If someone is 7/8 Cherokee, what does this mean ?

Question

I was looking at the 1924 Baker roll,

566 Crowe John M 4 7/8 Son Cherokee NC

579 Crowe John M 9 5/8 Son Cherokee NC

One of these two men is my biological grandfather.

If one is 7/8 cherokee, what am I?

If the other is 5/8 cherokee, what am I?

(Like, an eighth? a sixteenth cherokee? please help !

thanks !!)

Answer 1

That means they are more than a half of cherokee.

Answer 2

you have 8 greatgrandparents so 7 out of the 8 were Cherokee.

Answer 3

7/8ths means that 7 of his 8 greatgrandparents were full blooded.

5/8ths is a litle trickier. It could mean 5 of his 8 ggps, as above. It could be his mom or dad was full and his other parent was 1/8th on each side.

Assuming whichever one it your bio GF married someone who had no Cherokee at all, and his son your dad did too, you would be 1/4th of Mr. Crowe, making you 7/32nds or 5/32nds Cherokee. Your dad would be 7 or 5 16ths.

Answer 4

i could be wrong, but i believe the "Cherokee" in this census is referring to the city of Cherokee, NC; as far as the 7/8 and 5/8 i believe that means that one John was age 4 and the 7th of 8 children;  the older John was age 9 and the 5th of 8 children  (people commonly used the same names over and over in the families back then, sometimes with a different middle name, that's why genealogy gets so confusing)

Answer 5

(Assuming that  you have no other source of Cherokee ancestry.)

Case 1.  One of your grandparents was 7/8 Cherokee.   You have 3 other grandparents.   You then are 7/(8*4) = 7/32 Cherokee.   So not quite 1/4 Cherokee.



Case 2.  One of your grandparents was 5/8 Cherokee.  You are then 5/(8*4) = 5/32 Cherokee or slightly more than 1/8 Cherokee.