General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I have a question re: Elizabeth Warren and her heritage claim. [View all]Retrograde
(10,235 posts)in a book about the 16th English colony of Roanoke, whose settlers vanished soon after. One of the theories is that they intermarried with the locals. There was a discussion on why modern DNA testing is not helpful in tracing any descendants: one of the things brought up was that many Native American peoples adopted outsiders, who could become full members of the group. This was as opposed to the English tradition, which was based on bloodlines. It mentioned the Lumbee as an example of a group that maintained a Native American culture while bringing in new blood as it were from African Americans as well as Europeans (and as possible descendants of the vanished colonialists). So your mother and the genealogists could both be correct.
And yes, Native American ancestry was [slightly] more acceptable in many areas than African: there was even something known as the "Pochahantas Exemption" that declared descendants of that Native woman and her English husband honorary whites - i.e., the one-drop rule didn't apply. Woodrow Wilson's second wife was one of these.