Ann Coulter's Immigrant Ancestors

In a recent appearance on The View to promote her latest book, Ann Coulter reiterated her well-known anti-immigrant stance. Guest host Ana Navarro responded, saying, "Let me point out that you're sitting at this table next to two immigrants ... What is your family's immigration story? Are you a Native American?"

Coulter's reply was curious: "Yes, I am. I'm a settler. I'm descended from settlers. Not from immigrants ... I'm not living in the Cherokee Nation. I'm living in America, which was created by settlers, not immigrants."

Every school child knows that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and genealogists in particular are hyper-aware of this reality since we routinely trace our family trees back to those who came to America from the "old country," so Coulter's peculiar logic and word play provoked my own curiosity about her heritage. I decided to take a peek into her past, starting with her parents. 

The obituary she wrote in tribute to her mother, Nell Husbands (Martin) Coulter, revealed that the maternal half of her family history is well known and extends back to colonial times, so I opted to explore the unknown - her father's side of the family. 

My research got off to an unexpected start when one of the first documents I consulted - the 1940 census - recorded Coulter's father and grandparents as African American. If you look below in between the columns that note gender and age, you'll see "Neg" (census instructions that year specified this abbreviation for "Negro") for all four family members. ...