[massgopguy]

Ben Nighthorse Campbell said that after Dances with Wolves it became fashionable turn turn family lore into Native American ancestry.

[katana]

Ben's right. Same thing happened in the 1970's after Little Big Man came out. That kind of thing goes back as far as the "Noble Savage" mythology of previous generations and even to the romantic statues of dying Gauls the Romans put up (sometime after Caesar finished wiping the real ones out and enslaving the survivors, of course).

In my case the family history was conveyed to all of us as soon as we could walk and was added to the accident-of-birth pridefulness that comes with an Irish surname like a toy in a Cracker Jack box.