schools for helping bring Office of Indian Education dollars to the schools.

Under the Indian Education Act, he said, schools are provided a certain amount of money for each Indian student they have enrolled. This led to “Lost Cherokee” members enrolling their children in schools as Indians, letting the schools collect the federal dollars and then charging the school a 5 percent “administration fee,” Allen said.

Twenty-four public schools in Arkansas received about $1.1 million because of the scam. The Phoenix attempted to contact the group but got no response.

Poteet said he knows of a group in Nebraska that was pulling a tax benefit scam. He said county officials were extending the same tax benefits that are afforded to a nearby Omaha Indian reservation to an illegitimate “Cherokee” tribe.

“We don’t know how much money they’re bleeding off the Department of Labor, but we do know they are doing that in several states,” Poteet said of the Nebraska group. “They are also bleeding money out of the Department of Education. And this is going on all over the country. These groups are siphoning funds intended for Indian people.”

Task force members said they don’t know how much federal money these groups take from legitimate tribes each year but would like to conduct a study on the subject.

“They don’t take money from us (Cherokee Nation) directly or from our funding, but it takes away from Indians overall,” Williams said.

In past years, a group calling itself the “Echota Cherokee of Alabama” has received money from the Administration for Native Americans for language preservation and was even partnered with Auburn University to help save the Cherokee language.

The Phoenix attempted to contact the “Echota Cherokee of Alabama” group but did not receive a response.

Rhoades said Alabama’s state-recognized tribes have received federal education, health, and housing funds as well as the right to sell arts and crafts as authentic Indian art.

Poteet said he and Baker have dealt with people from these groups attending National Trail of Tears Association gatherings around the U.S. He said some try to attain leadership positions in the association, while others meddle where they don’t belong.

“We found that these groups have gone so long without anybody contesting their ridiculous claims, they have gained some local acceptance,” Poteet said. “The consequence of that is that they want to interject themselves into interpretation issues. There have been situations where they have interjected themselves into Indian Child Welfare issues.”

Rhoades said she knows a woman belonging to a fraudulent group who became a member of the Tennessee Indian Commission but didn’t know what IHS (Indian Health Service) meant.

Other groups form attempting to get state and federal recognition so they can cash in on Indian gaming. In 2000, a group called the “Southern Cherokee Nation” claimed to be a sovereign nation and planned to open a gaming boat on the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Okla. Gary Ridge, the group’s “principal chief,” said his group took the boat to Webbers Falls only as a means to employ its members.

“This was intended to be bingo only,” he said. “This venture did not go forward, but I am hopeful for other ideas for the development of a region whose people and their economic needs have been too long neglected.”

Although not federally recognized, Ridge said the group was established as a band of the CN in the Treaty of 1866 with its laws and jurisdiction.

“The Southern Cherokee actively continued its political entity within the Cherokee Nation through statehood and was continued, just as the Cherokee Nation was continued, by the 1906 Five Civilized Tribes Act under a presidential-appointed chief until the 1970 Principal Chiefs Act, which allowed the Cherokee Nation as well the Southern Cherokee to once again elect their chief,” he said. Ridge added that the group only wants to operate under the articles of the 1866 treaty and the 1906 Five Civilized Tribes Act.

However, Allen said the “Southern Cherokees” have no legitimate claims in Oklahoma.

“This area is the jurisdiction of the Cherokee Nation and no other tribal entity. We see these get-rich-quick schemes all the time. The problem is that these people may be taking the goodwill and reputation that Cherokees have established over centuries and using it to mislead the government and individual citizens,” Allen said.

But for whatever reason these groups form, they usually have one thing in common – charging for membership.

The “United Cherokee Nation,” which did not respond to Phoenix inquiries, charges a $35 application fee, while the “Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri” has a $60 application fee and a $10 annual roll fee. The “Cherokee of Lawrence County” doesn’t charge for membership but instead asks its members to “make it a priority to send $10 a month to help with the tribe” and $12 to subscribe to its newsletter.

Membership fees and dues are just two signs a “Cherokee” group isn’t legitimate, task force members said. Other signs include members using Indian-sounding names such as “Two Feathers” and “Wind Caller,” acting and dressing like Hollywood-stereotyped Indians or Plains Indians, asking for money to perform DNA tests or genealogical research, requirements to wear regalia to meetings and requirements to go through an Indian-naming ceremony.

Once admitted into the groups, members usually get membership cards, bogus “Certified Degree of Indian Blood” cards, and genealogy certificates “proving” they are eligible for membership.

“The problem is that there are so many people out there who have access to these groups (via the Internet), and for these groups to have access to all of these people, these groups are becoming larger and larger,” Williams said.

Task force members said some bogus members are New Agers searching for spiritual enlightenment, but for most, they are people seeking acceptance within a community.

“Becoming a Cherokee in a certain region affords them a status that they didn’t have,” Allen said. “The county commissioner might start visiting with them as Cherokees. The state legislator might acknowledge them as a tribe or as leaders of a tribe. For some, it’s status, taking on an identity that they did not have.”

