If your maternal great grandmother was full Cherokee...

[Tallbald]

Reading an article on "I'm one of you" Liz Warren there on the American Thinker, I got to wondering. A beloved family member's great grandmother was a native Cherokee Indian. A child, I understand, of the Trail of Tears march. Orphaned and adopted by a "white" family after her parents died, she served basically as a "house and farm worker". She married into the "white"culture and gave birth to several children who went on to marry "white" from there on. This family member is as pale and gray/blue eyed as any Northern European descended person I've ever met. Some of her cousins have chosen to become tribal members and participate annually in ceremonial events. Some of her female cousins also have the characteristic long straight black hair and rich dark complexion, but not the woman in this question. Early this year, her great aunt died and received a Tribal funeral with medicine pouch, Native American accented dress etc. as well as her Christian service. Nobody in her family has ever sought special treatment in any form from our government because of their heritage, and she herself is a strong conservative Christian. Who identifies on forms like 4473's as "white".
Not knowing the math, is the above information enough to determine percentage Native American heritage? Simply as a curiosity. Genetics was NOT my strong suit in college.
Thanks in advance. Don

 

[k2nd]

She is 1/8 Cherokee. 12.5 percent.
k2nd

 

[bogus bill]

We all have two parents.
four grandparents
eight great grand parents
sixteen great, great grand parents
32 great, great, grand parents etc.
So if my great, grate, grand pappy was Indian
that would make me 1/32 Indian

 

[RSIno1]

If her ancestor is on the Dawes Rolls she can fill out the forms to join the Cherokee Tribe. There is a federal form in the packet where they determine % of Indian blood. Cherokee is one of the few tribes that accept any percentage for membership (some are as high as 25%). My wife's grandfather is listed on the Dawes Rolls as a child. We always thought he was Cherokee but he was actually Shawnee. The Dawes Rolls and files are online and I found in 1907 .gov said Shawnee were to be transferred into the Cherokee Tribe.
DNA doesn't work. There are not enough proven samples to trace down to the Tribal level. As the Warren mess showed they only proved she had 1:1072% Hispanic blood.

 

[BearBio]

Both of my great-grandmothers/fathers were Native American. Great grandfather was Cherokee and other Great grandfather was Chickasaw. Grandmother is registered with both tribes and on Dawes Roll. Lost birth certificates interrupt the lineage.

 

[5of7]

All of this is assuming that all of the spouses in the intervening generations were pure in their blood lines. This is itself very very doubtful. Genealogy makes for nice parlor conversation, but in actuality is quite meaningless. 8)

 

[Ale-8(1)]

We all have two parents.
four grandparents
eight great grand parents
sixteen great, great grand parents
32 great, great, grand parents etc.
So if my great, grate, grand pappy was Indian
that would make me 1/32 Indian

Guess I don't understand. Shouldn't it be 32 great, great, great grandparents?

:?

 

[bogus bill]

Look again. That's exactly what I wrote. Now the next generation up, great, great, great grandparents would number 64. Keeps doubling every prior generation.

 

[kramden]

Liberal wet dream .

 

[bogus bill]

No, a person would have 64 great, great, great grandparents.

 

[Ale-8(1)]

Look again. That's exactly what I wrote. Now the next generation up, great, great, great grandparents would number 64. Keeps doubling every prior generation.

No, you look again. It's NOT what you wrote.

If it doubles every generation, it has to be 32 great, great, great grandparents because it was 16 great, great grandparents.

And then 64 great, great, great, great grandparents.

:roll:

 

[protoolman]

Since you have: 4 Grandparents
Grandparents = 1/4
Great Grandparents=1/ 8
Great Great grandparents =1/16
Great Great Great =1/32
Great Great Great Great grandparents = 1/64

and so on..... This of course only works if great great great Grandpa was actually full Blooded Cherokee and not 1/4 French or something which has been pretty common since Europeans showed up in the Americas.

