How did family myths of having Native American ancestry start?

Dan is correct. A lot of people with ancestry going back to colonial days will have some "first settlers" ancestry. "First settlers" is a more accurate term than "Native Americans." Genealogy DNA calls their ancestry as Amerindian. They descended from people who crossed an ice bridge from East Asia thousands of years ago. Anybody born in the U.S. is a native American. I am 7/8 European and 1/8 Amerindian. I had a Choctaw great great grandmother whose daughter married my Polish Jewish great grandfather but that only totals 1/16. So back in North Carolina 1/16 other Amerindian must have entered my ancestry. The English who came to the southern colonies in early colonial days were frequently from titled English families. It isn’t unusual for a southerner whose ancestry goes back to those early Jamestown settlers and later cavalier families that crossed over to Virginia after Cromwell overthrew Charles II and still have Amerindian ancestry.

Prejudice against "first settlers" has never been uniform throughout the U.S or was it so in all the colonies. If you are from Oklahoma and I believe the Dakotas you will experience prejudice but people with ancestry in the Carolinas never try to hide it. Actually many prominent Americans claimed descendancy form Pocahontas.

Now a lot of people today want to find "First Settler" ancestry as they feel they can get their hands on some of the tribes’ money.

I don’t know who the ignoramuses were that thumbed Dan down. J.M. is right on.

Also have you researched the family history of those claiming "First Settler" ancestry or are you just jumping to a conclusion? You really didn’t tell us. Have you researched the family trees of all those claiming "First Settlers" ancestry.

I think that anyone who has family going all the way back to the colonies probably has some (like me).

For each generation you go back, the ancestors multiply by 2. So if you go back 8 generations to the mid/late-1700s you have about 256 ancestors available. Their grandparents 2 generations earlier quadruple your ancestors to 1,024. Their grandparents in turn bring your ancestors to 4,096 chances of having a Native American ancestor back in the early settlements. Why not? (That early on, some of the 4,096 ancestors probably overlap where their various descendants met and married.)

Added Edit:

By the way, for all those who gave me thumbs down because they think I just wanted to imagine NA ancestry, I have a genetic Maternal Haplotype B2, and also a genealogy that traces back, among other things, to a marriage (a real marriage in 1533) of the conquistador Juan Munoz de Collantes, one of Francisco Pizarro’s soldiers at Cuzco, to Francisca de Palla, who was Atahualpa Inca’s cousin, both grandchildren of Tupac Inca Yupanqui, son of Pachatutec Inca, of the line of Manco Capac. Is that Native American enough for you?

In every family there are family stories….some turn out to be ‘tall tales’ however it is oral history and should be listened to, documented and used as a clue to find ancestors or disprove….many of these stories do have some basis, it all adds interest to your family tree…and even more when it is proved or disproved through records when you research your tree……….it happens everywhere, just with different ‘types’ of ancestors… Americans tend to have NA ancestors, belong to Royalty or of course ‘Irish’ yet many of their Irish ancestors turn out to be generations of Northern Irish which make them British not Irish……..in the UK it is often Romani ancestors or Noble ( very very few once researched)…see family stories or fairy stories http://familytimeline.webs.com/familystoryorfairystory.htm ……it is often the story that is added to when they pass on what they have been told and something is added by each generation to make it sound better………..but sometimes it is true

I imagine a lot of these myths began as simple speculation. Perhaps there’s an old photo of great-grandma with long black braids; or maybe she had an unusual name, or her family lived in Oklahoma. And maybe someone once remarked, "I wonder if she was part Indian?" That turned into, "She could’ve been Indian" and then "Uncle Joe said she was Indian." The story is slightly exaggerated each time it’s told, and by the time you hear it from Aunt Marge, you’re a direct descendant of Pocahontas. As you said, people tend to believe what their family tells them… and if it’s something "cool", like having Native American ancestry, it’s worth retelling. So the myth is propagated generation after generation… until a genealogist comes along and disappoints everyone!

Well said Ashley. I’ll let my buddy Jo answer this one, he wrote a paper on it once

Ashley’s response is pretty much spot on.

The MAJORITY of these stories started out as assumptions or misunderstandings. Think of the game "telephone" – where you whisper a message from person to person…then when it get’s back around it is completely different and often contradictory to the original message. Same with Indian Blood Myths…

Example: Great grampa was born in Indian Territory (because his white family had moved their from Mississippi to take "surplus" Indian land after Allotment in the late 1880s – early 1900s) turns into: "g-grampa was an Indian!"

Another source: people of African descent "passing" for white…would claim "Indian/Cherokee blood" to help explain away darker features. Indian blood was more acceptable than African…and in fact, there were Race Laws that allowed for some Indian admixture while still being considered "white"…but ONE DROP of African could still make you "Colored."

The thing with these Indian Blood Myths is that people WANT to believe them so they don’t use any healthy skepticism.

It depends when it comes to Black or White people or Hispanics.

