Hmm. I thought you said you were
Cherokee?
Actually, I for a VERY long time thought that we were Cherokee BUT it appears that the reason for that mistake was that my grandmother was born on the Cherokee Reservation in NC in 1887, attended/graduated from The Oklahoma Female Seminary for Cherokee Indian Girls, her college transcript says: Cherokee, her OK teaching credential says: Cherokee Female & all of the family PRESUMED that she was Cherokee.
(I don't recall my grandmother ever saying that she was Cherokee & in fact she tried to pass herself off as "white". - Being NA in her day was not something to "broadcast", as the KKK was VERY active in/hostile to A-I in OK. Further, a young widow alone, with 3 small children under 5YO, before WWI, was a "target of opportunity" for violence & perhaps death from the Klan.)
As some here KNOW, I'm now (since Mother's death) "the family historian" & it drove me "Nuts" trying to find our ancestors on the Dawes rolls.
(Darned good reason that I couldn't find her or any of her close kin, as looking among the Cherokees for NON-Cherokee relatives makes as little sense as looking in the rolls for Chinese people.)
"The break" came when my G-Great Aunt Lydia Mary passed away in Jay OK & my wife/I were called to go to Jay & "clean out her little house" before the 1BR house & her 42 acre farm was sold.
Among her "personal keepsakes" was a group of letters from another woman (whom I had never heard of) from the 1950s to 2004, who said among a lot of irrelevant family "chit-chat" that she wanted to write to "Nettie Mae", wanted her current address & the address of her adult children. = Olivia Janet (nee Parker) Clay turned out to be alive, completely lucid, a retired RN & living in an assisted living facility in NC. - I wrote to her, told her who my grandmother/father were, asked her a lot of questions & hoped that she might "write back".
She phoned us just before Thanksgiving & said that she still wanted to talk to "Nettie Mae". - I had the sad task of telling her that my grandmother & 2 of her 3 (Trull R. & my dad, Ernest H.) children had passed on & that I could give her my Aunt Willow's address & phone number in Gresham, OR.
Subsequent to that & other phone calls, she sent us a "laundry list" of all of our living kin that she remembered. = After that, I learned WHO my grandmother actually was, contacted those "unknown relatives" & contacted the tribal office in King William County, VA.
Personal note: No matter how good/bad that a person may be at research, sometimes "It's better to be lucky than good." - In this case, that was certainly true. = I got to "add" 42 individuals to our family tree & made friends with numerous "near kinfolk" & "kissing cousins".
I won't go into the UGLY "family rift", which isn't "a pretty story", that caused my G-grandmother (& bearing my unborn grandmother,) to abandon her family & move to a "dear friend" & boarding school chum's home in NC.
(I will not attempt to excuse my G-grandmother for her possible misbehavior and/or her part in the family fight, except to say that LEAVING may have been all that she knew to do at the time.)
yours, satx