Why do Many People think they are Cherokee or part Native American, when they are not?

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I never asked what tribe he was descended from, but he didn't have to shave and his face was 'shiny'.
There's so many different tribes, and they're all a little different from each other. I've no doubt that some don't grow facial hair at all. And I know some Navajos have Spanish or Mexican blood mixed in. They've told me that a lot of their women were raped when the Spaniards came, and later by Mexican soldiers before the Mexican-American war. There were some mixed race offspring from those times.

I find their culture absolutely fascinating. I ask a lot of questions about the old ways. When the great toilet paper shortage happened, I asked what the Navajos did to clean up before white people came along. I figured they might have some useful natural solution to the problem. Strangely, no one has been able to answer that yet. The best answer I got was, "I suppose they went downstream from the village and washed their a$$ in the creek!". I then said that I wouldn't want to live in the next village downstream. They laughed and said "**** 'em. If they don't like it they can move..." 😂
 
There's so many different tribes, and they're all a little different from each other. I've no doubt that some don't grow facial hair at all. And I know some Navajos have Spanish or Mexican blood mixed in. They've told me that a lot of their women were raped when the Spaniards came, and later by Mexican soldiers before the Mexican-American war. There were some mixed race offspring from those times.

I find their culture absolutely fascinating. I ask a lot of questions about the old ways. When the great toilet paper shortage happened, I asked what the Navajos did to clean up before white people came along. I figured they might have some useful natural solution to the problem. Strangely, no one has been able to answer that yet. The best answer I got was, "I suppose they went downstream from the village and washed their a$$ in the creek!". I then said that I wouldn't want to live in the next village downstream. They laughed and said "**** 'em. If they don't like it they can move..." 😂
From my understanding, there are Spanish people, Castilians, who are very fair. They can have blonde hair and blue eyes. These are the people who have remained fairly purely Castilian. It is my understanding that when they intermixed with Native Americans, they took on darker features, skin and hair. Someone told me this, and I have no idea how true this is.

I went to school with a woman whose parents were Cuban. She had very light skin, but jet black hair. She said that many people who went from Spain to Cuba didn't marry Native Americans, they stayed with Spanish people. The other thing about this woman was that she was loud! She said when Cubans get together, they are loud people.

Native Americans, in my experience, are quiet and humble people. My experience is with Sioux of different Sioux tribes. Most of them no longer speak or even know their native language, except a word or two here or there.

I do not know if this is true for all Native people, but Sioux women do not really have a waist line. They are generally pretty straight. The other thing that I remember someone at college talking about is that Indians have big noses. My observation is that this can be true of people from a few Sioux tribes, but far from a generalization.
 
What I find sort of amusing with chasing ancestry is the numbers. 4 grandparents, 8 great, 16 great-great... then 32 then 64. In roughly 200 years of history most individuals are descended from about 64 people, could be more, could be less.

When someone says "I'm descended from... in the 1600's" it really means they are descended from 1000 to 2000 people. Another hundred years back and that could be 4-8000 people.

With that many ancestors in just a few hundred years it begs the question "which one of them peed in my gene pool"? There had to be a dud somewhere along the line. :rolleyes:
 
From my understanding, there are Spanish people, Castilians, who are very fair. They can have blonde hair and blue eyes. These are the people who have remained fairly purely Castilian. It is my understanding that when they intermixed with Native Americans, they took on darker features, skin and hair. Someone told me this, and I have no idea how true this is.

I went to school with a woman whose parents were Cuban. She had very light skin, but jet black hair. She said that many people who went from Spain to Cuba didn't marry Native Americans, they stayed with Spanish people. The other thing about this woman was that she was loud! She said when Cubans get together, they are loud people.

Native Americans, in my experience, are quiet and humble people. My experience is with Sioux of different Sioux tribes. Most of them no longer speak or even know their native language, except a word or two here or there.

I do not know if this is true for all Native people, but Sioux women do not really have a waist line. They are generally pretty straight. The other thing that I remember someone at college talking about is that Indians have big noses. My observation is that this can be true of people from a few Sioux tribes, but far from a generalization.
Most of my experience is with Navajo and Quechan people. I can't tell you how I would know a guy is Navajo by looking at him, but I can usually tell. Not always though. But they tend to have round faces and high cheekbones.

In my experience the Navajos are very loud people. You can't keep them off the radio channel at work. They love to play tricks on the "bella gonna". (That's Navajo for "white guy".) I learned pretty quick that you never trust a Navajo to translate Navajo language into English for you. They will tell you bad words and then laugh at you when you try to use it in a conversation.

They also live in the moment. They don't worry much about tomorrow. "Eat, drink, and be merry" might as well be their motto.
 
What I find sort of amusing with chasing ancestry is the numbers. 4 grandparents, 8 great, 16 great-great... then 32 then 64. In roughly 200 years of history most individuals are descended from about 64 people, could be more, could be less.

