Heritage
When you are mostly native american it can be pretty much impossible to track your roots so to speak. I have given it a half ass try on and off for a few years now, but always became frustrated and quit. I was brought up to respect my heritage but was never really told anything about it. The reason behind this is a long story and most likely would be better read in history books. I did know that my Mothers father was scottish came here from canada and met her mother in North Carolina who was native american and somehow they ended up in California. I have quite a bit of information on her family dating pretty far back so I was satisfied with the information I had. I also knew that my father who is cherokee (I now know that it's cherokee/shawnee) came from kansas and most of his recent relatives could be easily traced back to kansas and missouri. I also was able to get a hold of some other records and things that led back to kentucky and va and was also told some stories about the cumberland mountain area etc etc. I always hit a brick wall when trying to trace my fathers family because there is very little record. Last week I got a phone call from my uncles daughter who I really don't know personally but she somehow found our number and wanted to know if I would be interested in some stuff that she had found while cleaning out her fathers house recently. Apparently he had a notebook and folders full of information that he had been working on collecting for many years! He had always embraced his heritage more than anyone else in my fathers family and had gone to a lot of trouble to ask relatives that were still alive at the time, research records etc. She found no interest in it but thought maybe I would since I had inquired in the past. It came today and I'm so excited!! He had a lot of information gathered that I never would have been able to find. There are still a lot of blanks but I do understand a lot more than I did. It's awesome! I will never fully be able to trace my roots like so many others and some of the information I have will never be able to be documented, but I can fill in much farther back now.