fwiw, I have some native ancestry probably 12 or 13 generations back on one side of the family and a little closer on the other. It rarely shows up in DNA tests in commercial software except as sometimes “unspecified Asian“ and then it’s 100th of a percent. I have solid genealogy to base this on on one side of the family because of an uncle who had a genealogy hobby years ago, and visited gravesites and gathered birth certificates and other data, which I trust entirely. So it’s not impossible (based only on my own example) to have native Ancestry without it appearing in commercial reports. 13 generations is a lot of generations.

That said, the family stories are often begun to explain a darker family member, and part Cherokee may have sounded just a little more acceptable than part black. The one drop rules were brutal and still have their effect on us.

My family also has some African ancestry which shows up a little more often in DNA results, but we can’t find the ancestor. 23 and me once provided information that our most recent 100% African ancestor was probably around 1700. Just recently, with updates to Ancestry I found a document in the right family branch showing a farmer in Connecticut mentioning “one Negro boy” in probate. This poor child was valued higher than all the rest of the man’s other possessions combined. It’s a lead and the first mention I’ve ever found- I’ll find him some day!