Genealogy… Trying to Figure Out What Our Native American Ancestors Looked Like

Those of us who love genealogy, get lost in the story. Our story. A story that helps us understand who we are. Our instincts, our health, our personality and our physical appearance. But how can we know what our ancestors looked like if we have no pictures? We’re lucky if our DNA test tells us what part of the country our Native ancestors hail from, or oral family history tells us. But what if all we have is our imagination? We also have pictures in history books, the Library of Congress and wait for it… television. No really. I found a movie on Netflix, “Frontier.” It’s made in Canada and I cannot vouch for its historical accuracy, it’s fiction for sure but it has a large cast of Canadian Indians. Or, American Indians. I’m not sure of their origins but I’m assuming a mixture of both. I recognize Tantoo Cardinal (Dances With Wolves) and Zahn McClarnon (Longmire). Tantoo is Canadian, Zahn is an American, both have appeared in many films.

A quick Internet search reveals that “Zahn Tokiya-ku McClarnon is a Native American actor of half-Irish descent.” For genealogists, that sounds familiar. And fun. So is watching the actors as they brave the cold northern climate. You can see fog coming from their mouths when they say their lines. When they dip into their tepees you get a sense of how our ancestors lived. I’m only on the second episode and it’s the beautiful Canadian scenery and the Native actors that draw me in. Don’t think that you can’t find clues to your own ancestry, watching a silly movie. Already I’ve a note to self, don’t be so sure that your Native ancestors are “French” Canadian. They could be “Irish” Canadian. Zahn Tokiya-ku McClarnon is proof of that.

Suellen Ocean is the author of Secret Genealogy IV – Native Americans Hidden in Our Family Trees:

Acorns Are the New Superfood? Tell That to the Ancients

I read an article in a UK periodical that states that acorns are the new superfood. People have long asked me about acorns for diabetics and there have been rumors of  a paranormal relationship between humans and acorns. We can thank Celtic Druids for that. Seriously. Acorns are not just food for the spirit, they’re food for the soul and have been for thousands, perhaps millions of years. Today, they’re being called superfood, tomorrow they’ll be called delicious. But only if you remove the tannic acid and use a good recipe.

In the fall, people rake acorns and shovel them into the garbage. What a pity for both humans and wildlife that depend on them. Try telling the squirrels that you’re trashing their acorns. Or the birds that wait for you to drive over them. It would not surprise me to see a bird drop an acorn, right where the tire rolls.

Let’s remember woodland animals and ancient cultures, as we enjoy this year’s acorn harvest season. The acorn was and is… their sacred food.

Suellen Ocean is the author of Acorns and Eat’em, a how-to vegetarian cookbook and field guide for eating acorns. Find it here:

Native American Genealogy. Did Something Strange Just Happen?

This new world of genealogy is getting harder to explain. We’re now taking DNA tests and using new jargon like “populations” and “ethnicity calculators.” We use different terms for ethnicities, like Natufian, Baltic and Basal Eurasian. And the new concept that there are no ethnicities, only places where our ancestors went through different periods.

But I must try to explain how this new era offers opportunities for discovery. There’s a website called Gedmatch where those who took DNA tests, can upload their raw data. Once uploaded, thousands of other’s DNA “kits,” are available to analyze and compare with yours. Quite by accident, I’ve discovered that my husband and I share a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of DNA. Probably best described as, we found our tribal intersection.

How I discovered this point of intersection, was by using a Gedmatch “tool” that let me enter his and my kit numbers to see if anyone matches some DNA with BOTH of us. About forty or fifty people came up. This was a huge surprise. I was able to take the eight highest matches and analyze them. Having their kit numbers allowed me to run all ten of us through an ethnicity calculator and compare. I think what might unite us is ancestry from Southwest and or Eastern-Asia.

I tend to get giddy like a kid when I think I may have discovered something, so I emailed all eight of the matches. Only one person responded. She downplayed my discovery. “Too small” of a DNA match and since it was her son’s DNA and none of her other children appeared on the list of matches, she couldn’t get excited about it. So basically, she pretty much rejected my finding.

I persisted though and wrote her back stressing the Southwest and or Eastern-Asian connection. That got her attention. “Well maybe,” she said. “It could be a Native American connection. We have several Cree ancestors.” She went on to say that the DNA testing companies don’t have markers yet for the Cree.

