..told by Bobbie Jo, Great-Granddaughter of Pearl & Stanley
..June 2024
Many family members are curious about our Native American roots. Dawnstar, pictured here in her later years (she died at the age of 46), is Pearl’s Maternal Grandmother. She met her husband, Amos, when her father worked on her husband’s father’s farm. She was named Dawnstar by her father who saw one last star in the sky as dawn broke. We have some journal entries from her father, Greyhorn, which are below. Unfortunately, as was common for the times, both families virtually ostracized the couple when they married. They didn’t let this stop them though and went on to have many children, who gave them many, many grandchildren.
I was so intrigued by a love that was so strong that they were willing to forge into the wilderness, after a brutal civil war, with no help from either of their families, during a time when families were the heart, soul, and life of brutal, unsettled land. She must have been an incredibly strong woman with a lot of determination, independence, and love. I decided long ago that if I ever had a daughter, I would name her Dawnstar in the hopes that she would embody those same traits. Life saw fit to gift me with 2 sons. You’ll be happy to hear I did not name either one of them Dawnstar.
As I was looking at her life and looking at this solitary picture that we have of her, I’m struck by the fact that she died at the age of 46. Looking at this picture, I had thought she was much older than that.
This story (that I got from my grandmother, Shelvie) has been put into question by results of a family member’s genealogy DNA test that doesn’t show any Native American DNA. Since my mother is a direct female descendent of Dawnstar (Dawnstar is Minnie’s mother, who is Mamie Pearl’s mother, who is Shelvie’s mother, who is Teresa’s mother, who is my mother-so my mother should have about a 6.25% Native American DNA), she agreed to take a test from Ancestry.com. We got the results back on July 11, 2024 and all her DNA comes back from Europe. I’ve done some research on this and I found that there’s many reasons that Native American DNA may not show up in these results. Here are a couple links to Ancestry.com’s site that help explain why this is may have happened. The randomness of ethnicity that gets passed down to each person is one of the biggest factors for this. For example, my mother may show 0% Native American markers, while her sister may show 10% Native American markers. And their brother may show 3% Native American markers. The 2nd largest factor would be the lack of Native American markers in any DNA database. We don’t exactly have a great history of treating our Native Americans with respect or kindness so there’s not many Native Americans willing to donate their DNA to any kind of database….
This article really does explain it very well. Especially towards the middle of the page.
Indigenous American / Native American DNA
If anyone is interested, here’s an article on how you can do research on Native American Ancestors. I have done some of this (not everything they suggest) and whatever I have found has been included in my Family Tree.
Greyhorn’s story (as told to Amos Gibson, Dawnstar’s husband)
Thomas Family 