Page 1 of 1

Cherokee and Michigan Native American Links?

Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 6:23 pm
by Shari
Were there ancient ancestral ties between the Cherokees and the Mohawks and Mahicans of New Netherlands (1600s)? Are Mohawks and Mahicans classified as Michigan Native Americans?

These notes are taken from CHEROKEE DNA STUDIES (2014) by Don and Teresa Yates:
Pages 168-169 - “…Anecdotally people of Cherokee descent often receive (DNA) matches to North Carolina or Michigan Native Americans. The reasons for the latter matchup is obscure. North Carolina as the Cherokee’s original homeland makes a lot more sense.”
Page 157 - “Harvard University professor Barry Fell in SAGA AMERICA (1980) presented historical, epigraphic, archaeological and linguistic evidence suggesting links between Greeks and Egyptians and the Algonquian Indians of Nova Scotia, Acadia and surrounding regions around the mouth of the St. Lawrence Seaway…”
Page 179 - “…We have previously suggested that the Cherokee incorporate both Greek and Egyptian DNA…”

While reading THE ISLAND AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD by Russell Shorto, 2004, the history of New Amsterdam in the 1600s, I found this on page 135:
“He (Adriaen Van der Donck) learned some of their languages, classified the Indians as falling into four different language groups and analyzed these carefully (‘Declension and conjugation resemble those in Greek, for they, like the Greeks, have duals in their nouns and even augments in their verbs’).”

Adriaen Van der Donck left substantial historical descriptions of New Netherland, including that of the local Native Americans in his major work, DESCRIPTION OF NEW NETHERLAND, which author Shorto included throughout his book. In 1641 Van der Donck, a young lawyer from Leiden, Netherlands, was hired to do the job of “schout,” the sheriff and public prosecutor for the West India Company. He was centrally involved in the colony’s happenings in Manhattan and throughout New Netherland, but made his home in the wilderness in the north where he interacted with the Mohawk and Mahican communities, spending time recording his impressions of their culture, many of which are described by Shorto in his book. Van der Donck wrote out of respect for them, unlike others who considered them savages.

Re: Cherokee and Michigan Native American Links?

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2019 6:01 am
by emmdee2
Hello Shari,

The DNA Consultants page on the Cherokee indicates Mohawk as related. Now I see Black Dutch here too... Grandma on dad's side said we have Black Dutch.

Related Ethnic Groups
Catawba Indians, Cheraw Indians, Tuscarora Indians, Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Ottoman Turks, Greeks, Egyptians, Croatians, Black Dutch, Melungeons, Lenape Indians, Mohawk, Algonquian Indians, Shawnee, Maya, Creek Indians, Yuchi Indians, Saponi Indians, Eastern Blackfoot, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Hopi


Cherokee Enrolled was my #1 World, I didn't have Michigan Native on my top 50 but I did have Lumbee (NC) and Michigan Hispanic top 50, and a dot on world map on Michigan I presume or more distant relation to Michigan Native. I also had the Florida Native high (5), so that would match the Creek and the Choctaw in the related group. As I look more and correct, I see Croatian in my top 50 World, Turkish in there, I did not show Melungeon. Jewish was my second Mega population, but no known Jewish lineage in family.

Marcia