Newly uncovered documents posted on a blog show that two ancestors of Massachusetts U.S. Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren were listed on government forms as “white,” despite the Democratic candidate repeatedly saying that she comes from Native American heritage.

Cherokee genealogist Twila Barnes posted census data on her blog this weekend that she says shows that Warren’s mother, Pauline Herring, listed herself as “white” in 1940.

Barnes also posted a death certificate for Warren’s “Aunt Bea,” who was listed as “white” on the form. Elizabeth Warren’s name is listed on the death certificate.

The Democratic candidate once famously cited her Aunt Bea’s characteristically Native American “high cheekbones”as evidence of her American-Indian ancestry.

Warren has been embroiled in a controversy over her claimed heritage ever since it was revealed that the Harvard law professor once touted herself as an American Indian minority.

She has since struggled to prove this, and critics argue that she claimed that heritage to further her career.

Barnes’ revelation that Warren’s mother identified as “white” conflicts with a story she has told about her parents eloping over her mother’s heritage.

“In the 1930s, when my parents got married, these were hard issues,” Warren said. “My father’s family so objected to my mother’s Native American heritage that my mother told me they had to elope.”

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