Cherokee descent

Citizenship

• Eastern Band citizenship requirements are as follows:
• United Keetoowah Band requirements are as follows:
• Cherokee Nation requirements are as follows:

  Reasons for self-identification without citizenship

• Many Cherokee heritage groups, organizations that explore Cherokee history and culture, exist across the US, as well as unrecognized organizations claiming to be tribes, with one estimate putting the combined number as high as 200. Membership in these groups, in some cases, requires genealogical proof of Cherokee ancestry, but many others have no requirements.
• Many non-Indigenous American families have a family oral history of Cherokee ancestry. This has sometimes been called "Cherokee Princess Syndrome", or having a family "Blood Myth."
• Laura Browder notes that some light skinned African American families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries wrote "themselves into Native American identity and out of whiteness or blackness"
• Geneticists Kim TallBear describes some individuals discovering what they believe to be Native American ancestry through DNA testing, who begin searching for "Cherokee ancestral lines" after this. She notes, however, that "There is no DNA test to prove you're Native American" and that this group mostly continues to identify as white.