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had some Seneca ancestry, Bertha Parker. She was an archaeologist and the daughter of Arthur C. Parker, a well respected anthropologist and archaeologist in NY State whose focus was his Seneca and broader Iroquois ancestry.

Arthur Parker's grandfather, Nicholson Parker, was Seneca. Nicholson married a white woman and their son, Frederick, also married a white woman. So, although Arthur grew up on Seneca territory with knowledge of the language, traditions, and customs, he was not a tribal member, since the Seneca are matrilineal. The Seneca nation formally adopted Arthur into a clan in order for him to have tribal membership due to the work that he did on behalf of the Seneca people.

That adopted membership, though, is only for the adopted individual and does not pass on to descendants. Therefore, Arthur Parker's daughter, Bertha Parker, was not a tribal member, but she did have some biological Seneca ancestry through her father and her great grandfather, Nicholson Parker. Nicholson Parker was descended from the Seneca religious leader Handsome Lake, who was half brother to Seneca Chief Cornplanter.

So, Iron Eyes Cody married a woman with some Native American ancestry and his wife's father (who already had some Seneca ancestry) had been adopted into the Seneca Nation. But Iron Eyes Cody was Italian Anerican, and was never adopted into any tribe, although he claimed at various times to be a member of various tribes.

(My grandmother was also a descendent of Handsome Lake and a distant cousin of Arthur Parker.)