Native American Ancestry

[twincheckers]

It looks like this part of the forum hasn't been very active lately but I'm going to give this a try anyway.

My dad's side of the family has Native American lineage. We've always been told it's Cherokee. It would be my great grandmother so probably mid-late 1800s.

I know that the Cherokee Nation requires one or more relative from x generations back to have been on the Dawes Rolls... and we don't know if our ancestor actually signed the Dawes Rolls because s/he left the reservation.

To complicate matters, my family has traced the ancestor to a reservation in TN... but there are no reservations in TN... and this one allegedly burnt down but I can't find anything that says it ever existed.

Anyone have any tips or tricks?

I'd love to be able be able to confirm Cherokee.... or any other tribe it might be for sure.

Thanks!

[joneshalcyonn]

Tracing back ancestors is an extremely arduous journey. Wish your family success!

[zuse]

This is a common family legend in the south. My family has it on at least one side and I've done DNA test and traced back the paperwork quite a few generations. There are always women ancestors that we have lost trace of maiden name (especially prior to 1850) so that makes things tricky.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/10/cherokee-blood-why-do-so-many-americans-believe-they-have-cherokee-ancestry.html

http://www.native-languages.org/princess.htm

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-cherokee-princess-myth-1421882

Read those articles. Obviously, there are many people that DO find they have a Native American ancestor. But don't have your heart broken if it isn't true. There's no harm in people wanting to make a claim in the end (lots of people make up a family tree that goes to Royalty or Jesus Christ, after all) but I guess the most important thing is what is your motive? Someone like Elizabeth Warren overstated hers and used it to progress her career in academia and that made her look bad. If you learn a lot about a culture in the process of your research, though, that's a good thing!