I have been looking for my husband’s French-Canadian-Native ancestry for decades and guess what tribe it’s supposed to be? That’s right… Cree.

I’m going to pursue this further. I could say, “Oh, it’s probably nothing.” But nothing about genealogy is inconsequential. There’s an otherworldliness to genealogy. It’s downright spooky.

Suellen Ocean is the author of Secret Genealogy IV – Native Americans Hidden in Our Family Trees:

Genealogy… This is Fun… and Unexpected

While exploring my husband’s ancestry, I’ve discovered a Gedmatch.com tool that finds people who are related to BOTH of us. The implications of this are fabulous, provided that those related, want to share their research and provided that they know who their ancestors were. I’m sure that people will agree to share about themselves, otherwise, they wouldn’t have uploaded their raw data to a DNA sharing website. Here’s what happened. I put my and my husband’s kit numbers into the tool and a list of people who share our DNA came up. It looks like there are forty or more names, in descending order. So I took the very first name, the person who shares the most DNA with my husband and I googled it. Voila! That was easy because it’s a very unusual name. This fellow has a Facebook page. He doesn’t have much on his page but one of the few things jumped out at me: Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New York. My ancestors were in Hoboken, New Jersey in the 1700s. Funny, isn’t it? My husband’s going to get a kick out of this, so will our new “cousin.” And we just might learn something new about our family tree.

Suellen Ocean is the author of Secret Genealogy IV – Native Americans Hidden in Our Family Trees:

Using Gedmatch to Find Native American Ancestry

As usual, I’m poking around with genealogy, trying to find my husband’s Native American ancestry. I’ve turned to Gedmatch.com to see what I can find. It’s a free site but you’ll need to upload your raw data from your DNA testing company. Once you do that, Gedmatch will give you a kit#. With a kit# you can make comparisons with others. Because my husband’s Native American is on his mother’s side, I’m going to go to others related to him to see if they turn up any Native American from the maternal side. Before I do that, there are quite a few “calculators” that I can run his kit# through, like North Amerindian. After trying many of the different calculators and nothing turns up, I’ve gone to a list of participants who share DNA with hubby. I’m reaching out to someone who shares the same surname as hubby’s grandmother. They have provided an email address. Maybe through him and through my further poking around at Gedmatch, I’ll get some answers. It’s one thing to be told that you have Native American ancestry, quite another to prove it.

Suellen Ocean is the author of Secret Genealogy IV – Native Americans Hidden in Our Family Trees:

The Jewish Banker, the Sicilian Mafioso, the Chinese Spy, the Irish Guinness-Lover and the Two “Bad Girls”

One Friday, I had a delightful summer evening spent talking about the 1970’s, an upcoming wedding, the tech industry, genealogy and life in general. Our auras were illuminated, as if someone had plugged them in. In many minds, the stereotypes I suggest in the title of this blog, would raise eyebrows. Except, the handsome Jew wasn’t a banker. The Italian was one of many New Yorkers, just trying to keep peace, the Chinese spy was the groom’s best friend, twenty-five years in America, with kids. No interest in spying. The Irishman looked twenty years younger than his age and wasn’t the least bit inebriated. And the two women; intelligent, honorable grandmothers, only longing for vindication as they relived their shotgun weddings. What an enlightened evening we would have missed, had we let stereotypes take control. We are one people. We are one-derful.

Suellen Ocean is the author of Secret Genealogy VII – DNA, Jumping Into the Gene Pool. A High Tech Gathering of the Tribes. Available here:

Using Gedmatch to Find Answers to Your Rh-Negative Blood Type

Those of us who have Rh-negative blood type are extremely curious. Our minds swirl with family conspiracies that could have given us this uncommon classification. Our research leads immediately to the Basque or to the ancient Iranian Jews and even to UFOs and aliens from other planets. Seriously, if you haven’t seen the alien articles, you’re not one of us.

Lately, I’ve been playing around with the genealogy DNA matching site called Gedmatch. They have entries for a lot of the population groups that have high percentages of Rh-negative like the Basque and the Berber. It will take years to understand these colorful pie charts and what they represent, nor do I know how accurate they are. But science is science and when I read that clones of ancients were used to help form clusters, that sounds interesting. Thank you, archaeologists.

