RE: Cherokee Seed Bank - Distribution Starts February 1st!
Not off topic at all. This is a link to downloadable applications and some other helpful documents. This is the link for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. My great-great-grandmother was the last of my Cherokee lineage to make it on the Dawes Roll before it was closed in 1902. The Dawes Roll was reopened in the 80’s and any decendants are eligible to enroll for citizenship, regardless of degree of Cherokee blood.
There are other rolls for Cherokees to register on, one is the United Keetoowah Band, who’s rolls didn’t close until 1949, and my understanding is the rolls were reopened to register desendants with a certain degree of Cherokee blood. Both of these groups of Cherokee are centered in Tahlequah, OK.
This link will take you to a page of Cherokee tribes that have somehow fallen of the list of Federally Recognized Tribes, or never made it on the list in the first place. Most of them are working through a legal battle, and have been for years, to get on or back on the list. It is very important for all the decendants of these tribes to do the neccessary work to apply for citizenship to the tribe, so records don’t get lost, and so their numbers have a better chance of getting attention for their case.
If you have the names of family members, or can research and find them, dating back to around 1900, you may be able to find their name(s) on the records for the Registry of the Five Civilized Tribes.
There’s a little bit of help getting started on the geneology on a couple of these links. If you don’t find any relatives on one of these Rolls, you may want to look into the list of unrecognized tribes. Hopefully they will all be recognized soon.
It seems like my Gram had to get her grandmother’s marriage license and death certificate to prove her identity and from there, her father’s birth and death record, and she was able to get on the Rolls. Once she was on it was easy enough to get my dad on, and then me and my kids.
Here’s some information to help you get started on the research and what you need to get together.
I hope some of that helps! Good luck!!
Thank you very much. I have ran up against brick wall after brick wall for years now. I have been told, (can't prove it by records yet), that I am actually more Cherokee than white. With 2 full blood grandparents and one half blood.
Dad's mom, was what my cousins had documentation for and got on the rolls, but I never got copies of it. His dad was supposed to be have blood, and that is supposed to be part of the Pack's on the rolls, but I have never found proof of that either.
Mom's dad did not take a last name until he married my grandmother and took her last name. that has made it impossible to find anything on either one of them.
All my grandparents were born in the late 1800's and they all came from the same area, in the Dalton area of Georgia. But the courthouse burned down up there MANY years ago, so all of those records were lost.
Thank you for the links. I will see what I can find!
I would definately contact the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah and ask them where to start with your circumstances. Good luck, @fernowl!