Native American Ancestry help!?

Question:

Native American Ancestry help!?

It is said in my family that my great grandfather was 1/2 Native American. I am trying to trace my ancestry but I get stuck on him. All I know is my grandfather said he was born in Clifton, Arizona. I found information from his social security info on Ancestry.com and it says he was born in Arizona but nothing regarding the names of his parents. When I input his info on the state website to view birth documents it says nothing exists for his name and birthday. Any suggestions on what I can do? Could it be perhaps he doesn't have a birth certificate?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Your comment about viewing birth documents is very intriguing. NORMALLY a birth certificate is confidential info, and not online. In addition, every state has a different date, mostly in the early 1900's, when birth certs were legislated as a requirement. Depending on his date of birth, this could be a factor.. OR he might have been born on a reservation in Arizona.
His death certificate would be a more recent document, and it should have his parents names. Assuming he died in the last 50 yrs, go to rootsweb.com, searches, and pull up the social security death index. I also suggest that you do a search for his SURNAME alone in advanced search for just Arizona.. the goal being to find possible siblings.
With specific names and dates, you can estimate which census he might have been in, as well as his parents. The census started in 1790, is taken every 10 yrs, and is available up through 1930. The 1890 copy was lost in a fire. Obviously, there was no Arizona in 1790... this is where you get to dip your toe in fitting your family location to history. You will want the most RECENT census first..and work backwards.
I googled Clifton Arizona, and one of the interesting sites I found was this one...
http://www.rootsweb.com/~azgreenl/clifto...
You didn't mention his name, so I could not tell if any of the names here matched his..
This is a great article about Clifton's past...
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.article?...
And don't overlook www.usgenweb, which has volunteer (free) web sites for every county in the US. You may find his family there, or just background info.