Heritage Album

genealogy and heritage?

My mother is Cherokee and Black Dutch my Father is German and Blackfoot Indian I am having a hard time with finding out about where the Back Dutch part originated from i have never had contact with my mothers family I was given up at birth .........................HELP

Public Comments

1. Actually, the Wiki article pretty-much explains it. Inter-racial mixing was generally taboo; but often done, and this was a way for people to explain their way around it.
2. First of all you do not assume anything about your heritage. You start off with what you you reasonably know (i.e. your parents and grandparents and where they were born, etc.) and work your way back. There's a fundamental flaw in reaching a conclusion and working your way forward. So many white people today are not happy or comfortable with who they are and so they go about proclaiming their non-white heritage when often makes up less than one percent if any at all. I for one have heard all my life about how I had Ohio Indian and African in my heritage and have traced everything back on my own to find it out it was all bs. "Black Dutch" is German... they're Germans from the Black Forest region of Baden. Germans rarely married outside their race. They often didn't even marry outside their religion... I know my German Catholic family in particular has had more than a few engagements broken off due to differences in religion. So do your homework first then proclaim whatever heritage you can claim.
3. There is a possibility that you are of Melungeon heritage. They can be a mix of White, Native American and Black and a lot of Melungeons tried to hide their heritage by claiming Black Dutch or pretending to be purely White. Here's some more info. on the Melungeons (if your interested): http://www.melungeon.org/node/4 http://www.melungeons.com/articles/jan2003.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon
4. Since you mention Cherokee heritage I suspect that the Black Dutch you refer to was actually an attempt by your ancestors to hide their Cherokee identity. Cherokees often claimed they were Black Dutch to avoid the removal or to enable them to buy land after wards. I have variously read that Black Dutch were German Gypsies or were of Spanish origin, but the writer of this excerpt from an article about his Cherokee ancestry says he traveled to Germany and asked people about the term and no one had ever heard of it: "Here’s another notch to the handle: almost every time that Black Dutch was found, Indian lineage was found, and to date, a high percentage of association in the Iuka, Tishomingo, Itawamba areas has been established with the Cherokee. A representative of the Eagle Bear Clan of the Free Cherokees said that her grandmother told her that her family escaped the Trail of Tears. They were forced to hide in caves and become known as Black Dutch to hide their identity. In a telephone conversation, I was told that other tribes besides the Cherokee also used the Black Dutch term, including the Chickasaws and the Choctaw. I believe the Creek descendants could have also used the term." In fact, I met a woman who told me that her great grandmother was rescued from the Trail of Tears by a man who she married. They bought a farm, but he died unexpectedly, and she was not allowed to keep their farm, because she was Cherokee. She took her small children to live in a cave, because she had nowhere to go. Probably the only possibility of finding out for sure about your ancestry is to attempt to trace your family back. If you know what nationalities your birth parents were, perhaps you know or can find out their names, where you were born, and hopefully grandparents names and where they lived. That is a good start. Then there are census records and Social Security Death records at familysearch.org. Find a grave is also a good source for finding dates and sometimes information about families of deceased relatives.