White people like to claim it because-
-It makes them seem exotic
-It makes them seem less racist since they’re not 100% white
-They like feeling uniquely different
-Old family stories pertaining to AIM (American Indian Movement)
-Actually had African blood (and way back in the 1800′s) racist families in the south needed a reason to explain their darker skin

Black people like to claim it because-
-Makes them less boring
-Have alot of white blood and mistake it for Native American
-Like the exotic-ness of it

Hispanics like to claim it because-
-Makes them more of a reason to be American
-As a way to become American citizens easier

Dan, that’s Native American enough for me. Maybe if more people spent time ‘proving’ their research, they would be less likely to do the ole thumbs down.

i don’t know way back then …………….

Many "Myths" start the same way it is with a story, perhaps the first teller is telling the truth or believes it to be true, or perhaps it is just a story. Either way the story expands with each teller, much like the game of sitting in a circle and whispering a word or message to the next person. By the time it gets back to the first person the word or message is entirely different that what was first said.
I don’t believe that most people today "claim" Native American bloodlines for malicious reasons. Some are attempting to get funds for college, which is a joke, but others do it because they truly believe the stories. There are still others who have done a goodly amount of genealogical research and have strong reasons to believe that the story is true but cannot "prove" it. Finally there are those who are Native American, who know Grandparents that were Native American and cannot not be accepted into the tribe because of interesting politics within the group.
Within my own family, my First Grandson’s maternal Grandfather was Cherokee, both of his parents were born on the Reservation in Oklahoma and he was raised on the Reservation, but moved to California. There is a group of California Cherokee who were not acknowledge by the Tribe in Oklahoma, but that doesn’t change the fact that these people are Native American.
There are also 3 branches I have traced back to the 17th Century in the US. I have found the names of people within these families in the Dawes Rolls, but cannot "prove" the connection. But there are stories in each of the branches about a connection to Native Americans. On being that of Henry Spilman of Jamestown, who may or may not have married a Native American and may or may not have had children. It all depends on who’s information you accept as accurate.
Are the stories myths, or not? On the other prospective there are some who claim to be 100% Native American, while scientists have states that is impossible, but to the immigration of other ethnic groups into the Native American Culture even prior to the period of European Colonization.

When I began searching for dead ancestors, I had to overcome a family story about who my maternal grandmother’s parents were. Her parents gave her to another family to be raised and the family story said that they were our great-grandparents. After all, they were the ones who raised her.

In earlier times, people of Indian ancestry were looked down upon, it was as bad as having a grandmother with a black husband, or a Jewish wife. Good grief! But, all of a sudden, such things are popular. I myself, as proven both by the paper trail and DNA do have Indian ancestry; and black; and Jewish. (Indian is the most recent.)

So, to answer your question, there are probably millions of answers. Some people like to brag, some are trying to show off; some want to get free money, all sorts of reasons.

In the end, there is only one way to find out if people have Indian ancestry: DNA testing. Few people can trace all of their ancestors back even 10 generations. (For me, the Mayflower is but 8 generations ago.)

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States for an overview and

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100531154352AA18EMt for more on your query.

And, see this site: http://www.chacha.com/question/what-percentage-of-americans-have-native-american%26%2347%3Bindian-ancestory which claims that 12.5% of Americans have an Indian ancestor.

However, (I wish I could find it now) one census report said that a mere 3 1/2 % have even 1 Indian ancestor, which is more likely to be true, since the overwhelming majority of immigrants came to the U.S. in the late 1800s or since meaning that unless they married a "true" American with Indian ancestry, they remained without Indian ancestry in their succeeding generations.

So, to answer your query, it is mostly a psychological thing, along with not actually knowing. E.g., perhaps some said they had an Indian ancestor to explain why one child is so dark.

I think it is much more common in recent times, since as recently as the 1960s and 70s due to our racist past, few people would claim to be native american. Many of my classmates said their family included "black dutch" which was the term often used to signify native american bloodline. When I was growing up in my state, especially, few claimed to be Indian (that is what they call themselves- some of my best friends) unless they were clearly Indian- 50% or more. No one called themselves Indian unless they looked Indian. Then in the 1980s it got "popular" to be part native american/american indian, so people came out of the woodwork claiming to be indian. A lot of that had to do with the ability of tribes to begin operating casinos and sharing the wealth. Suddenly people who would never have admitted to being part indian say they are indian and certainly take the $ they can get if they get on tribal roles. Look at the Native American Census in 1970-2000. The Native American population exploded in many tribes. The Cherokees for instance when from 232,000 in 1980 to 369,000 in 1990. Certainly not as a result of mass births. More so from people joining the national cherokee roles, through documentation of ancestry. Now in my state where we have more casinos than Nevada, people claim to be indian whereas when I was growing up, only those that looked indian did so. Many Cherokees I know are blond haired, blue eyed. Not your typical indian characteristics!

Oh my god… this is like, my biggest pet peeve.
I think people do it because it makes them feel different, because I used to do this, until I realized how stupid it was.

My answer to this question would be that many family’s are like mine and can be traced back a few hundred years. With word of mouth the only form of communicating known to them, this is all most families claimed. You will find out that many of these people are not recognized as Native Americans because our government said so, Why?