Jacqui Lambie has blamed a "tribal war" for a dispute over her Indigenous heritage, and warned an Aboriginal elder who challenged her claim to "watch your step with me".

The outspoken Palmer United Party Senator claimed in her maiden speech last week that she was related to, if not descended from, a prominent Aboriginal resistance leader of north-eastern Tasmania.

Senator Lambie told the Senate her Indigenous heritage could be traced through her mother, Sue Lambie's, family.

"We trace our history over six generations to celebrated Aboriginal chieftain of the Tasmania east coast, Mannalargenna," she said.

The claim is being disputed by Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chairman and acknowledged direct descendant of Mannalargenna, Clyde Mansell, and challenged by Tasmanian archival records.

He branded the claims "absolutely outrageous and scandalous".

"I'm a 65-year-old man and I've lived all my life being Aboriginal, and for the greatest part of my life, I've done activities that allowed me to be looking at family trees of lots and lots of people, so it astounds me that Jacqui Lambie would make this claim," Mr Mansell said.

"That's my family. And she's not part of it."

This morning Senator Lambie said her Indigenous grandfather had died, but "it comes from his side and that has been going many, many years".

"I'm very aware of my Indigenous heritage which is the Mannalargenna and I know who's throwing the sticks and stones down there and I'm not impressed," she said.

"I'll be very honest about that when it comes to Mansell's group.

"This has been going on, it's a tribal war I will say in Tasmania when it comes to Mansell's group and the rest of us and I would just say to Mansell, 'I suggest you watch your step with me'.

"When it comes to my side of the Indigenous heritage, we've certainly been around for hundreds of years and Mannalargenna has been in Tasmania for as long as any other Indigenous group down there and I'm very proud of that."

Archival records do not support Lambie's family tree

However, an investigation by Australian Story reveals Senator Lambie's claims are not supported by Tasmanian archival records.

A family tree released by Senator Lambie indicates a lineage from one of Mannalargenna's granddaughters, Margaret (also known as Mary), who was the offspring of Mannalargenna's daughter Worretermoeteyenner and a sealer, George Briggs, who had abducted her.

But that is where things become complicated.

This key ancestor in Senator Lambie's family tree, Margaret Briggs, is said to have married a Thomas Hite, with the rest of the family emanating from them.

But there is no trace of a Thomas Hite in records held by the Tasmanian Pioneer Index that show Margaret Briggs died in 1839, aged 22, with no mention of a spouse or offspring, all of which is consistent with a detailed Briggs family genealogy.

This is supported by research supplied to the ABC by the Library of Tasmania's information and research service this morning.

Senator Lambie's family tree, however, says Margaret Briggs married a Thomas Hite and had two children - one a daughter, Ann, who married William Aylett, and that this is the branch of the family from which the Lambies are descended.

The documents provided to Australian Story include the findings of a 2002 Administrative Appeals Tribunal dispute relating to rights to participate in an ATSIC election.

Claimants gave evidence that a pardoned convict, Samuel Hite, married another former convict, Mary Ann Pendrill, and that Samuel had a brother, Thomas Hite, who came to Tasmania as a sealer-sailor and took up with an Aboriginal woman.

This pairing is said to have resulted in a daughter, Ann, born in 1837, who was taken in by Samuel Hite and his wife Mary Ann and recorded as their own.

Ann went on to marry a William Aylett, and evidence was given that both are buried in the Jenner Cemetery at Wynyard, with Ann in the Aboriginal section and William in the white section.

On this basis, the tribunal found that the claimants were "the descendants of Thomas Hite and an Aboriginal woman".

However, there remains the question of Ann Hite's parentage and any evidence to link her to Margaret Briggs or her grandfather Mannalargenna.

Analysis by Library of Tasmania's information and research service concluded: "It is not possible for our office to provide any evidence for the Hite family claim to a link to the Briggs family."

Heather Sculthorpe, chief executive of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, said Senator Lambie's maiden speech was the first time she had heard any suggestion that the senator had an Indigenous heritage.

Elder stands by criticism

Mr Mansell has stood by his remarks and said people falsely making claims to Indigenous heritage had impacts on "our ownership of our identity".

"Look, Jacqui Lambie has stood up in the national parliament and made a claim to be Aboriginal. It strikes me that she says she is from the same family structures that I'm from, and I've never heard of her before," he said.

"In relation to people making these claims it impacts on our rights, our ownership of our identity.

"Over the last few years we've had a lot of people claiming to be Aboriginal and in fact not being Aboriginal.

"They're using the same sorts of family trees that I understand Jacqui Lambie is using, so at some stage she's got to be questioned.

"My family tree has no connections to the names that she's been putting up that gives her Aboriginality."

Who was Mannalargenna?

Mannalargenna was an elder of the Plangermaireener nation in the Ben Lomond area of north-eastern Tasmania, who led attacks against the British invasion of his lands.

Aboriginal leader Mannalargenna. ( ourtasmania.webs.com )

In 1829, he rescued four Aboriginal women and a boy who had been captured by John Batman, notorious for enlisting "roving parties" of Aborigines from Sydney to help subdue the Aborigines in Mannalargenna's country.

A year later, Mannalargenna joined up with George Augustus Robinson's so-called friendly mission to try to quell hostilities between Aborigines and the white settlers.

His decision was made on a commitment from governor George Arthur that Aborigines would be protected and could continue to live in a traditional way on their own lands if hostilities ceased.

It appears he acted as something of a double agent by leading Robinson around in circles away from the Aboriginal people.

Robinson took him away from Tasmania to the Aboriginal settlement at Wybalenna on Flinders Island in 1835.

He died in captivity shortly after of pleural emphysema pneumonia.

Lambie backs welfare card for disadvantaged Indigenous people

Today Senator Lambie also urged the Federal Government to get behind a controversial plan put forward by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest to end Indigenous disadvantage.

Under the plan, a so-called "healthy welfare" card would be introduced to prevent anyone on welfare from using the money for gambling, cigarettes or alcohol.

Senator Lambie said she wanted to use her Indigenous background and life experience to get behind Mr Forrest's plan.

"It's got to a critical point now with the Indigenous people, and it's about time we stepped in and we gave them a helping hand," she said.

"And that's the only way to do it. Leaving this in the 'too hard' basket is no longer an option, and failure's no longer an option either."