THE INDIAN CARD by CARRIE LOWRY SCHUETTPELZ : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BLOGSPOT BOOK REVIEW (AND A LIST OF TRIBES MENTIONED IN THE BOOK)

THE INDIAN CARD by CARRIE LOWRY SCHUETTPELZ

In this blog I sometimes post about Native American as well as African-American research as UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / AMERICAN research. From the hits I get on posts about Native American ancestry, I know that some of my readers are interested in making a claim to be considered "a member of the tribe." But I may have said this before; I have never gotten cooperation from the few tribes I've contacted, hoping that someone on that side would help a client become a member of the tribe. In the years since, as the Internet grew, more tribes have websites that provide information on what they consider and how they process enrollment, which is helpful. I've heard various "reasons why" some tribes are not helpful, including that those who have rights to money from casinos do not want to further share it. I'm always interested in what the processes to claim tribal membership might be.

The Indian Card, subtitled Who Gets To Be Native American, is a book about tribal enrollment from the perspective of a woman who is part of the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina. Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz has other heritages, but she focused on claiming the Native American aspect of her ancestry. Her mother had enrolled her when she was six. She was not raised to feel a part of that tribe, living over a thousand miles from where the Lumbee tribe is headquartered, but the card would be back in her hands years later after testing and reenrollment. In this book, she wrote about her personal experience as well as the frustrations of the attempt to collect information that might be valuable to anyone who wishes to do the same. 

In this book author Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz brings up the different ways that Tribes consider people for membership, the questions asked by the United States Census, the Dawes Rolls, and much more. 

You will find the following tribes mentioned - some detailed information, some just a note.

The Lumbee, Cherokee,  Navaho, Meskwaki, Oneida, Apache, Blackfeet, Checotah, United Keetoowah-Cherokee, Chickasaw, Chippewa, Choctaw, Creek, Dakota, Seminole, Hopi, Iroquois, Kalona, Lakota, Lenape, Mohawks, Muscogee (Creek),Naticoke, Nooksack, Ojibwe, Quechan, Seneca, Seminole, Shawnee, Sioux, Tohono O'odham, Tulalip, Tuscarora, Wyandot, Wyandotte....

I highly recommend this book, which was so well written and thought out - so informative. For the purposes of Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot, I will excerpt information that will be especially interesting to my readers in the next few posts.

THE GROWING NUMBER OF AMERICANS WHO REPORT BEING NATIVE AMERICAN ON UNITED STATES CENSUS

Excerpt  Introduction : If you, like me, track the results of the U.S. Census because nothing in this cold world makes sense except the hard facts of multivariate data analysis, you've seen it, too: the population of people in this country who self--identify as Native has exploded.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, about 4.1 million people checked the Indian box, a term I use to describe the carousel of options that have appeared for Native Americans and Alaska Natives. By 2010, that number had increased to 5.2 million.  And in 2020. 9.7 million people - more than twice the 2000 county - self-identified as Native.

Certainly, there have been a few changes to the way we count. In 2000, for example, for the first time in census history, people could check more than one box for race. So, if we assume that people were previously choosing between their racial identities, the 2000 census presented an interesting change in methodology.  In deed, the number of people who identified as Native in the 1990 census was just under 2 million, less than half the number in 2000. There has also been a significant push to count more of the Native people living on reservations, a population that has a higher census :undercount" of any population in the United States, at 5.6 percent...... Over the last ten years, increased Tribal consultation has taken place, as have efforts to "get out the count" in native communities.

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Book Review and Excerpt selections

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ABOUT CHILDREN BEING "PARENTIFIED" : THIS WAS HOW LIFE WAS LIVED FOR CENTURIES : OPINION BY ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY

I recently read an article that was clearly influenced by the latest notions about child abuse coming from the psychology profession.  I remembered when I took Psych 101 in college and my professor said that one of the reasons the profession existed, a kind of manifesto, was to make the world a better place. Well, has it?  Sometimes I think this profession is responsible for making just about everyone diagnose-able in some way and looking for more patients. I'm all for children being wanted and loved, and parents taking responsibility for raising them  But the article railed against the latest notion of child abuse and that is "parentifiying" a child.

