"Im part Cherokee" ....one of the signs of the South.

not me...nothing at all Cherokee here (unless there is a long lost branch that made it to Lublin, Poland).

But how many times have I heard this when I lived in Kentucky. I hear it up here in SW Ohio too as there alot of folks from KY, WVA, and Tenn here.

For some reason the Cherokee sure where into marrying white folks because there seems to be an inordinate number of folks out there who say they have soime Cherokeee blood in them.

Frankly I dont believe it, and neither does the US census. The census says the number of folks who claim to be part Cherokee way ousrip those who claim to be part some other tribe. The census folks say this a statistical anomaly that bears further study. I'll bet it does!.

Id expect more folks to be part Choctaw, Creek, and Chicksaw as much as part Cherokee.

That is common, especially in KY, VA and TN. I have an ancestor who was a woman from Portugal. How she came to live in Mitchell Co., NC, in the year 1800, is a mystery. But she did, and some researchers say that she was Melungeon. Indeed, her granddaughter (my g-ggrandmother) was somewhat darkly complected (sic?), even though her grandfather was Swedish.

But so far as I know, Maria (from Port.) was accepted by the Scotch Irish and Swedish settlers back then, way up in the mountains.

2 of my ex's were Cherokee, never looked anywhere near native (and I doubted they were). But I have had many lover's that where Klingkot, Haida, Aleut, Nisaqally, Nez Pierce, and Makah! I knew they were native, I met them on the Reservations, Beautiful People. How! to Big Guy

And if he wasn't Cherokee, he sure as hell was one of the tribes. There was no mistaking him for being anything else but from a native-American background. Now was he a 100%? Probably not. I think his mother was from an English background. But he'd sure as heck would have been able to rightfully call himself one, which he did.

Two in fact. They were both "married" (my guess kidnapped/stolen since that part of the family also had slaves...) into my family in the 1830's/1840's and gave birth to somewhere around ten children.

Not something I'm all that proud of either.

Lublin?! I spent 5 years in Krakow (Up to 2000)!

Ever been there? It's a blast.

EDIT: Just so you know, it's not something that I talk about very often. I don't sya things like,"Yep. We're 1/64th Cherokee we are.".

because I keep on meeting their great-grandchildren :eyes:.

My wife is on the Warpath 24/7!

The people in WV and northern KY would be more likely to be part Shawnee! The Shawnee took lots of people captive and made wives and husbands out of them in the Ohio valley for a half century! The Shawnee sold white captives to other tribes who did the same thing! From what I've read, most of the captives traded to other tribes went North to the lake Erie area and areas around the other Great Lakes!

So if you hear someone say their distant kin lived near 'Big Bone Lick' KY and made salt, they were prolly Shawnee! Allan W. Eckert wrote some great books about the settelment of the Ohio valley! I've read some of 'em over 4 or 5 times and they are still exciting to read! The years between about 1740 and 1820 were some sad times for the Indian and the Whites alike, in VA, KY and Ohio!

My suspcion on this "part Cherokee" thing is that people may indeed be part Indian but they say "part Cherokee" as it was such a famous tribe...the actual ancestry was a lost memory aside that someone was part indian.

Maybe that is a sign of the North? LOL.

Cherokee. My Grandmother and all her children sure look it. My brother too. Me,on the other hand, look like total WASP. I wish I looked more like my Mom's family. We live in WV and have lived here for generations. I really have no idea where or how my great grandfather met his wife.

Documentation, pictures prove it. He remembers her; he was kinda scared of her. There are quite a few Cherokee that live in my area.

A story most Americans never heard.

snip

The Christian Indians were informed that they must die. To the protestations of innocence and prayers for mercy the black-hearted and enraged borderers turned an ear of stone. The condemned saw that their doom was fixed. Faithful even in death to the religion which had involved them in such suffering; which, while it had opened their eyes to the truth, had only led them into an unending career of misery, they begged a short respite in which they might make a last sad preparation for death. The request was granted. Asking pardon for whatever offense they had given of grief they had occasioned, they kneeled down, offering fervent prayers to God, and kissing one another under a flood of tears, they commended their souls to the Savior, their great exemplar in suffering.

