Yeah, no Indian princesses in my family history, just melancholic Danes and backwoods tavern-owners.

Catching up on Good Wife, and eating pie. Nom.

No princesses...could be a shaman. Although my grandfather said everybody said that, too.

I have one! Not a princess, but supposedly my ancestor was the first Frenchman to actually marry an Indian woman. Which is at least historically possible.

Had a very nice time shopping and lunching with my mom! Bought a couple of things and got some additional ideas, so that was good.

My great-great-grandfather went to live with a tribe. I don't know which one, because he abandoned my great-great-grandmother and their kids to do it, and the story that was passed down was her side of it.

Since my family didn't arrive here until the late 19th/early 20th century(and didn't tend to do interfaith marriage), no Indian princesses in my family tree.

There are stories of Native American ancestry in my family tree, but I've never done the research or the DNA testing to validate. Both sides of my family have roots in 1600s New England, though, so it's plausible.

Another thing that confuses--20 years ago in Canada it was mandatory pretty much (at the idealistic university level) to say First Nations over and above any other term for the more indigenous people. Not only do I not know if there's a similarly not-linked-to-America term for the US, I don't even know if it's still the right term to use in Canada.

I'm having a parallel conversation with my sister about the Cherokee tribe's resistance to accepting black people with documented Cherokee heritage. Similar "why can't we fucked over all get along?" sentiments there.

Mac and I are breaking for lunch. We have sold 2 bags of books, bought part of a gift, found 2 shirts on sale at Target while looking for holiday pjs, got 3 stocking stuffers, and looked 2 places for iTouch cases.

After lunch is Petco and old navy, then mall kiosks for the case. Probable stops at jcp also.

The preference I hear most often in research and personal experience is to use the actual nation (ie Pequot)—the broader terminology of American Indian vs. Native American seems to be based more on one's personal preference. I've not heard First Nations used often in my circles.

I'm in the can't-claim-a-drop corner with Sheryl -- my mom's side of the family got here earlier, but also did not do interfaith marriages until my grandfather met my grandmother (whose family also didn't do interfaith until she met him).

It's a weird and slippery thing -- my brothers and I are all dripping in white privilege, but go just three generations back, anywhere on the family tree, and not one of our ancestors would have been considered white by the USian cultural standards of their time (maybe, possibly, the Swiss goatherder girl, but I think she'd still be suspect on account of Papistry and poverty). But pop them in a time machine to now, and they'd all be considered so obviously white that it would look slightly insane to even suggest anything else.