The US Census groups these peoples as “Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander.” The ancestors of living Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago, possibly much earlier, from Asia via Beringia. A vast variety of peoples, societies and cultures subsequently developed.

Siberia

In Brief. For decades archaeologists thought the first Americans were the Clovis people, who were said to have reached the New World some 13,000 years ago from northern Asia. But fresh archaeological finds have established that humans reached the Americas thousands of years before that.

The first step to confirming or denying these claims is to take an autosomal DNA test, which will tell you definitively whether you have any Native American ancestry. These tests are available through companies such as 23andMe, Family Tree DNA and Ancestry.com.

There is no blood quantum requirement. You might also do a free search of the Native American (including Cherokee and the Dawes Roll) records available at Nara.gov. Just knowing you are Cherokee should make you proud.

Even if your 6x great-grandparent born in 1790 was 100% Native American (and their spouse was European), the most Native ancestry you could show is less than 1% which is less than what most DNA companies will report on. That’s why autosomal DNA tests aren’t all that great once you get beyond 5-6 generations.

To give you an example, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians require a minimum of 1/16 degree of Cherokee blood for tribal enrollment, while the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Higher Education Grant expects you to have the minimum of 1/4 Native American blood percentages.

The BIA has nationwide jurisdiction over crimes committed within or involving Indian Country, and its officers are usually based near Indian reservations….

Wind River Indian Reservation