A farewell song, which they had been singing, was scarcely finished, when one of the murderers picked up a cooper's mallet. "This," said he, "will exactly suit out purpose." A deadly hatred glittering his unfeeling eye. With a hasty stride forward he dashed out the brains of the nearest Indian, whose eyes were closed and hands uplifted, as he still knelt in prayer. Not an Indian stirred as the murder proceeded down the line. Again and again he performed the act of murder, until a row of fourteen ghastly corpses marked his bloody path. Breathless with the awful work, he tossed the mallet to a companion, saying, "Go on with the glorious work. I have done pretty well."

This was but the opening scene in the tragedy. The flood-gates of murder were open. The tide would have its way. Old men and young men, loving mothers, gentle maidens, and unconscious babes, innocent in the sight of earth and heaven, meek and unresisting as lambs led to the slaughter, were massacred outright. Ninety persons were put to death within half an hour. Sixty-two of the number were grown persons, the remainder laughing bright-eyed children. Only two captives escaped the massacre. One crept under a plank in the floor, and lay concealed, while the blood of his companions dripped through the open cracks upon his face. The other, though knocked down and scalped, was not killed. After nightfall, he crept through a small window and stole away. Another boy was unable to get out at the window, on account of his size, and was left imprisoned until the building was fired and the crackling flames released his soul from earth.

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/colonial/pioneer/chap16.html

My paternal grandmother was Melungeon to boot

My great grandmother was half Blackfoot and looked it. I'm also a direct descendant of a Cherokee chief, "Chief Broom," who was my 9thGGrandfather. I've got the genealogy proof (genealogy is a hobby of mine), so it's not just a family tale. Somewhere in the mid-to-late 1800s is when they mixed with my Irish line... big mistake LOL! And yet I'm a blue-eyed blonde. DNA's a funny thang.

But I know what you mean, everyone I know says he's part-Cherokee, and sometimes I wonder how many really are.

It seems there are a lot of descendents of "Indian chiefs"

or is your comment directed at me? If it is the latter, you would then be discounting my decades of painstaking research. Pity. I think it's a pretty interesting thing to discover during a genealogical hunt, but rest assured I am also a direct descendant of several gamblers and alcoholics, too, if that makes you feel better...?
:shrug:

I didn't mean you. There are a lot of actual descendents.

I was referring to the freeperish people that I know who all claim to be Indian chiefs from major tribes - while of course blaming Native Americans for not paying taxes, etc.

whatever the hell that means.

Prof. Theada Purdue, formerly at UK ( Now at Georgia Tech I think), taught a course about the SE American Indians, particularly the abundence of Cherokee's who managed to avoid relocation.

Cherokee culture in the South ran parallel to European-American society for quite a while. The removal of Cherokee's in South took place mainly in Northern Geogria.

By the way, I'm from Kentucky and my grandmother was a Cherokee.

Or did you think it was a coincidence that one of the two senators who voted against the Cherokee relocation was Henry Clay?

Edit: Content

Kentucky itself wasnt settled by indians...it was sort of a neutral ground between the norhtern tribes (like the Shawnee) and the southern tribes (like the Cherokee).

Theres a better case to make for parallel Cherokee/White societies in Tenn, which was one of the Cherokee areas, I think.

...but not Appalachia and SE Kentucky. Daniel Boone didn't get the name 'Shaltowee' from the trees you know.

There are burial mounds in Fort Knox. There is an area near Furnace Ky that was used for religious ceremonies. Now a Buddhist monastery is on the land. They settled there because they felt it was holy ground. It wasn't until they started digging the foundation that they found artifacts pointing to its former use.

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~gensoup/bc/indians.html
A good timeline of habitation until the Euros settled.

The Cherokee did have a huge territory but my northeast NC ancestors couldn't possibly have been Cherokee. When doing genealogical research I met lots of third cousins all of whom had grown up hearing about Indian blood in the family. Lots of us look it too. Some said "we always heard we were part Cherokee" which is bull. But they are the largest tribe and the name people remember. There was a Tuscarora reservation in the county my daddy's people came from, and some of their chiefs carried names in my family line. The "Cherokee" family tales are often a dim distorted reflection of the truth IMO. I think in my own case the mixture was probably Tuscarora with Free African American, which the later white descendants mythologized.

My folks are from Kentucky and Tennessee. Great-great maternal grandma was 100% Cherokee.

have no Blackfoot blood.