What this was explained to be, by this article, was children having to raise their siblings. Well, that is exactly how it worked in the past, when entire families had to work together also in the fields and many families had numerous children who had to help out in the house and yard and care for their siblings.  We called them "farm families" but it was not just agricultural life that required big families. Many immigrant families, and families in which both parents needed to work, relied on family members to also work, especially in maintaining the household and the younger siblings. Ten children - sometimes more - were not unusual.  Many of you are descended from families in which a mother had a child every couple years, had them in her own bed with a midwife, breast fed the babies, and the older children helped out as she went back to work cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry.

It may be rare, but I've met people in their teens and early twenties who took responsibility for younger siblings when parents died.  I've meet the teens who, being raised by single mothers, were the ones who were also caring for their parent who was terminally ill, while also going to high school. Someone had to step up to the plate, these people did, and I admired them for the courage and fortitude. (They're the kind of people worth hiring in the workplace too when their in home caregiving is done.)

In particular, back in the day, older sisters were helping bath, diaper, and feed babies, playing with them, and having their younger siblings tag along, watched out for them on the school yard, and in the process not only bonded with their siblings but learned the skills needed to be a mother themselves. 

This was how "baby-sitting" otherwise known as child care was perceived, which is why as a teenager I and so many others were paid, but barely, so that a neighbor could go out for the evening or take care of business elsewhere.

I realize that child labor is usually defined as labor in which a child earned money - outside the home - and did not go to school. However, children, especially sons, often worked with their fathers and other members of their family in the trades, learning skills such as weaving, tailoring, and cobbling, and were only considered qualified to marry if they could, through apprenticeship and moving into the family business or a trade guild, support a family.

I've been doing the genealogy for a family that landed in the United States as German immigrants to Pennsylvania after the American Revolution and it is clear on the census that the children were all working by the time they were teens. They may have gone to the first three grades, maybe eight, and then it was time to work at a bakery or as a seamstress.

Children were considered to be adults earlier back in the day, or, as a friend called them "small adults."  While I think teens today feel pressure to grow into adulthood too soon, I also see that parental expectations of their children is that they will not truly be released into adulthood until they are educated and have established careers.  All of this would be considered the indulgence of the rich a hundred or more years ago.

Do you have an opinion?

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ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT

Our genetic and spiritual ancestors help us with our research quests 

and, while we follow a linear research path, 

amazing dreams and synchronicity abound. 

We explore multicultural ancestry worship 

and the use of genealogy for past-life verification, 

as well as practical ways and means to achieve your research goals.

THE BRYAN KOHBERGER TRIAL NEARS and I'M JUST AS INTERESTED IN THE INVESTIGATIVE GENETIC GENEALOGY DNA EVIDENCE ASPECT OF THE CASE

It's been a while since I posted about my interest in the "Idaho Four" Murder case.  Although I'm not a follower of True Crime podcasts in general, I have spent many hours listening to various podcasts about this one. Some of the podcasters and the people they interview make me crazy because, overall, the man has been convicted and is assume to be guilty even when they make a mention of that fact that in the United States we presume innocence, while going on to talk about him specifically as the murderer. Listening to a variety of opinions is good because it certainly opens one's mind to possibility. For instance, I do think there is reason to consider that there was more than one murderer involved in the killing of the four students, two weapons, two styles of stabbing or gouging, and a timeline that would mean to me that a person would probably have to be a killing professional to kill four persons so quickly.  Day by day, as more information that was kept away from the citizen and the media, is released, some notions are challenged, while others make more sense.

It's been a couple years now since Koberger, once a PhD. candidate student studying criminology, was arrested.  His lawyers are thorough and a third has recently been put on a case in which many thousands of documents must be looked over by attentive staff. This case includes much that is modern such as videos, door bell cameras, cell phone pings, and the DNA  which is "Touch DNA." Using Genealogy database as well as going through his family's garbage cans, the FBI matched his father with "Touch DNA" on the metal button of a leather knife protector left at the scene.  The knife itself has not been found. The database and the relative did not give permission. But what's in place to stop law enforcement?