And as more adults join these groups, their children usually follow leading to even more people living with a false identity.

“Now you are getting the third and fourth generation of people who think they are Indians. The little ones coming up are immersed in a false tribal identity. They don’t know any better, but they are going to grow up thinking they are Indian,” Allen said.

And that’s what makes the task force’s work so important. As generations come and go, more groups will emerge distorting history, language, and culture; wanting federal dollars for services; land and treaty rights; sovereignty; and wanting to impose their views on Indian matters.

Task force members said they are still strategizing on how to combat the groups, but do have some ideas such as networking with other federally recognized tribes to spread information about these groups. Williams said Cherokees aren’t the only Indian people being misrepresented. She said the other popular tribes dealing with bogus groups are the Delaware, Navajo, and Sioux.

Developing more “informants” or people who contact CN reporting bogus groups is another step, as is getting Cherokee citizens around the country to inform government officials. Allen said many people, including legislators, don’t realize that most Cherokees are located in Oklahoma and North Carolina and that for the most part, the “full-blood element doesn’t leave.” Poteet said if citizens are willing to help, then they should talk to or write their elected officials.

“An average person can help stop these groups by writing a local legislator and pointing out that states should not be in a position of creating Indian nations,” he said.

In the long run, Allen said, states not recognizing bogus groups would be a major step in stopping them.

“Ultimately, I think the elimination of state recognition would be one way of looking at it, but we don’t want to harm those tribes who have a legitimate claim who yet haven’t been able to determine what it is they require for federal recognition,” he said. “People who want to claim Cherokee heritage, who have a legitimate claim to it, usually don’t act in the manner as wannabes. It’s those who put on feathers and act like an Indian tribe are the ones we have problems with.”

Here are some of my Family ancestry poems.

Confirmed I am Part Cherokee

Genonomelink has updated
my DNA ancestry report
I did though
Ancestry com

back in 2017.
The new findings
confirm family lore

I have some Native American ancestry,

As part of the Lost Tribe of the Cherokee Indians,

and part of the five Civilized tribes
(Creek, Chickasaw Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, and Seminoles)
but does not show
any African American ancestry.

It shows that I am mostly:

Northwestern Europe

72.0%

Dutch,  French, German, English,  Irish,
Scandinavian (Danish, Finish, Laplander, Norweigan, Swedish),

Scotch, and Welsh.

Other European

16.0%

Basque, French, Italian, and Spanish

East European

12.0%

Polish, Russian, Ukrainian

Native People of the Americas

Cherokee

from the lost tribe of the Cherokee
and part of the five Civilized tribes

(Creek, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, and Seminoles)

Asian

1.0%

Mongolian

no doubt due to mass rapes by the Mongolian hordes
as most people with Eastern European
background have such ancestry.

African

1.0%

Other

2.0%

Jewish, perhaps Nigerian

DNA Tests Do Not Lie or Do They?

I sent way

For one of those DNA tests

That promises to reveal

Your ethnic heritage

The only problem is that claim
Is not yet true
The results were surprising
To say the least

Family lore would have it
That I have 18 nationalities

In my tangled family history

Mostly Northern European

 

Part Basque,  French, Finish, Danish, Dutch,  Laplander, Russian, Scottish, Jewish, Mongolian, Jewish, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and Spanish, from my father

 

Part of the five civilized tribes

(Creek, Chickasaw Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, and Seminoles)

And part of the lost tribe of the Cherokee

Dutch, French, English, Irish, Scottish, Italian, Nigerian, and Welsh, from my mother

100 percent born and raised in Berkeley

The DNA results showed
that I am 68% Northern European
with trace elements of Jewish,
and Basque. Italian
Mongolian and Nigerian stock,

No Native American at all
And my Germanic last name
For some reason

Did not register at all.
Go figure I said

And I read the fine print
The state of the art is such

That claim that they can tell
Your ethnic background
Are exaggerated.

The fine print read
Explaining why it is often inaccurate

The Cherokee background
Disappeared

Because my branch of the Cherokees
Disappeared into the mist of time

Part of the five civilized tribes
(Creek, Chickasaw Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, and Seminoles)
And part of the lost tribe of the Cherokee

(Mixture of the five civilized tribes and escaped African American slaves, and Dutch, French, English, Irish, Scottish, Italian, and Welsh),

Who fled to the Ozark mountains
To avoid the trail of trees
And were never enrolled

In 1820, and 1838  Cherokee rolls
And subsequent 1905 Dowes’ enrollment

The German background
Got swept up in the Northern European thing
And at the end of the day

I remained as much a mongrel
breed as anything else

Typical American
I suppose

All in all
A fascinating experiment

Family History Revealed

The DNA results
Revealed some aspects
Of whom I am
Where I am from

But not everything
Was revealed
And much of my history
Remains hidden

My father was from Yakima
Ran away to the Bay Area
Where he became a college professor

Taught the dismal science of economics
Along the way

He met my mother
And after a whirlwind romance

had four children

My older brother,

Younger brother
And sister

She was a refugee
An Okie
From the dust bowl
Fled Arkansas
In the late ’30s

Never looked back
Settled down
In the Bay Area

Yet the South lingered on
She trained herself
To speak without an accent
By listening to the Classical radio
Deejays

The only time
the southern came out
Was when she was talking
to her sisters

She was the 10^th of 11^th children

Her Father was a moonshiner
A Cherokee medicine man to boot
Died at age 95 from drinking his only
Bad batch of moonshine

By that time he was
Almost completely blind.