When someone says "I'm descended from... in the 1600's" it really means they are descended from 1000 to 2000 people. Another hundred years back and that could be 4-8000 people.

With that many ancestors in just a few hundred years it begs the question "which one of them peed in my gene pool"? There had to be a dud somewhere along the line. :rolleyes:
I read somewhere that for Northern Europeans, if you go back X number of generations, you will have a common ancestor with every other Northern European person. It's actually not that many generations back. I guess it's partly due to the population bottleneck caused by the Black Death. I've also read that nearly every Northern European living today is descended from Charlemagne. He had a lot of illegitimate children and over the centuries they spread all across Europe.
 
I read somewhere that for Northern Europeans, if you go back X number of generations, you will have a common ancestor with every other Northern European person. It's actually not that many generations back.

It's not hard to imagine. The rough numbers for 2000 years are between 500,000 and 1,000,000 ancestors who could have come from every walk of life and every continent but Antarctica.
 
This is true of some Asians as well.
Of course it is - because the ancestors of the Amerinds were Asian. The "native American" label is a construct, simply because no version of Homo sapiens sapiens has become Homo sapiens sapiens on the land masses in what we call the Americas.

If we are going to use the term "native" beyond it's literal meaning, we should at least note it on the way by.

I am "native' American, because I was born in one of the United States of America. One of my friends was born in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. He too is a native American.

That's "going by the basics" in the humanist fashion.
 
Of course it is - because the ancestors of the Amerinds were Asian. The "native American" label is a construct, simply because no version of Homo sapiens sapiens has become Homo sapiens sapiens on the land masses in what we call the Americas.

If we are going to use the term "native" beyond it's literal meaning, we should at least note it on the way by.

I am "native' American, because I was born in one of the United States of America. One of my friends was born in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. He too is a native American.

That's "going by the basics" in the humanist fashion.
So if "naive" shares the root for "nativity" it has something to do with birthplace?

Having been born in Munich I wouldn't be native American

Ben
 
My family got to the USA in time to fight the revolutionary war. I know that there were a few who fought. I know the my family fought in the war of northern aggression ... on both sides. they fought in every war including the Vietnam war. My dad was army air corp in WWII.
My older brother and two younger brothers were army and marine. I don't believe anyone fought in the middle east or Afghanistan.

No indian blood that I am aware of.
 
My wife and son are both card carrying members of the Cherokee nation. It took nearly 5 years for them inducted into the nation and my wifes Great Grandfather was a full bloodied numbered Cherokee. I haven't seen any benefit to going through all of the paper work and time it takes to join but my wife really wanted to do it.
 
Free college comes to mind...
 
Free college comes to mind...

He has a college fund in place.

72E29A5C-6EFB-4A95-AAE3-1C2DD5F7D9B9.jpeg
 
Weedygarden, I have some of the hardest time reading the older handwriting-- especially if it is partially faded. I'm still trying to decipher the surname of an ancestor. I'll have to find it again and post it to see if anyone can figure out what it says for sure. Can't tell if the first letter is an F, an S, or an L.

I do find it amusing that an ancestor of mine named Uriah was listed as Ugh in a census. I did like the details of 13-yr-old ancestors being box makers and having careers.
 
Weedygarden, I have some of the hardest time reading the older handwriting-- especially if it is partially faded. I'm still trying to decipher the surname of an ancestor. I'll have to find it again and post it to see if anyone can figure out what it says for sure. Can't tell if the first letter is an F, an S, or an L.

I do find it amusing that an ancestor of mine named Uriah was listed as Ugh in a census. I did like the details of 13-yr-old ancestors being box makers and having careers.
This is part of my great grandmother's birth record. It is a Czech record. This is a little easier to read than some records I've found. The thing about these old records is that there are people out there in various groups who will help. On Facebook. Not everything on FB is crazy. There is a Czech genealogy group on Facebook. It is run by professional Czech genealogists. I shared a photo of my grandmother's headstone and asked if they could help me find her birth records. It didn't take long and one of them found it and shared it with me.
Marie Kucera's birth record.jpg
They helped me understand how these records are laid out. They helped me understand what this record says. I have since found many challenging records, just by flipping through digital pages of records, looking at house numbers and last names.
 
I haven't found any of the records of my ancestors from before they came to the US. It would be interesting to find records from Transylvania for my mom's side & Scotland & Ireland for my dad's side. According to the records when they arrived, my dad's side were literate when they arrived, which wasn't very common back then.
This was the name of an ancestor's mother listed on his death certificate. His name was Albert Wilde but I can't for the life of me make out the surname for the mother. Is it Sackil? Lackil? Luckil?
AlbertWildeDeathcertmothername.png
 
I haven't found any of the records of my ancestors from before they came to the US. It would be interesting to find records from Transylvania for my mom's side & Scotland & Ireland for my dad's side. According to the records when they arrived, my dad's side were literate when they arrived, which wasn't very common back then.
This was the name of an ancestor's mother listed on his death certificate. His name was Albert Wilde but I can't for the life of me make out the surname for the mother. Is it Sackil? Lackil? Luckil?
View attachment 62815
"F" and "S" looked similar in old text. Newton wrote a book comparing Daniel an The Revelation and reading a reprint was a bit of a challenge.

