A man who put his DNA profile in an internet search engine was stunned to discover he is a chief of an American Indian tribe.
Chris McDonald-Constable, of Clayton-le-Moors, has been told that his great great grandfather was chief of the Chippewa tribe in Wisconsin in the USA.
Chris is now classed as a tribal elder and has even been bestowed with a Native American name – Waa Ban-Noodin which means ‘The Wind from the East.’
Chris, 67, posted his DNA profile on an ancestry website in an attempt to trace his birth father. His mother, who passed away in 1978, always told him that he died during the Second World War – but would reveal nothing more.
To his astonishment, Chris found a match for his DNA with Stuart Ackley who was also researching his genealogy from his home in Palm Springs, California.
Neither could understand how they could be related – until Chris dug out a set of old war photos from his mother’s drawer. He didn’t recognise any of the soldiers but decided to send them to Stuart just in case.
Unbelievably, Stuart and his family instantly identified their uncle, Mel McDonald.
Mel was Chris’s father and the two are in fact cousins.
Chris said: “I was shocked to put it mildly. The biggest thing was knowing that now I belong to somebody. To find out I was a native chief was fantastic.”
His wife Gillian delivered the news after receiving an email from Stuart: “I had to keep reading it again and again to understand what they were saying. Then I just burst into tears – it was the end of a long search for Chris.”
Since then there has been a flurry of emails between the two families as memories began to make sense and pieces of the jigsaw came together.
Stuart gave Chris his Native American name ‘The Wind from the East’ in reference to their long-distance phone calls. He is set to visit Chris for the first time later this month.
There are only 641 descedants of the Chippewa tribe and Chris qualifies as a tribal elder because he is among the eldest of the surviving members.
Chief Willard Ackley was Chris’s first cousin twice removed. He was chief of the Sokaogon Band of Chippewa Indians from 1929 to 1969.
It was through his efforts and negotiations with the US Government that the tribe was given Reservation Lands in northern Wisconsin.
Stuart said: “I was really hoping that Chris was my brother, because I always wanted an older brother.
“Besides, when I was a child and whenever there was a World War Two movie on television, my dad would always say that he was there. I have always been an Anglophile and am looking forward to seeing where my family came from during American colonial times. The bonus for me is to meet family living in the country.
“I’m bringing them an American flag and bags of wild rice, which was a food staple of our Native American ancestors.”
