I guess the validity is if the male from NE Alabama had a Cherokee father or a Cherokee mother. I could probably find a male cousin with the surname.BU84BEAR said:Then you are out of luck unless you have a cousin that goes through her brother (assuming the Indian was a male).NoBSU said:Don't know the first and know that there is one and only one Dame in that line. So that's a no go for me.BU84BEAR said:I am checking with a genealogy expert on this, but there may be a test to tell for sure assuming no extramarital relations or adoptions since. It won't confirm Cherokee, but if my limited knowledge is correct it will confirm Indian ancestry. Stay tuned until I have confirmation for you.NoBSU said:
If my family history is correct, then I should exceed 3/16th Native Amercan from both sides. I have the oral history which is confirmed by a distant cousin's family profile in a founding family of a county compilation from 50 years ago.
Now I don't expect my results to confirm that percentage. But if my results show zero percentage Native American and some African or Spanish, then I will suspect that my Northeast Alabama ancestor that fled Alabama for Arkansas in the 1830s was not half Cherokee cutting his hair and denying roots (Indians were forbidden by law to own land in Arkansas at that time). This is the family oral history. That he was probably a light skinned black or of Spanish heritage. I think this would be fascinating to discover. I just hope he wasn't French.
It will depend on the following though....was the half Cherokee's mother or father an Indian, and are you the son of a son of a son of the original Indian? (insert the appropriate number of generations... it just needs to go up the male side of your paternal line...basically following what most people's surname follows.
And had the scenario matched, the test would have worked per the expert.