An author who identifies as Native American has been called out by a research group who claim she has “no genealogical connection” to any indigenous tribe.
Seattle-based Colby Wilkens, 31, claims she is a “white/Native and queer” writer of Choctaw and Cherokee descent on her website.
Her recently published debut “If I Stopped Haunting You” – part of a three-book deal for “sizzling” adventure-romance novels valued at as much as $249,000 – features an indigenous character who flirts with a female Native American writer at a haunted Scottish castle. Her next book is about hunting for lost Cherokee gold.
However, non-profit organization the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds (TAAF) claims Wilkens has no links to any indigenous peoples based upon researched by their genealogists into her family line, poring over documents of her ancestors going back ten generations.
“We found this person has no American Indian ancestry,” Lianna Costantino, co-founder and director of TAAF, and herself from the Cherokee clan, told The Post.
“There were multiple complaints about this person. Lots of people had suspected for some time.”
The TAAF alleges Wilkens made a mistake when compiling her family tree, centered around a man named William Henry Adams.
Wilkens had a great-great-great grandfather by this name, according to the genealogists who researched her case.
A William Henry Adams was also registered on the Cherokee Dawes Roll in 1898. The Dawes rolls list everyone who was accepted as eligible for tribal membership as a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw or Seminole native.
However, TAAF researchers believe there were two men with this name – one who was a white settler and one who was Indigenous.
“Though they had the same name, they were different people,” TAAF wrote on its website.
They claim their investigation shows Wilkens is related to the non-Indigenous William Henry Adams.
Wilkens previously wrote on X how she had an ancestor born in 1888.
According to TAAF’s investigation, this relative would have to be Jack Alford Adams, the son of William Henry Adams.
However, according to the Dawes Roll, the William Henry Adams who was a Cherokee would have been less than a year old in 1888, making it impossible for him to have fathered a child at that time.
On the Choctaw side of Wilkens’ claimed family tree, TAAF’s investigation found Wilkens’ great-great grandfather Jack Adams married Annie Lee Francis Taylor in 1909, in Stringtown, Oklahoma. That location is within the Choctaw Nation.
However, TAAF claim the records they have seen show Annie was born in Stephenville, Texas, a town located a long way from any reservation and with no connection to native people.
TAAF boss Costantino said “A lot of people are very upset,” with Wilkens’ claims of her heritage, adding TAAF “pushed” for their report, which concludes that Wilkens’ family were white settlers, to come out at the same time as her book.
On October 9, Wilkens posted on Instagram: “Today is Indigenous People’s Day! I’m so grateful that I get to tell stories with mixed Native MCs [main characters] and talk about identity and finding love.”
According to Costantino, TAAF tries to help people save face if they’ve made a mistake with their geneology. She says it is common for people to get caught up in a “family myth” passed down through generations about having native heritage, which few then go on to check.
But she explains people have a responsibility to do so, especially if they make it part of their “whole personality” or use their heritage as part of their career.
Several years ago, David Cornsilk, a professional genealogist and managing editor of the Cherokee Observer, commented on a Facebook post Wilkens made about her alleged Cherokee and Choctaw ancestry.
“Since you are making money marketing your writing as a Native American it seems you would want to find out for sure,” Cornsilk wrote.
“I would like to invite you to join our free research group and our team of genealogists and historians will find out the truth for you.
“You owe honesty and transparency to your readers, I hope you will take the high road in this matter.”
Costantino says falsely assuming native ancestry is a serious issue and if non-native people take the place of native writers it drowns out attention to genuine Native voices, which are already vastly underrepresented in modern culture.
“First they wanted to exterminate all of us, now they want to literally be us.
“When everyone is an Indian, nobody is an Indian. They’re literally erasing us by replacing us,” Costantino said.
Wilkens, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Post, grew up in the Pacific North West and studied criminology at Portland State University, according to her online profile.
She previously said in an interview with The Nerd Daily she has been writing novels since 2018, and had been shopping her debut novel for three years before landing a publishing deal.
Wilkens retweeted a post from Publishers Marketplace which stated she had landed a “good deal” with her publisher, usually classified as one valued up to $249,000.