To all those who still want to pound on Warren for her family history that turned out to be legend--

[PatrickforO]

64. Not sure how you figure. I can trace my family back to the 1600s in Europe.

Some of them were here very early in the 18th century. My family lore goes back quite a ways.

For instance, my paternal great-great grandfather came through New York City and ended up in Missouri. He was the first of three brothers who fled Ireland from County Roscommon via Galway Bay in 1847. Their father owned a 14 acre potato farm, and they fled the famine seeking opportunities in the US. He shipped during the winter that year on a coffin ship where the passengers, all Irish peasants fleeing the potato famine, suffered prodigiously. Many died. And Ellis Island did not exist as an immigration processing center in the late 1840s. When a ship bearing immigrants arrived, they simply docked at the State Street Pier in NYC and let the passengers disembark. This was in April 1847.

There were gangs in NYC at that time, too. Like in the movie - there actually was a Dead Rabbits gang. This young man came through New York, I think, and ended up in Missouri, on a farm near Warrensberg. He later brought his two brothers over and they prospered until the Civil War. His younger brothers were both in the Missouri Militia on the Union side in the war and my great-great-uncle saw heavy action in the 7th Regiment, Missouri State Militia Cavalry between 1862 and 1865. My great-great grandfather served in the Missouri Militia infantry briefly on the Union side fighting off the invasion of Confederate General Pearce in 1864.

Our family lore had my grandfather's grandfather on my paternal side married to a Native American. That was the deal, and we always believed that. Until I took that DNA test, that is, then I no longer believed it. But the woman in question was named Cassandra, and her grandfather had fought with the Virginia militia in the War of 1812. Now, assuming that either he or her father had married a Native American woman between 1800 and 1825 isn't all that far fetched.

Consider the Cherokee. They lived in an area that encompassed large parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia and were quite a large tribe. In 1838, they were forcibly relocated to the Nations in what is now eastern Oklahoma. Many died, but they were called the 'civilized' tribe. In the Civil War, they generally took the Confederate side because they hated what the US government had done to them. In addition, around 10% of them were slaveholders themselves and so supported the continuation of slavery. So Stand Watie formed a cavalry regiment which fought in the guerilla actions throughout Missouri, Arkansas and northern Texas. Many Cherokee cross-married.

My family, which had somehow come to Missouri from New York via Tennessee, always thought that Cassandra was at least part Cherokee. But, alas, this was not to be.

As to Elizabeth Warren, like me she thought the same thing. Only in her case it was true six to ten generations back.