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.

I've not heard First Nations used often in my circles.

I doubt it would be, unless you were talking about Canada, though. There is an official term intended to simplify things like laws, etc, that would be ill-served by listing 500+ individual tribes--First Nation + Metis + Inuit takes up a lot less space.

And sometimes that's what you mean. There is a semantic difference between Ojibwe and First Nation, and sometimes you are talking about the latter.

If I head to BBAB on my way home, I'll die screaming before reaching a cash register, won't I?

Maybe I'll just do groceries and call that enough.

Family lore is that my great-grandfather Finnacom was a land prospector in what is now West Virgina. After one of his trips(around 1883) he came back with an "Indian Princess" as the new housekeeper for him and his barren wife. Shortly thereafter she became pregnant, he divorced the wife and married the "Indian Princess"/maid. After 6 kids she took off with some other guy, leaving the 2 youngest kids (including my grandmother who was 2) in an orphanage. Seven years later their dad got them out. My grandmother's life was a total soap opera and she didn't like talking about her mom or early life, but the story is likely true (minus the "Princess" part.) The records of her are odd. On a 1910 census (the year after my grandmother was born and 1 year before the lady in question took off) her name was listed as Eugenia Scott Finnacom, age 35. But there's no birth certificate for her, no death certificate, and no record at all after she dissappeared. Plus, no one in the family knew her name...Eugenia is just per that 1910 census. All the relatives never referred to her by name and said they never talked to her because she didn't speak English.

One of the nicest things about being adopted as an infant with a sealed history is that I get to imagine what my genealogic background might be. I can be fierce, reckless Celt, or passionate Italian (H says my eyes are in all the Italian paintings of a certain era), lost Russian, German, French, whatever. I do know one thing though, if I claimed Native American lineage, it would be through my father's fathers. Everyone has Cherokee blood on their grandmother's side, like there were no Indian men. What's that about?

ETA: Isn't First Nations a strictly Canadian term? Although I prefer it to Native American, since the first nations on this continent were not actually native to it.

Girls were more likely to be abducted and/or raped than boys....

eta: and yes, First Nations is a Canadian term not used in the US

That's obviously true, erin. Though those family histories have the girl in question leaving her tribe and family for the white world in a haze of twoo wuv for her handsome "husband".

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

I loved what Jon Stewart did on that last week, with Bill O'Reilly bemoaning the death of "traditional America."

It was super interesting to discuss with my mom today some of the conversations we had yesterday with the conservative extended family. It was so good to be with just my mom! It's literally been years.

Heh, sounds like a lot of family revisionism...I'm pretty sure everyone in mom's family agrees that our progenitor was not at all happy with finding herself in Northern Va in some white guy's house. But she stuck around for over a decade.

Everyone has Cherokee blood on their grandmother's side, like there were no Indian men. What's that about?

Not many women came over alone, I would imagine is part of it.