See below

Newton-1733-001.jpg


Ben
 
I haven't found any of the records of my ancestors from before they came to the US. It would be interesting to find records from Transylvania for my mom's side & Scotland & Ireland for my dad's side. According to the records when they arrived, my dad's side were literate when they arrived, which wasn't very common back then.
This was the name of an ancestor's mother listed on his death certificate. His name was Albert Wilde but I can't for the life of me make out the surname for the mother. Is it Sackil? Lackil? Luckil?
View attachment 62815
MANY of the records are online now. Family Search is one place where you may be able to find records. I didn't have such good luck on Family Search. I know that there are genealogy groups for many countries on Facebook and other places. It is a matter of doing the search for them. It is the crazy people get kicked out of the groups.

And there are lots of people who are willing to help when you find the right group. Search for Transylvania in Facebook and see what comes up for you. Also, as an internet search.
 
I am 12.5% "SHELBY" Indian. Shelby, New York is mid way between Rochester and Buffalo, NY. Very near Medina, New York.
 
I haven't found any of the records of my ancestors from before they came to the US. It would be interesting to find records from Transylvania for my mom's side & Scotland & Ireland for my dad's side. According to the records when they arrived, my dad's side were literate when they arrived, which wasn't very common back then.
This was the name of an ancestor's mother listed on his death certificate. His name was Albert Wilde but I can't for the life of me make out the surname for the mother. Is it Sackil? Lackil? Luckil?
View attachment 62815
https://romaniangenealogy.com/
I believe Transylvania is located in the country currently called Romania.
 
Claiming Native American ancestry, especially the Indian Princess grandmother is a very popular story. To be a member of any Eastern tribe you must be able to trace back to the Dawes rolls. Unless the tribe has internal records.

Even being a member doesn't prove percentage of Indian "blood". The Cherokee adopted many people including their slaves at the end of the Civil War. John Ross, the Chief of the relocated Cherokee was only 1/8 Cherokee.

I have a Dawes roll entry to backup my claim.
 
Claiming Native American ancestry, especially the Indian Princess grandmother is a very popular story. To be a member of any Eastern tribe you must be able to trace back to the Dawes rolls. Unless the tribe has internal records.

Even being a member doesn't prove percentage of Indian "blood". The Cherokee adopted many people including their slaves at the end of the Civil War. John Ross, the Chief of the relocated Cherokee was only 1/8 Cherokee.

I have a Dawes roll entry to backup my claim.
I know a man who decided he liked Native Americans and he found out he could become a card carrying member of the Cherokees by applying. He does not have one drop of Native American blood. He applied, and he now has a card that says he is a member of the Cherokee tribe.
 
I know a man who decided he liked Native Americans and he found out he could become a card carrying member of the Cherokees by applying. He does not have one drop of Native American blood. He applied, and he now has a card that says he is a member of the Cherokee tribe.

I'm not sure how he could have managed that. To join the Cherokee Nation you have to prove direct descent from someone on the Dawes Roll. I'm only 1/16th but have ancestors on the Dawes Roll so I could join. If I decided to do that, it would just be to have documentation for my children. When you submit your application, it has a place to put the Dawes registration # of your ancestor(s) and the application will not be accepted without that number.

Cherokee Nation Tribal Registration
The basic criteria for CDIB/Cherokee Nation tribal citizenship is that an application must be submitted along with documents that directly connect a person to an enrolled lineal ancestor who is listed on the “Dawes Roll” Final Rolls of Citizens and Freedman of the Five Civilized Tribes.
 
I know a man who decided he liked Native Americans and he found out he could become a card carrying member of the Cherokees by applying. He does not have one drop of Native American blood. He applied, and he now has a card that says he is a member of the Cherokee tribe.

You don't get in without a numbered ancestor and the process took 3 years to complete.
 
There is a push from California Indian Tribes to get folks to confirm they are at least 5% American Indian. If so, they will get you free College, and a portion of the casino's money stream.

Would that mean also they are 95% non American Indian? I look total paleface but that could just mean I'm mostly Scandinavian Celtic mix AKA as Gailic or German with no telling what else is thrown in.:huh::dunno:. The American Indian came from Asian before The Eurasian Stepps melted.There is also proof that there were Vikings here but who came first is a matter up for debate.Or thats what I remember is my studies on American History.Indians like the rest of us are mixed with all kinds of peoples.I think the Chinese are the purest bloodline of earth now,not sure.
 
Do you know that the founders used some of the American Indian form of government?Some tribes were close to the republican system with democracy and capitalism type laws.
 
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