Lived life in the Ozark mountains
As part of the lost tribe
of the Cherokee

(Mixture of the five civilized tribes
Creek, Chickasaw Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, and Seminoles –  and escaped African American slaves and Dutch, French, English, Irish, Scoth, Italian, and Welsh),

She had two sons
From a prior relationship
That went south
We never really knew them

My father was an atheist
And a morning person
And a man with a  plan
For everything

My mother
More make it up

As she went along
And a night owl

One of her favorite put-downs
When my father was getting
All anal and German

Before our annual trip
To the summer cabin
In Yakima a 16-hour drive

Wanting to leave at 7 am
She finally got it together by 11

My father said
“We are five hours
Behind schedule.”

“Your schedule perhaps
But not mine”

How and why
They met and stayed together
Is beyond me

They had a stormy relationship
My mother always said
Germans and Irish
Don’t mix
And never should marry

She also said
The world is divided into morning people
And night owls
And they are doomed to marry each other

Yet I suppose
There was real love

Beneath all the drama
And bluster
was real love

My Mother’s History

One day many a year ago
My mother spoke to me
About her family’s tangled history,

She spoke to me
Of lies, half-truths, and myths
Some of which may have been true

And throughout the evening
Her history came alive.
She was born in the hills
of North Little Rock

The 10th
of 11 children
Of an ancient dying race.

The Cherokees
who had run away
Refusniks

Refugees who fled in the hills.
Part of the lost tribe
of the Cherokee Nation

(Mixture of the five civilized tribes
Creek, Chickasaw Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, and Seminoles –  and escaped African American slaves and Dutch, French, English, Irish, Scottish,
Italian, and Welsh),

Who fled to the mountains
To avoid the trail of trees
And were never enrolled
In 1820, and 1838  Cherokee rolls

And subsequent 1905 Dowes
And subsequent enrollments

All told there are 25,000 of us
Mostly living in the Ozarks
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma
Tennessee, Kentucky, and East Texas

Although there are many living
In California, descendants from Okies
Like my mother.

Who fled to the mountains
To avoid the trail of tears.
Rather than join the rest
In the promised land
Of Oklahoma.

They did not exist
I did not exist.

The BIA told us
No Indian scholarship
For you

Since you can’t prove
You are in fact
Of Native American ancestry,

I asked my mother
What does this mean?

She said

No BIA money for you,
My non-Indian  Cherokee son.

Her family and Bill Clinton’s family
Were related
Bill Clinton and I are distant cousins

When I met him
I related my family history
He concluded that we were indeed cousins

Said I could call him Cousin Bill
And he would call me Cousin Jake

And he too was part Cherokee
Irish, Scotch, French
And African American

Part of the lost tribe
Of the Cherokee nation

I told my mom
This story

She said

It was true

She was a distant cousin
Of Bill Clinton

Still did not like
The lying SOB

Her people disappeared
From history’s eyes
And DNA data banks

My history was over
As was hers

And so,
I learned at last
The painful truth

Due to the genocidal crimes
of politicians so long ago

My mother’s people
Lost their land, their culture,
and their hope

And became
downtrodden
forgotten people

Hillbillies were called
Living in the hills
and mountain dales

Clinging to the dim fading memories
Of their once glorious past
As proud Cherokees

Now no one knew their name
The old ways were forgotten
And the new world never forgave them

And they never
forgave the new world
As they lived on

In the margins of society
Forgotten people

And I vowed that as long as I lived
Their history would not die

As I knew the truth
And I would become a proud
Cherokee

And make my mother proud of me
And my accomplishments
When I am down and out

I recall her stories and her warnings
And realize it is up to me
To live my life

To let the Cherokee in me
Live his life
And in so doing

My mother’s history does not die
It lives on in me
Until the day I die

Long live the Cherokee nation
Long live my mother

Father’s Son

I am my Father’s Son
I lived all my life

Fighting against turning
into a carbon copy
Of my father

And I failed as
my father emerged
From the darkness of my soul

The full German personality
And Scandinavian background
becoming clear

And peered out
and liked what he saw

As I became him
step by inexorable step
Turning my father

As he had turned his father
And his father in his father

Since the dawn of time
We have played this game

Sons turning into their fathers
And watching grandsons
Start the dance all over again

The End