Cherokee Heritage?

Question

I was wondering how you might find out if you have any living Cherokee relatives. on my father side his grandmother on his mothers side was have Cherokee and on his father side his grandfather was either half or full Cherokee. any way to find out more information i have names to if that will increase my chances of finding a Cherokee relative

Answer 1

Names are absolutely critical to finding your ancestry. Start with those, and do some normal tracing, using records such as birth/ death certificates, census records, so forth. In the late 1800s/ early 1900s, there were a number of lists concerning Cherokee/ Native Americans.  The best known is the Dawes Rolls (there were others). Persons on this list had to prove (to the satisfaction of the standards) that they were Cherokee, and thus entitled to benefits.  You can search this info.. but you need names, and you need to know exactly what your connection to them is.

http://rwguide.rootsweb.com/

Here is one tutorial for how to find your ancestry, Native or not. I also suggest www.cyndislist.com as an excellent starting place.

A few things to keep in mind.. the BEST thing to do is to find your ancestors, without preconceived thinking re Cherokee/ not Cherokee. It is well known that Native ancestry is the "hot" thing to have, as well as many persons were told they had Native background when they actually did NOT. That does not mean you don't.. it means, have a healthy open mind and skepticism until you find some evidence in records.  Also.. the opposite can be true. All Cherokees will not appear on the Dawes Rolls. Many will have intermarried with non Native families, and considered themselves not Native anymore. Others wanted nothing to do with what they considered govt. handouts, and never enrolled.

Also.. if you DO prove your Native background, this does not mean you are entitled to enroll as a tribal member. Many tribes today are overwhelmed by persons whose only interest now, is getting money/benefits. For obvious reasons, that's pretty tacky.

What you can find is your own ancestry. It is not focused so much on living relatives.

Answer 2

Poke around on cherokee.org, too. They have a whole section devoted to heritage and genealogy. Some scum bucket bought cherokee.COM and uses it for p**n, so be careful. You want the org, not the com.