Most of these fakes (especially the Native American wannabees) start out by hearing some family tradition as a child along the lines of, “Well, I was told as a child that your great-great grandmother may have been 1/4 (or whatever) Cherokee. We really don’t know much about her.” Eventually, these folks (without any real proof) take it as a fact, expand upon it, and eventually claim it as a right, some (like these women) using it to their monetary benefit. When they are finally called on it, the whole false edifice crumbles.
“Most of these fakes (especially the Native American wannabees) start out by hearing some family tradition as a child along the lines of, “Well, I was told as a child that your great-great grandmother may have been 1/4 (or whatever) Cherokee. We really don’t know much about her.” Eventually, these folks (without any real proof) take it as a fact, expand upon it”
That is my wife’s family situation. Great-Great-Grandfather had 1st wife die in childbirth (baby lived). He then married very quickly a Native American woman, they had no children. She was in early photos holding the child people assumed she was the mother and descendants of that child were part Native American. Truth was not discovered until a family member got into genealogy research as a hobby. It was an understandable mistake.