I would direct your attention to the court case: Eastern Cherokees v. Cherokee Nation, heard by the United States Supreme Court in the early 1880s. You will find that those individuals who remained in North Carolina, though they be of the same "blood" as the citizens of the Cherokee Nation, had abandoned their relations with the Cherokee Nation. The Supreme Court found that they had become aliens, strangers to the Nation and had no right or claim to the common property or rights of the Cherokee people. Your ancestor made a choice, if he in fact was a Cherokee, to abandone the Cherokee people and move on to what you describe as a better life. I'll tell you my thinking on that: THERE IS NO BETTER LIFE THAN LIVING WITH CHEROKEE PEOPLE - THEN OR NOW! We are all the product of the choices our ancestors, for whatever reason, made. I couldn't agree with you more about Chad Smith. But I could NOT disagree with you more about whether or not you are a Cherokee or that the Cherokee Nation should "help you." Only the citizens of the Cherokee governments are Cherokees, anyone else, if they actually have a distant Cherokee ancestor (and most don't), are strangers, aliens to us. Why should we care about you now when your ancestor didn't care about the Cherokees then? Why would we welcome that kind of thinking into our midst (acorns do not fall far from the tree). Would you do as your ancestor and leave us in a lurch just when we needed you most? And let's get logical about all this blood business. Blood does not equal citizenship and if you are actually of Cherokee blood ancestry, then you are proof of that. You think because the Cherokee Nation exists within the confines of the United States that you can call upon us to recognize your claim simply because you have blood! NO! There are greater issues at stake than you and your blood. And you could never, never acquire citizenship in Great Britain, Germany or Nigeria simply because you had a long lost ancestor from there. You would have to meet THEIR naturalization requirements just like the Cherokee Nation. We are a Nation and our definition of citizenship belongs to US and none other.