As a genealogist, the use of Genealogy databases and DNA testing service databases is of the most interest to me. It's clear that everywhere we go and everything we do, we are leaving trace evidence of our existence. I was thinking about this the other day because I'm the only person on earth besides her owner, a friend of mine, who can hold a small Jack Russel terrier named Princess. Princess is extremely protective of my friend and/or is terrified of just about every other human or dog that lives. Princess has been shedding all over me, all over.  I see that and I think about shedding a few skin cells wherever I go.

I think we are all challenged with a conflict here of wanting a murderer caught but also wanting our personal privacy. In a recent court pretrial ruling it was determined that this DNA evidence would not be used...

KREM : KOHBERGER PRETRIAL DETERMINATION DNA

Excerpt:  Both sides agreed not to introduce evidence obtained through Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG). Instead, the state will rely on a "tip" that led to Khoberger. The court also reserved ruling on a motion involving evidence of alternative perpetrators, requiring the defense to submit offers of proof by a set deadline.

On the topic of DNA evidence, the court granted a motion to exclude misleading population comparisons related to likelihood ratios presented to the grand jury. However, it would not restrict similar questioning during the trial. A defense motion to exclude testimony about an "inconclusive" DNA likelihood ratio was denied as moot, as the state said it would not use it as inculpatory evidence.

Here is an explanation of TOUCH DNA https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-46051-9

Touch DNA: impact of handling time on touch deposit and evaluation of different recovery techniques: An experimental study

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CAROL BOWMAN ON CHOOSING ONE'S PARENTS IN THE PRE-EARTHLY EXISTANCE

The options are plentiful but not unlimited. 

Frankly, I myself have wondered how or why anyone would choose a parent or partner who is abusive to them as the soul plans the next incarnation. So though I'm partial to the idea that we do have many life experiences so that we can learn and improve ourselves, I feel that there is a risk in experiencing a life that makes us a worse person. I feel careful about having a "tit for tat" notion about spiritual experiences and using reincarnation theories as an excuse for bad behavior.

But let's see what Carol Bowman had to say in her book, which I highly recommend.

Page 144 : Not all souls participate equally in the planning process. Some are actively involved and choose carefully; others are passive, drifting into their next lives without much preparation.  Some apparently never leave the earth vibration and wander aimlessly until they fall into a convenient womb.  It's not a tidy process, not uniform or predictable, follows no formulas, and is definitely not the same for every soul.

Page 145 : It seems that in choosing a life the difference in the degree of planning is dependent on the soul's maturity and awareness. Studies agree that advanced souls spend more time in the afterlife learning and weighing plans for their next incarnation than less mature souls do. Since the advanced souls have mastered a higher level of lessons and skills on Earth, they have the understanding to create more ambitious and finely tuned plans.  On the other hand, less advanced "beginner" souls rush through the afterlife without giving much thought to what they are doing and jump back into the first body that seems good enough. These lives have a smaller chance of being productive compared with those that are carefully planned. The unplanned lives are more likely to end up being drab and meaningless or chaotic, or the individual may be overwhelmed by challenges it is not equipped to handle.

Carol Bowman's book was published in 2001 and so about twenty-five years ago.  I'm sure much more has been learned about reincarnation in the Western, Christian world, since then.  I'm aware that some Christian's believe that any belief in reincarnation is wrong, even demonic. I personally do not agree this is so. 

As a genealogist I encounter many family stories, many family secrets, many family scandals, and vow to show respect for those I work with and for by not revealing these to others. There is a lot of pain and shame in some cases. I realize that genealogy is most often promoted as a way to reunite a family, but sometimes the notion of "family" is one that needs to be redefined.

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PEACE BE WITH YOU

 

THE FOLKLORE OF EGGS by RACHEL WARREN CHADD

FOLKLORE THURSDAY - MYSTICAL EGGS - FOLKLORE FROM MANY CULTURES

Rachel Warren Chadd

CAROL BOWMAN ON REINCARNATION : U TURN IN THE WOMB : MISCARRIAGE and STILL BIRTHS

Perhaps this may give some comfort to those of you who've had a miscarriage...

Excerpts page 159 - 160 :

From our ordinary, earth-bound perspective these changes of plan are called by the medical terms miscarriage and stillbirth.  Most people, if they have never been through the experience, can't understand how deeply the parents feel a miscarriage or a stillbirth as a death, an inexplicable loss that leaves them bereft and grieving for a child they never knew.  Their beautiful hopes and dreams for loving companionship with the new baby evaporate.  Adding to the pain, no matter what medical explanation is they inevitable blame themselves at some point, wondering what they did wrong.

