the great Pottawatomie and other heritage fiascos

Grandpa Bob liked to explain that the high bridge on his nose - he claimed it was a bump - was a result of an ancient Indian (native american) lineage. He told us grandkids that he was related to the great Pottawatomie Indian tribe of Illinois. The Pottawatomie really were in Illinios a long time ago (I once lived near Pottawatomie Park in Chicago), but no one has been able to prove Bob's claim to an indigenous heritage. Well, most of the adults laughed about the story, anyway, but I don't thing folks realized how much the grandkids believed it. One day, Bob's grandaughter Amy was called into the principal's office at her gradeschool because she had marked 'native american' on a school form. Amy is a very light skinned red-head, about as far from indian looking as one can get, and when her teacher contested her claims to native ethnicity, she insisted that she was part Pattawatomie until her folks came down and sorted it out, explaining that her gramps had been telling her about her indigenous nose for years. Grandpa had to cool it on the Pattawatomie stories for a while, but they came back full force a few years later. (Personally, I think Bob bears some resemblance to the Pottawatomie chief pictured above.)

Bob has a bit more conceiveable of a claim to an Irish heritage, given that his great great (great?) grandmother came on a boat from County Galway long ago. When I was in graduate school I tried to turn that heritage into cold hard cash. A friend of mine had received a scholarship for a couple thousand from the Daughters of the American Revolution. All you had to do was prove you had someone fighting against the English and you could get funding from DAR. I phoned grandma and grandpa, remembering that we had folks coming over here and back even before they settled from Ireland - I thought surely they might have fought alongside their American rebel friends. Well it turned out we did have some of grandpa's relatives over here fighting -- however, they fought for the English - the wrong side. It wasn't exactly the romantic irish rebel heritage we had told ourselves about, and DAR respectfully declined my application for funds. Later I did travel to Ireland (Dot and Bob travelled there in the 80s as well), and visited Galway, from where our turncoat relatives might have sailed long ago.