Hello all, my name is Richard Vaughn Black Elk. My name comes from the Black River/Swan Creek band of the Ojibwe in Saginaw, Michigan. I was adopted at 6 months of age by the Vaughn family in Jackson, Michigan. I did not know about my native heritage until about 2002. Up until then I had not been interested in a bio father that probably didn't even know I existed. It wasn't until I went to the Saginaw Chippewa tribe in Mt. Pleasant, Mi that I found out that my relation did know about me. They had lost track of me when I went to the state and was adopted out. According to the census starting in the 1860's, my family has been know as the Black Elk and the Elk. According to a cousin in Mt. Pleasant, some have went with one name, others with the other. I have documents from Isabella county, Mi where in my GGF is referred to as Black Elk. I choose to have my name legally changed in 2005 from Vaughn to Black Elk. I kept the Vaughn name as a middle name to honor the people that raised me as one of their own.
