#of white citizens who kinda throw around the identity without learning anything

[bucephaly]

congratulations on reconnecting with your cherokee ancestry!!!!! if it's not too nosy could i ask how you got started on this journey? did you know you had native ancestors and decided to look more into it?

Thank you !! It's not nosy! I'll put it under a cut cuz idk how long it'll get

So honestly no, I didn't really know. It's on my dad's dad's side and I never knew him. My grandma divorced my grandpa when my dad was around 10 and his step dad adopted him. Plus he never really talks about or to his family much and I'm only just now getting back in touch with my aunts on facebook

I just remember once my grandma telling me my dad had Cherokee ancestry, and I ignored it cuz i was so sure it was the same granny story everyone around here [in the south] has lol. [I didn't know at the time that my dad was born in WA and his dad was from there, my g grandad moved from OK to WA in the 40s, idk why]

Then later I asked and he messages one of his sisters, who said that their dad went to OK and found that 'his great grandma came off the reservation' and so they assumed my dad was 1/16 and me and my siblings were 1/32 [not true], which they somehow got in their head was 'the lowest the tribe still recognizes' lmao [also not true, if you have an ancestor on the dawes roll you're eligible for CNO citizenship]

Anyway, about a year ago I started doing research on ancestry [my mom luckily had a membership] and I quickly found that my gg grandad and his dad are both on the dawes rolls, the later of whom was a baby during the trail of tears. I'm also a Nancy Ward descendent

I found all this a year ago, got excited for a bit and kept going wildly back and forth abt whether I had any right to reclaim that identity, seeing as how I'm 1: very thin blood and 2: white, but I am eligible for CNO citizenship, but I didn't even know I was until then, but I'd love to learn more, etc etc etc. I kept talking myself out of it saying 'nah dude shut up you're white and you'd be taking resources and shit from others if you went around calling yourself cherokee'

So a year passed and something got me looking into it again abt a month ago, I looked at r/cherokee on reddit and saw some folks being pointed towards a cherokee genealogy Facebook group + people saying that yea anyone who has a documented ancestor on the dawes roll is valid to reconnect etc etc

So I got research done in the genealogy page and everyone was so welcoming, I got invited to a group of Nancy ward descendants, I got into the main cherokee Facebook group and I'm seeing how welcoming everyone in there is etc.. and I'm working on getting documents together to apply for citizenship! [Which is a massive pain since my dad was adopted, those documents are hard to get] and now I'm finally feeling like I can claim that identity ! Obviously I'm not a citizen yet but I'm working on it, and I have no doubt I'll be granted citizenship barring some sort of documentation mishap.

Obviously I'm still learning and reconnecting and I'm also white, I don't claim to know anything abt anything, nor do I claim any sort of oppression or whatever lmao, I'm just learning more and I'm really excited about it! I'm grateful to the cherokee groups I'm in for being so welcoming and open to 'lost' cherokees that were disconnected [and note these are legit groups, like ones that are exclusive to those who are citizens or can prove that they are documented descendants, not some random bullshit Facebook group haha]

I'm also learning the language some! So far I only know a few words and the syllabary, but I plan to jump into the live language classes when they start again in fall.

ᏩᏙ! Thanks for the ask! I'm glad you did ask because I know it's common to just sorta claim cherokee ancestry so I've wanted to explain and all.