While the specifics about Sainte-Marie’s background varied as they appeared in articles and other materials over the years –The Fifth Estate found news clippings referring to her as Algonquin, Mi’kmaq and Cree – eventually her accepted (and authorized) biography was that she was born in 1941 on Cree land in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and removed from her birth family and adopted by a white American family, the Sainte-Maries, as part of a government policy known as the Sixties Scoop. Later, as a young adult, she reconnected with the Cree people and was adopted by descendants of Chief Piapot according to Cree ways.

But The Fifth Estate unearthed Sainte-Marie’s purported birth certificate, which states that she was born in 1941 in Stoneham, Mass., to Albert and Winifred Santamaria – her supposed adoptive parents, who are listed as white. Although a representative for Sainte-Marie told the program that adopted children in Massachusetts were commonly issued new birth certificates with their adoptive parents’ names, Leo traveled to Stoneham to verify Sainte-Marie’s documentation, which appears to have been filed at the time of her birth and not later.

“It doesn’t appear that she was adopted in any way, shape or form,” Stoneham town clerk Maria Sagarino told Leo.

[Wow. Didn’t see *that* one coming. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation report, neither did her native/First Nations supporters. Apparently her brother tried to warn PBS about her in 2011, and Sainte-Marie retaliated by threatening to publicly allege that her brother molested her. This is really ugly. — Ed]