Elizabeth Warren Registered 'High Cheekbones' Aunt as White

The death certificate of Elizabeth Warren's aunt Bess "Bea" Veneck, who famously told the Massachusetts Democrat that her grandfather's "high cheekbones" belied Warren's Cherokee heritage, identifies Veneck as "white" and not "Native American." Warren officially informed the state of Oklahoma of Veneck's death in 1999. William Jacobson reports:

So Aunt Bea was Indian, sharing the same ancestry as Warren, according to Warren, and that ancestry was such an important part of who Aunt Bea was that she told the story about the high cheekbones at least a thousand times.

Yet when Aunt Bea died, she was not identified as American Indian by the person who informed the State of Oklahoma about the death.  That “informant” was none other than Warren, and she identified Aunt Bea as “White,” even though the Certificate of Death listed American Indian as the first of several alternatives.