Yet looking at miscarriage and stillbirths from the perspective of the incoming soul turns our thinking inside out.  From the soul's perspective, a decision not to be born at that particular time and to a particular mother is simply a detour, a zigzag in the continuing journey through eons of lifetimes.  Souls decide to switch course for any number of reasons; to change sex or birth order, to wait for a more appropriate body for the soul's purposes, to wait until the parent's circumstances improve or to readjust the timing of a predestined rendezvous with another soul already on Earth or yet to incarnate.  Or it may be due to the biological fact that the fetus was defective.

Whatever the reason, it is clear that in some cases souls wait for another opportunity to return to the same family. How do we know? Because some children remember the whole process.  Then one day, in the middle of a causal conversation, they tell their parents about it. They innocently describe earlier attempts to be born to the mother or through another woman in the extended family. The parents are always shocked at first if the child's claim corresponds exactly to a pregnancy loss that had been kept hushed up, a personal secret too painful to talk about, and something beyond the comprehension of such a very young child. But after absorbing the truth of what their child is telling them, their shock turns to joy and relief when they realize the baby who died in the womb years ago was not lost to them forever. 

I've been reading the death records of a town in Europe that experienced waves of Plague - Cholera to be specific. So very many who had a few months or years to live... So rare to find someone who lived to be 70 or 80.

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REINCARNATION SYMPOSIUM WITH CAROL BOWMAN and HER SON CHASE BOWMAN

REVISITING CAROL BOWMAN'S RETURN FROM HEAVEN : RETURNING TO LIFE WITH UNFINISHED BUSINESS

I've posted on Carol Bowman and her work with children who remember past lives, as well as same family reincarnation, before.

Excerpt page 9 : If we die leaving with any kind of unfinished business - ding as a child in an accident or from a disease, as an adult filled with anger over an unsettled dispute, as a mother leaving young children behind, or simply with concern and ongoing for loved ones left behind --- the unfinished business travels with us when we return to Earth in another body, along with the impetus to complete or settle these issues.  If we return to the same family within a relatively short period of time, we practically pickup where we left off before we died.

Excerpt page 48-49 : I've collected hundreds of cases since 1988 when I began investigating children's past life memories. (Note the book was published 2001.) They come to me from people from all walks of life, from all parts of the United States and Canada, and some from Europe.  They come from people who have always believed in reincarnation, and also from people who clearly did not believe in reincarnation before it happened to them.  The cases are everywhere Once people discover that I know something about children's past lives, they open up and confess their "family secret."  I'm continually amazed at how often this happens, and how common these cases seem to be.  And since so many of them are same-family cases, their sheer number convinces me that same-family reincarnation is a much more common phenomenon than anyone suspects.

Bowman discusses the influential work of psychiatrist Dr. Ian Stevenson and questions of the mind-body connection, and the discovery that birthmarks in this life often appear where an injury occurred in another life.

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PRIVACY CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE GENEALOGY RESEARCHER : SENIORS ARE THE TARGET OF CRIMINALS : GRANDPARENT and LOVE SCAMS

PRIVACY CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE GENEALOGY RESEARCHER

It seems to me people are willingly - even joyfully - in the spirit of trust and sharing - giving over information that anyone can access.  This is simply not acceptable in today's world.

I've never posted my research findings on any database and ask that others who receive information from me do not either. Even those databases that suggest you only post the dead can easily be linked to those who are alive. In particular, death certificates revealing cause of death on Find A Grave tm are beyond irksome; no privacy for the dead? Or the family of the dead?

Then there are the prompts: for you to share photos and memories to the world. You really shouldn't... 

Sadly, criminals are using all these details to find and target individuals.

Several years ago a neighbor of mine told me his parents had sent their entire life savings to Mexico because a caller told them that their grandson had gone to a wedding there of one of his frat brothers from UCLA and had gotten drunk and in trouble.  This was the bribe the officials needed to let him out of jail there, the caller said.  Why linger in a rotten jail for years, pay Mexican lawyers, ruin his college career and life?  The caller knew the grandson's name, his fraternity, their names, and many other details that can be found on genealogy databases.