Elizabeth Warren was actually found to have less Native American heritage than the AVERAGE American. So that makes her pretty WHITE but then as stated very few if any of our ancestors we may identify as Native American were Full Blooded so to speak.

 

[blackhawknj]

If your maternal great grandmother was full Cherokee, but raised "white"-whatever that means....my paternal grandfather came here from Germany with his family when he was 9, was a Marine, yours truly grew up speaking English, my German III teacher in high school was a black lady-spoke better German than I ever did. We can't change our ancestry or racial origins but as Ayn Rand noted, it only defines a small part of us.

 

[pete44ru]

.

FWIW, everybody's lineage can eventually be traced back to Africa through DNA analysis - like it, or not.


.

 

[bogus bill]

What I don't get is full siblings or twins will show greater strength of genes maybe from one ancestors race while the other might show a stronger trace of genes or DNA than other siblings that might show none. My dad was the oldest of ten. Besides that he had seven older half brothers and sisters. Seemed to me most my old "half aunts" looked similar.
Dad and one of his brothers looked close except dad was blond and that brother was dark haired. When they both got old and gray you couldn't tell which was which if they were standing together with their backs to you as both were the same 6ft 5"s. They had two younger brothers that looked nothing like them. Those genes seem to hop around. Family said I, a uncle and a great uncle all looked close to the same yet I don't look much like my dad but noticed we had the same traits, outlook, values and mannerisms.

 

[Colonialgirl]

My Mom and my Aunt Dorothy looked so much alike that they could have been twins, But my mom was a couple of years older. I have looked at old Family pictures from my Dad's side of the family and have seen Great Uncles that look just like him.

 

[Number9]

Why is Native American about the only race you need to prove?
It's funny.. you don't see many white people claim to be part Negro...
but I have both in my blood line. Yes, I have brown eyes, dark hair(when younger) and high cheekbones... shoot a longbow and I like watermelon!

Many people in this area has Cherokee blood, it is the heart of the Cherokee Nation.
Red Clay State Historic Park is only a few miles from where I live. Red Clay is where the Trail of Tears really began, for it was at the Red Clay Council Grounds that the Cherokee learned that they had lost their mountains, streams and valleys... forever.

Eternal Flame of the Cherokee Nation

 

[Colonialgirl]

The Cherokees were also the First Tribe to have a Written language AND a Dictionary.

https://www.omniglot.com/writing/cherokee.htm

Cherokee syllabary
The Cherokee syllabary was invented by George Guess/Gist, a.k.a. Chief Sequoyah, of the Cherokee, and was developed between 1809 and 1824. At first Sequoyah experimented with a writing system based on logograms, but found this cumbersome and unsuitable for Cherokee. He later developed a syllabary which was originally cursive and hand-written, but it was too difficult and expensive to produce a printed version, so he devised a new version with symbols based on letters from the Latin alphabet and Western numerals.

By 1820 thousands of Cherokees had learnt the syllabary, and by 1830, 90% were literate in their own language. Books, religious texts, almanacs and newspapers were all published using the syllabary, which was widely used for over 100 years.

 

[blackhawknj]

Yes, no cachet to having German, Irish or Dutch ancestry, and having to prove your ancestry and bloodlines....a little like the Third Reich, no ?
IIRC the Cherokees have the Dawes Rolls to determine membership, if you don't have solid documentation linking you to someone on them...they don't take kindly to poseurs and pretend they ares.
Like Ayn Rand, I am more concerned with an individual's attitude and values than with his ancestry.

 

[blume357]

One of my Great Grandmothers was Native American.... technically I am 1/8th... but my DNA will more than likely not show that. Seems like this was discussed a while back and the reason is simple you do not get an even distribution of DNA from each of your parents ... it can vary.

Now for my thoughts... I now on forms when asked my race just say Native American. I'm 100% sure I was born here, that makes me a Native.