Margaret Wheldon (Diguina) - contradictory DNA evidence.

Elwin,

To you have any information on the highland families specifically you are referring to. I have Scottish background, some of it highlander, but I just haven't dug into that. Thanks.

Erica I had not Seen that. ,my Wife went To a Native American College in Oklahoma. I'll have to show her that article. Thank You for the link.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/mobile/2010/10/06/cheroke...

On Aug. 14, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chadwick “Corntassel” Smith served as honorary chieftain of the Abernethy Highland Games during Clan Grant’s annual gathering in the Spey Valley. Heading a delegation of 30 Cherokee from Oklahoma, Smith paraded in the colorful opening procession alongside their host, Lord Strathspey, the 33rd Hereditary Chief of Clan Grant. Behind them came a dozen standard bearers, representing the clan from distant corners of the world, including a tribesman carrying the Cherokee Nation’s flag.

(continued)

A Scottish connection is by no means unique among North American Indians. Today, there are huge numbers of Natives in Canada and the U.S. descending from Scotsmen who married into dozens of tribal nations. Historically, multitudes of these Scots were driven from their homelands in forced evacuations known as the Highland Clearances. Thousands were exiled war captives. Others joined the British army and were sent to garrisons on the colonial frontier. Whatever the historic causes of their migrations, the result is that many tens of thousands of North American Indians now trace some of their bloodlines to Scotland.

Half a dozen of the principal chiefs of the Cherokee Nation since the late 1700s descend from Scotsmen such as John Adair, Anthony Foreman, Ludovic Grant, Daniel Ross and John Stuart (called “Bushyhead” by his Cherokee in-laws).

Chief Smith traces his ancestry to Ludovic, the son of William Grant, a Scottish laird. Born in 1688, Ludovic was a Scottish nationalist who fought the English army in the first Jacobite Rising of 1715, a failed attempt to restore the royal House of Stuart to the British throne. One of nearly 1,000 captured Scots deported as forced laborers to the British colonies, he was banished to South Carolina. This exiled Grant clansman later became a successful trader among the Upper Cherokee and married Eughioote. Their two daughters became the Scot-Cherokee foremothers of thousands.

Today, Ludovic Grant’s descendants in the Cherokee Nation number more than 3,000, including his sixth-generation grandson Chadwick Smith. Trained as a lawyer and first elected as principal chief in 1999, Smith also descends from Cherokee nationalists who championed indigenous rights and fought to preserve their cultural traditions.

http://www.amazon.com/Indian-History-Biography-Genealogy-Descendant...

Found this on Amazon. I haven't read it yet, so don't know if it will help any. Sent this info to Erica and Elwin, but don't know if you saw it.

It may have something of value within it's pages.

:3

2- marriages I can think of ,off hand with "Scot" Highlander Family ties recorded Plymouth V.R. Esther Peck/Phillip Sachemas. another Mordecai Ellis /Hannah Jones. The "Peck" & Cahoon Families were pretty close., and intermarried among the Ellis &Jones Family also.

Thank you, Wendy Sue & Elwin.

I'm beginning to understand the dynamics of time & place a little more.

The hardest part of dealing with Native American groups, particularly those of New England, were - as Elwin reminded me elsewhere - was the fact that they often had several 'wives'. (Although, they were in fact polygamists, most were generally monogamist relationships. ) Worse, very rarely were any of the secondary or "Lesser" wives recorded by the early american colonists. A single male could have an untold number of wives. The primary wife pr primary wives (not necessarily the first wife) stayed with the male, while his other wives might stay with her parents tribal subgroup and not her husband's, with only visits from her husband.

This is one of the things that causes such a headache for people researching Massasoit Sachem Oosamequin, since he is believed to have had several wives other than the one best known. He is also believed to have had many children by those other women not recorded by history. Not only this, but at least one of those wives was likely to have been found amongst the Wolf Tribe of the Wampanaog, where as Oosamequin himself was not.

Elwin may correct me on some of this (it's 5am so I'm foggy), but many of the sub-tribal groups were interchangable, with members moving freely from one group to another. Most sub-groups were heavily related. For instance, Oosamequin not only lead the Confederacy of the Wampanaog, but also his own tribal sub-group, while his brother led the Wolf Tribe.

You can't really see this in the modern tribes, since this part of the culture has been lost. Each group was like an extended family unit, or small Clan, similar to those in Scotland.

Until people understand this intermingling of the Native American Peoples of a cultural group, they can't really understand life among them.

I neglected to mention that these were very tightly knit groups.

Also, the early colonist at Plymouth tended to have a blind spot for things they didn't wish to recognize. They considered it blasphemy for a man to marry more than woman, and would not have easily paid attention to it among the Native Americans, simply because the interpersonal relationships and cultural perspectives were so very alien to them.

They still lived unquestioningly by the Bible at that time (I'm not sure how many different faiths were on the Plymouth ships), so that filter severally colored everything they saw. They saw a family unit as being under a single roof, were as those of the Wampanaog were not.

Considering this now, actually makes me re-evaluate some aspects of history...

It is also difficult for Modern Americans to comprehend this about the Wampanaog, since so much has changed since then. It's hard for people to imagine a large family of two parents with 11 kids, let alone extended tribes of 300 to 1000 people in them.

My mother though French came from a family with 11 children,I also know two people who came from A family with 19 children,they being one of the 19.An interesting fact about Yanno which most may know is some called him Iyanno because when he greeted them he said Hi Yanno,this then changed to Hyanno,Etymology is a funny thing!I've been drawing and painting,not doing much research,but still enjoying what you here have come up with!

Each generation of my family have all been between 9 to 15 kids. It wasn't until my generation had kids that those numbers dropped to about 3 - 5 kids.

big families! :3

I said "300 to 1000 people in them" as an example.

But the thing is most of those tribes were a lot, lot, lot larger than that.

I came across an estimate somewhere that just the area around Plymouth had nearly 2 - 3 million Native Americans living in it around the time of the Mayflower.

20 years later a lot of them had died from plagues.

True!One or two generations can have many many children,while the next very few.I think besides plague and sickness it may have something to do with region and climate?

Ran across a sad thing today.

Roughly 25% of the US Native American population was subjected to the Enforced Sterilization Program during the 20th century.

I could give links, but it's depressing me to hell...

Sent all this to Erica and Elwin.

That's more people than died in the Concentration Camps in Germany. Hitler is said to have gotten his ideas from the US Sterilization/ Eugenics Programs, too.

:(

Not sure about the 20th century, But they were active in looking for a solution in the 17th Century! Settlement of a Brave few in Eastham/Nawset was a beginning.

Program was heavily active in the 20th century, but it mentions that it started a lot earlier. I don't know when.