The Boston Globe ran a correction in Tuesday’s paper admitting an error in its reporting of Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry in a May 1 article titled “Document ties Warren kin to Cherokees,” saying they have no proof that the Democrat is part Cherokee as she has claimed.
The conservative website Breitbart.com highlighted the correction in a Tuesday article, saying the Globe had “buried” the correction in its “For the Record” section.
According to the Globe, the New England Historic Genealogical Society cited a contemporary document suggesting a distant relative, O.C. Sarah Smith, had been listed as a Cherokee in an application for a marriage license. This potentially would make Mrs. Warren 1/32 Cherokee.
The genealogical society, however, does not have the original document. The Globe says it has been unable to contact the author of the claim, Lynda Smith, who cited it in a family newsletter.
Tom Champoux, marketing director for the society, told the Globe that his group has stopped looking into the matter because it doesn’t want any further involvement in a political controversy.
“We didn’t claim we had [the document]. We claimed that we found a reference from family research that indicated they believed their family was Cherokee,” he told the Globe.
Sen. Scott Brown, the Republican seeking to retain his seat, has used the question of Mrs. Warren’s Cherokee ancestry claim to question her credentials and her willingness to be truthful.
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