By 2010, that number increased, with the Census Bureau reporting that 819,105 Americans claimed at least one Cherokee ancestor.
Kim TallBear (Dakota), author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science,[9] says that Indigenous identity is not about any distant ancestor, but rather political citizenship, culture, kinship, and daily, lived experience as part of an Indigenous community.
Being able to produce the genealogical documentation to access tribal citizenship is one way of showing that a tribe claims you.
[12] Self-identification occurs when a person states that they have Indigenous identity or descent with no confirmation or acceptance from the tribe they claim.
The academic Joel W. Martin noted that "an astonishing number of southerners assert they have a grandmother or great-grandmother who was some kind of Cherokee, often a princess", and that such myths serve settler purposes in aligning American frontier romance with southern regionalism and pride.