I am 1/16 Cherokee Indian and I am looking into scholarships for that. I heard you have to prove your heritage and I was wondering if I could do that with a DNA test like Ansestery DNA. If not is there any other way I could prove that? Also where can I find scholarships to apply for. I am having a hard time finding any real scholarships as I don’t know much about this kind of thing. (I’m only a sophomore in Highschool so I haven’t learned much about this)
Too early to think about. New scholarships might pop up in the next two to three years; others might be discontinued.
Maybe start here:
https://www.bia.gov/cs/groups/public/documents/text/idc-002619.pdf
http://www.gocollege.com/financial-aid/scholarships/minority/native-american-scholarships.html
I think you are wise to start this process now, because you have a lot of work to do. You are likely going to need birth records, marriage records, and family tree info from a genealogist. Plus, follow the instructions from BIA to a tee. Call them and seek their advice.
In addition to going through official channels yes, for the fun of it, do an ancestry.com or 23&me DNA analysis. However, I’ve heard that negative results aren’t necessarily negative. And positive results aren’t enough to get you “in”. You’ve got to have evidence in the records.
you’re going to need the official paperwork from Bureau of Indian Affairs (first link above).
If indeed you are Native American, then I hope you will embrace your heritage and be a part of your Tribe. I’m sure you have a lot you can offer and a lot you can learn.
I think schools when looking at diversity are looking for students who can bring their culture with them. Can you bring American Indian culture? If not, the 1/16 may not get you anywhere
The first question is, are you on the Cherokee rolls? If not then it will be a long and difficult road to prove your ancestry as it must be positively correlated, it would be easiest if you can find a direct line to a parent/grandparent who is, then you could connect the dots with birth certificates. If you can’t connect directly to the Dawes rolls then, officially, you aren’t Cherokee. The Cherokee tribe is the most diluted of all since they require no particular blood quantum to be part of the tribe. DNA tests will mean nothing to this process since they are unreliable.
For most scholarships and grants I’m aware of, you have to have tribal membership. There are a few exceptions with tribes who are not federally recognized but those scholarships tend to come from tribe itself.
No, a DNA test isn’t going to prove or disprove anything.
There’s a current discussion on Reddit about this. A guy bought his father a DNA test for father’s day and instead of being a quarter Native American the test shows no relationship and he’s 40% Irish. The dad had embraced native culture and now he’s suffering an identity crisis. Anyway someone pointed out it’s in the fine print of the tests that they cannot be used to prove ancestry to gain tribal membership. You are going to have to do a family tree to prove the relationship. As @romanigypsyeyes says, most scholarships are going to require proof of tribal membership. https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/6m2khu/tifu_by_getting_my_dad_an_ancestry_dna_test_for/
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Yes
You need to be registered with a tribe, and, I agree that the schools want to see ECs that are tied to the culture of the tribe.
^^^
Yes.
No one is going to be impressed that your Great-Great-Grandparent was American Indian…especially if you haven’t been significantly exposed/immersed into the Cherokee culture.
Was this GGGrandparent 100% Cherokee? Did you know this person (unlikely going to know a GGGrand)?
What details would you be able to provide demonstrating your significant exposure to Cherokee culture while growing up?
Is your family registered with the Cherokee tribe? You would need to provide blood papers.
As for using Ancestry DNA…that would be silly. There would be no evidence that your mouth was swabbed. You could swab anyone’s mouth and send it in as your own.
As mentioned above, many people claim to be part American Indian due to family folklore, but no real evidence.
When scholarships or whatever want some sort of proof for this type of thing, they usually base it on tribal enrollment.
For example: https://policy.umn.edu/morris/amindianwaiver requires being tribally enrolled or being able to prove descent from someone with tribal enrollment.
My neighbor is part Native American (not sure, but I think at least 50%). It is some tribe down in Florida that I can’t remember the name of. He recently went down to FL to take a test to try and get access to membership benefits of this tribe. He failed the test. So he gets nothing to help him or his children gain scholarships or any other benefits. I don’t think you can just say you are part Native American, you really have to have a connection to the tribe to get anything out of it.
@3js3ks >>>>He recently went down to FL to take a test to try and get access to membership benefits of this tribe. He failed the test.>>>
What kind of test? Blood?
@mom2collegekids no it was a knowledge test. He had studied for it. I guess not well enough. He had to prove that he knew enough about the tribe to belong to them.
@3js3ks that’s really strange. There are only 2 federally recognized tribes (Seminole and Miccosukee) in Florida and both base membership on blood quantum- and very recent blood to boot.
I only looked it up because I’d never heard of needing to take a test before and was curious.
PS: I’m not doubting you (or your neighbor), but I wonder if it wasn’t a federally recognized tribe- in which case, most grants and whatnot would be moot anyway.
I don’t think a school giving admission preference to a NA applicant cares that much if the student has grown up on the reservation and knows a lot about the culture or not. If they meet the requirements (usually being a registered tribal member) they get to ‘check the box.’ An individual scholarship might care more and like any scholarship awarded, the committee might look for cultural participation.
I have a friend who is 1/4 Indian and grew up near/on the reservation of her tribe. She became a complete urbanite and has nothing to do with the tribe, except to collect money from it. Her son is 1/8th, she registered him at birth and he never lived in or near the reservation, had blond hair and blue eyes. When he went to college, he could check the box on his application.
My son’s gf is half Sioux but her dad was adopted off reservation at birth and raised Jewish - he even had a bar mitzvah. He was accepted on to the res rolls before he died but I don’t know what that means for his children. The kids asked me if I thought that THEIR as yet imaginary children could get NA scholarships. After I stopped laughing, I told them to wait until said inchoate children are in HS and then we would look into it. I highly doubt it. The gf has never lived on the reservation and other than her looks, there is really nothing to identify her as NA. However, she is legitimately one half NA.
^^I disagree. I think if the father was registered, it will be possible to register the daughter, and then the kids. It doesn’t matter if the daughter has never been to the reservation. The tribes really want the members to register.
There may be other benefits too. She may receive information on her family, medical history, cultural history. I have an adopted daughter and at first I thought it was great that I’d never have to deal with her family ‘claiming’ her, I now would give anything to have the medical and social history of her birth family.
I will look into it. She is of the Lakota branch, which is fairly well known, and, yes, her dad lived there for the last couple of years of his life. They know who her father’s birth mother was but not who the father is because it seems that the mother didn’t know, either, and nobody stepped forward to claim him. I will suggest that they do research into registering. She has siblings as well.
Actually, I just did a little quick check. Her dad probably got onto the register because the by-laws allow you to be registered if you were born to a member who lived on the reservation at the time of your birth. His birth mother did. It didn’t distinguish between the mother or father having to live on the reservation. Son’s gf will likely not qualify under that test because her dad didn’t live on the res when she was born.