Some of us with Rh-negative blood type are a little suspicious of how they inherited it and their siblings didn’t. Inheriting this blood type doesn’t necessitate a conspiracy. It does though, require that we dig deep into our genetic origins. The  Admixture/Oracle Population Search Utility on the Gedmatch site does just that.

Suellen Ocean is the author ofSecret Genealogy II – The Jewish Roots of Our Christian Ancestors. Available here:

Genealogy… DNA… Having Fun with Gedmatch

You may have heard that they found the Golden State Killer with the help of Gedmatch. Relatives of his uploaded their DNA onto the site (from their DNA testing company) and law enforcement figured out who the killer was through familial DNA matches. Aside from the weirdness of even considering that one of your relatives might be a serial killer, the site is a lot of fun. It’s a little complicated at first, everything is so foreign, but you can get the hang of it. If I can do it, you can do it. The admixture calculators are the easiest and there are lots and lots of world populations to explore by comparing your DNA. For instance, there are lots of entries for “Jews:” Iranian Jews, Sephardic Jews, etc. So far, everything I’ve done on the site has been free. I had to upload my raw data from the testing company I used, 23andMe. After I did that, Gedmatch gave me a “kit number” which is used like a password so you can compare your DNA with others or analyze a colorful pie chart of your various population groups.

Suellen Ocean is the author of Secret Genealogy VII – DNA, Jumping Into the Gene Pool. A High Tech Gathering of the Tribes. Available here:

What does Hispanic Mean? What Does Latino Mean?

I have a California friend, of Mexican descent, who scoffed when she heard a reporter use the word Hispanic. “That’s what they use,” she said. “We like to be called Latino.” When a Nevada friend of mine used the word Hispanic, I warned her that I’d been told, “that Hispanic was offensive. It’s Latino.” My friend asked around and came back and said, “In Western Nevada, Hispanic is proper.”

So I pulled out my old dictionary from 1941 to see what it says about Hispanic and found that back then, Webster’s said that it’s an adjective and means, “Spanish.” Above the entry is Hispania. It’s a noun, it’s Latin and it refers to: “An ancient country comprising modern Spain and Portugal; now, Poetic, Spain.

What does Webster say that Hispanic means? They say it’s still an adjective and it means, “of, relating to, or being a person of Latin American descent and especially of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin living in the U.S.” It also means, “of or relating to the people, speech, or culture of Spain.” Webster’s definition of Hispania is quite simply: “Iberian Peninsula.”

Let’s look at Webster’s version of Latino. “A native or inhabitant of Latin America.” And “a person of Latin American origin living in the U.S.”

How did Webster define Latino in 1941? The word isn’t even listed. The closest that I can come is Latin. It’s a rather long entry so, I’ll paraphrase. “Of or pertaining to… the Latins… Romans… Latin Church.” Also, “Designating the peoples (French, Italian, Spanish, etc.) or countries whose languages and culture are descended from the Latin.” Also, “One of the people of ancient Latium or Rome.” See how fluid ancestry and history is? We can go all the way back to ancient Latium and Rome. And don’t forget Iberia. Lots of us Iberians around, now that we’ve had our DNA tested. As genealogists, we don’t try to define ourselves. We try to define our ancestry. Latino… Hispanic… I like them both.

Suellen Ocean is the author of Secret Genealogy IV – Native Americans Hidden in Our Family Trees:

Genealogy… Trying to Prove Native American Ancestry? Here’s a Clue

After England took North America from the French, the British wanted to establish new rules. In 1763, they thought it wise to separate the Indians from the colonists. They thought it necessary to draw up boundary lines. The problem was, the land the British wanted for the colonists was the Indians’ ancestral land. Their homeland. The British had taken control of the whole east coast, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. This is where you’ll find many of your colonial ancestors if they were in North America in 1763. When the Indians returned to their homeland, where the colonists were, the military descended upon them. However, when the tables were turned and the colonists encroached upon the new Indian Country, they got away with it. The whole thing was a bad deal for the Indians. When the colonists rebelled against the British and the Revolutionary War ensued, the majority of the Indians stood with the British against the colonists. They saw the rebel colonists as the enemy. If you’ve ever wondered why your ancestors sided with the British, it might be because they were early Native Americans.

Suellen Ocean is the author of Secret Genealogy IV – Native Americans Hidden in Our Family Trees: