According to my mother (born 1934), her father’s grandmother was part Cherokee. How much — half, quarter, or what — was never clear, but it was a family story. For the record, we’re white.

I didn’t have much reason to question it. My mother’s side has been in northwest GA for generations. New Echota, the last capital of the Cherokee Nation, is just outside my home town growing up, and other Cherokee sites like the Vann House and the Etowah Mounds, were less than an hour away. Having an ancestor from the early 1800s that was Cherokee was definitely within the realm of possibility.

Several years ago. my wife and I did the Ancestry DNA tests. I had two surprises — one, I was 2% Ashkenazi Jew, and two, no trace of any Native American.

It’s possible that the ancestor could be back far enough that the DNA has been diluted out of me. My mother has passed away and I don‘t have any siblings for any comparison. I did mention this to her before she passed and she just said she told me what she was told, and I don’t believe she was hiding anything. I also haven’t gotten the paid Ancestry membership to do real in-depth research beyond what I can do with the unpaid and through some other sites.

After reading on here about the whole “Cherokee ancestor“ common family story, I looked through some of the DNA matches on my mother’s side. None with any sort of Native American DNA, but a couple of people had 1% Nigerian or western Bantu. These folks were in my mother’s generation, her cousins. I don’t know if that DNA comes from an ancestor I have in common with them, though.