Native American CDIB & Admixture

[Maria_W]

Blood requirements.

Since this thread was about Certified Degree of Indian Blood and tribal membership. Heres a list of some Native tribes and their blood requirement for tribal membership:

1. Absentee Shawnee: 1/4 Absentee Shawnee blood.
2. Apache: 1/8 total Native blood.
3. Blackfoot: 1/4 total Native blood.
4. Caddo: 1/8 Caddo Blood.
5. Cherokee of Oklahoma :Any degree decendent of a Tribal member.
6. Cherokee of North Carolina: 1/16 Eastern Cherokee blood.
7. Cherokee-Shawnee: Any degree decendent of a Tribal member.
8. Cheyenne-Arapaho: 1/4 degree Cheyenne-Arapaho with at least 1 enrolled parent.
9. Chickasaw: Any degree decendent of a Tribal member.
10. Choctaw of Mississippi: 1/2 Mississippi Choctaw blood.
11. Choctaw of Oklahoma: Any degree decendent of a tribal member.

Will add more later. Maria

[Donald Locke]

My grand father has always "claimed" he was part Cherokee. This last December my father went to visit my grand father and while there did find a box full of old family photos and old records. My grand father was born in 1920.

In that box was 2 pages that were photo copied out of my grand fathers grand mothers family bible, she was a Myrick. The 2 bible pages contained 2 differnt family's which isn't all that common really. Normally you would only find the 1 family named in a family bible.
On the 1 page was all the Locke family information, on the 2nd page was a Payne family. I knew through the research that she was a Payne descendant, but I hadn't followed up on that lineage.

After posting some queries on the net about who's Payne family it was named in the Locke family bible, several Payne descendants emailed me telling me that is their family and where in the world did I get that information!
Well? It came from my grand fathers grand mother's family bible who is a Payne descendant! This Payne family has told me they are Cherokee, though they are like the many who can not prove it using the paper records yet.
But this Payne family was 100% sure they were Cherokee even if they can't prove it on paper.

Payne married Wray
Wray married Myrick
Myrick married Locke
So it is a pretty significant genetic distance to my Cherokee lineage if the Payne family is who they say they are.
I am the 4th great grand son of Susan Eliza Jane Payne b. May 16, 1823 daughter of Benedict Burruss Payne & Lucy Powell Thompson.

While I can't prove my Cherokee descendancy through the Payne's, the Payne's themselves have convinced me they are who they say they are.
Like my Creek brother tells me, he knows who I am, I know who I am, so really if my blood kin folk won't open closed hearts, it's their loss.
My Creek brother and I only share the same surname, yet are not blood related, yet he has gotten to know who I am and now calls me in public, his brother and that has much meaning for me!

It isn't always about money, it is about knowing one's self. Much like my daughter in law who is 1/4 Apache, doesn't really know her family's heritage, she just knows she is 1/4 Apache. And like my niece who is 1/2 hispanic, didn't get to meet me and my family until she was 20 years old.
We all missed out on knowing her during her childhood, yet she contacted me last year and we got to know each other. She is my blood and I wouldn't ever deny her the family heritage she rightfully deserves to know.

I will do for the girls what their parents didn't do, trace their family's heritage and share that knowledge with them so they both have a family history to pass down to her children and grand children.

It isn't about money for me, it isn't about one's skin color for me. It is about my family's heritage, good, bad or whatever. It is a heritage that will be passed down, which wasn't done for me. I had to learn it on my own because it wasn't passed down on to me.
I may never be able to prove the Payne's were Cherokee, that is besides the point. I did learn from them who they are and they have learned some about who I am. And it is thanks to our common ancestor who gave it some thought that she should record her family history in her family bible that brought our 2 family's back together.

They are my cousins regardless of skin color, and we were all seeking the same thing, the truth and history behind our ancestors.
It's a pride and honor thing my friend, it is our way of finding our ancestors and sharing our knowledge that wasn't always passed down as it should have been.
We aren't all wanna be NDN's, we are seeking a family history so we can then pass it on to the next generation. For me, I have some sort of confirmation on the story my grand father has been telling me my whole life.
Yes there does appear to be a Cherokee heritage from his grand mothers side of the family. It is just nice to know 1 old family story does appear to have some truth behind it. I don't believe even my grand father would have met the percentage requirements to even try to become a tribal member anyway even if we could prove the Payne's were Cherokee.

Ader Leone Myrick my 2nd great grand mother and it was she who was breaking the taboo of documenting her Payne family in the family bible.
She felt it was important enough to write it down then, and we are darn glad she did!
Because Ader was a grand daughter to Susan Eliza Jane Payne, one would have to question her motive as to why she would document her grand mothers side of the family in her family bible.
I am convinced because Ader knew her grand mother was part Cherokee.
It just wasn't a common thing for one to record the extended family in one's family bible, let alone the grand mothers side of the family. The family bible was a here and now recording of her own family, her children's names and dates.

So I have to believe that because she took the time to record the Payne names in to her bible, that she had to have known at that time that her Payne family were of Cherokee descent, other wise it doesn't make any since to me why she would have recorded that information.
It just wasn't common to record other family members in to one's family bible like she did. And I have seen several family bibles over the years, what Ader did wasn't a common thing at all.

[tomcat]

Thank you Donald Locke for posting the above.