Posted on 11/25/2025 5:35:19 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
An award-winning Canadian-American author whose career was tied to his apparent indigenous ancestry has recently learned that he has no Cherokee roots.
Thomas King revealed the findings on Monday in an opinion piece published in the Globe and Mail newspaper.
The announcement follows a mid-November meeting with King and members of the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds, a US-based group dedicated to exposing people who falsely claim American Indian heritage.
The 82-year-old said he accepts the findings of a genealogist with the organisation but writes in the essay: "I feel as though I've been ripped in half."
"Not the Indian I had in mind. Not an Indian at all," King wrote.
King won the RBC Taylor prize for non-fiction for his book The Inconvenient Indian, in 2014, and the Stephen Leacock memorial medal for humour for his work Indians on Vacation, in 2020.
He said he never meant to intentionally mislead people, believing that he genuinely had Native American ancestry.
King said he grew up with a family story that his father's biological father - King's apparent paternal grandfather - was a man named Elvin Hunt, who was part Cherokee.
Still, King said he had long been followed by rumours about his ancestry.
"I knew who I was. Knew my family history. At the same time, I recognized that I wasn't a good Indian. I hadn't been raised on a reserve/reservation. I didn't speak Cherokee," he wrote.
The rumours, though mostly ignored, never fully disappeared, and this year he decided to make "a concerted effort to find their origin".
A friend referred him to the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds (Taaf). A genealogist working with the organisation failed to detect Cherokee ancestry anywhere in King's family lineage.
"Taaf suggested that I might want to offer up an apology for my life", King wrote, "but an apology..."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Why can’t he identify as anyone he wants?
ironically he actually does look like he has some indian in him
Well. that’s inconvenient.
He didn’t know the true identity of his own grandfather? More likely he knew he was a fraud the whole time.
But is he related to Ward Churchill or Buffy Sainte-Marie?
Sad I guess for the guy, but LOL. It’s too funny. Maybe we can hook him up with Liz Warren. They can “have me a beer.”
Seems like half the people I know tell stories of hearing that their great grandmother was an Indian princess.
Well, American Indians likely come from Northern Asian stock, with possibly some early European mixed in.
Ten thousand years ago, much of the north asian population likely resembled europeans.
A brother of a different mother of Buffey St Marie?
Lots of us have been told we have “Genuine Chero-Kee Indian Princess” in our background. I did research and the Genuine Indian Princess is actually an orphan from Chicago whose dad was from Italy and Mom from Berlin.
Now my Wife may have Cherokee as many of her aunts and uncles had Cherokee blood in them, her cousin who introduced us was half Cherokee and married a full blood.
There was a rumor that my mother’s side had an adopted Injun boy in the family tree. When my nephew got a “23 & Me”, there was no Injun, but 2% black. My guess is that part negro children, even up north, were said to be Injun to reduce stigma, but only a guess.
That guy was Sicilian, wasn’t he?
In the last years of her life, my mother told me that one of her grandfathers told her that his wife had been Jewish.
My brother, who has done all of the genealogy stuff, found out who she was. He contacted an ancestry oriented rabbi, who told him that I and my siblings and cousins on my mother’s side qualify as jewish, if we want to acknowledge that.
Would it be better if my great grandma had been an Indian princess? What would I get for being 1/8th whatever tribe?
He has high cheekbones though.
Where is faux-caw-hauntus when ya need her?
Once CNN is under new conservative management, get this guy, Granny Pocahontas Warren, and the dread-locked spray-tanned white gal who posed for years as a black professor onto a comedy show together about stolen Woke valor.
The three of them pulled the wool over wide awake Woke eyes for decades.
My third-great-grandfather fought in the Cherokee Wars in Tennessee. Imagine my disappointment when I found out my ancestors never oppressed Elizabeth Warren’s.
Not having oppressed this jamoke’s ancestor is in some ways an even more bitter pill to swallow. Sure, he’s wallowing in self pity! How about some consideration for me!
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