Would it be even more convincing if the caller knew what a person died of or what grandma looked like? Claimed to be at an event that you posted about?

Perhaps even more horrendous was the scam that a senior friend of mine - an intelligent woman with an education and years of experience as a teacher - got caught up in.  She had sent a significant amount of money to a middle-man/banker/broker in another country, knowing that the country is full of corruption, and did so on a monthly basis for two years. The purpose was in order to get a man out of that country. She had met the man in person. They talked about getting married. They were frequently in contact. I didn't ask why he didn't just travel to the United States on a tourist Visa and get married here or why she thought such a large sum was needed. Sure there were serious questions I had.  

However, came the day that she had no more money to send and she called her potential husband and told him so.  At that point the plan was for him to travel to Mexico. He was silent on the other end.  The middle-man/broker/banker was angry and told her she would not get any money back, having missed a payment.  A family member of hers - a business executive yet - believed in this story enough to offer to send the money. However, within a couple days she was getting text messages from two unknown parties - phone numbers from two different states in the U.S. but men with accents from this other country - and one said "Your man is married and his wife has put a contract out to execute you. But if you send me $2000 I will not kill you." This amount was even more than the monthly payment she had been making. These callers had her phone number, they knew her name, they knew she was a teacher. 

Of course this had to be connected to the man she thought to marry. She called the local police who told her to block the number and there was nothing they could do about the money sent to another country. Sadly, because this is a love scam, she believed the execution threat was a scam but not the monthly payments.  She went back to work in order to continue earning enough. 

Unfortunately there are those criminals who target people who believe in love and are kind and generous. These criminals leave you broke, heartbroken, and fearful.

Please - I caution you - be especially careful when the genealogy database prompting you to give up your photos and memories and much else - HAS NO OPTION FOR YOU TO TAKE THOSE THINGS DOWN.

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QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR RELATIVES ABOUT RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

I recall that my dad used to advised that, when visiting, to talk about the weather.  What he meant was that controversial subjects were to be avoided.  Politics...  Religion... Perhaps knowing that these subjects will spark debate - or worse, arguments - during a family get together is trouble and, sure, I wouldn't want you to create an uncomfortable situation at a gathering. But then he was of the Silent Generation, and the Silent Generation wasn't talking about a whole lot.  

Things have changed, at least in some places and sometimes.

I can say that it came as a relief to learn that my ancestors were of various Christian denominations, which I wouldn't have suspected based on my upbringing. In my heritage - and I only know this because of genealogy research I have Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Reform Protestants (Calvinists), Lutherans, and also, it seems - some would say this doesn't fit the religion category - a Mason.

And so maybe getting a conversation going with relatives about ancestral religious or spiritual beliefs starts with past rather than the present.

It could be that you can't find what you need in the church records of the assumed Faith because those ancestors were converts or belonged to another religion.  And got buried in a churchyard or Faith based cemetery. 

And it seems like everyone in past generations belonged to some church or temple or organization ...

QUESTIONS

Was John baptized?  Who were his godparents?

Did he take part in rituals such as Communion, Confirmation?

Did John belong to a church as a teenager, as an adult?  

Did he sing in a choir?  

Did he do volunteer work for the church? 

Was he devout?  Or Religious. (Did he consider becoming a priest or minister or monk?)

Did he change religions? If so, why and when?  (Some families simply went to the closest church, wherever they moved to. Perhaps John was in a cult?) 

Did he get married in a church? How was it decided where he would marry?

Did he have children? Were they raised in a religion?  (This might bring up some different responses if the marriage was a "mixed marriage."  For instance, perhaps the children were allowed to join a different church or make up their own minds about spirituality as adults, 

Where is he buried? (Is this a Faith based cemetery?) or was he cremated?  Where are his ashes?

These questions can always spark a departure in the conversation. Back when I took Anthropology 101, it was noted that the definition of religion was "a way of life." Life in America has changed. Regular attendance at church services was normal for many people prior to the changes of the 1960's. Today many have decided that church is not for them.  As genealogists, we are looking for church records in addition to or instead of civil records to find our ancestors.

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