[Verginius Rufus]

I think a figure like 1/1024th is meaningless--very small percentages of an ethnic ancestry according to DNA testing are not reliable. 23andMe assigns many people 0.1% or 0.2% sub-Saharan African ancestry who probably have no African ancestry for tens of thousands of years.

Reportedly Native American leaders have decreed that no Native Americans should take DNA tests, but I don't know how that could be enforced if someone of Indian ancestry chose to take the test. And there are many people who have some documented Indian ancestry, many of whom have probably taken the tests, so it should be possible to determine the DNA indicative of ancestry from Indians living in the US.

I have no Indian ancestry but some relatives married Cherokee women when they were still in Georgia, and accompanied their wives and children on the Trail of Tears. I have been in contact with a distant cousin who is descended from one of those Cherokee/white (Scots-Irish) marriages, who showed up as a match on one of the DNA sites.

[Vigilanteman]

Cherokee is quite common for anyone with ancestors in North Georgia, east Tennessee, the west Carolinas and even parts of Kentucky and Virginia in the 18th century. The Cherokee were among the first to see the writing on the wall and encouraged their daughters to marry frontier white men as a means to cement alliances and stability.

It worked until about the mid 1820s when the political climate started to turn decidedly nasty. One of my ancestors was spared from the Trail of Tears only because the mixed couple had moved to the Missouri frontier by this time and passed as a dark white.

Their son thorough whom I descended has the distinction of being born in Florida, Missouri about the same time as Mark Twain.

[SaveFerris]

I’m actually part Cherokee.

Unfortunately, not enough, I don’t think, LOL.

[Dark Knight]

IIRC she had a “friend” do the testing, and because the first result was much worse, he added some DNA from South and Central american natives that “simulated” Native American DNA.

It should have been no result because of sample size or what ever the unannounced result was...way below 1/1024th.

DK