I want to know who I am. What Indian Tribe I'm from. Can anybody HELP me Please.

Question:

I want to know who I am. What Indian Tribe I'm from. Can anybody HELP me Please...?

My maiden name is Mergili and my Mother's maiden name is Arnel. All I know is that I'm 1/2 German, 1/4 Irish, and 1/4 Indian; but don't know what tribe I'm from. I feel I need to know so can you PLEASE HELP ME????

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: If you are actually a quarter Native American, then your full-blooded Indian ancestors would be fairly recent. Start with your living ancestors (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles) and get as much information as possible from them - who their parents were, what they know of their grandparents or history. Try as much as possible to get names, dates, and places, not just vague stories - many stories are in fact just stories.

Once you can get back 70-some-odd years, you can start getting vital records (more recent ones are considered private and are difficult for a third party to obtain). 1930 is the latest census available to the public and has been fully indexed - depending on your age, your parents or grandparents were probably alive then and you should be able to find them (thus the importance of the names, dates, and places from your relatives - so you can be sure who you're looking for). Once you find your ancestors in 1930, start tracing them back via the census - with some luck, you can often shoot back 3-5 generations to the 1850 census (the first with everyone's name) - it's not a perfect source by any means, but it's a good first step to get a general picture of the family before delving into other records.

Do be advised however that 'native american' is an ancestry that many people claim but just isn't so. You may find that your family's stories of native american ancestry are nothing more then tall-tales. I have found that a couple times in my own family - you get someone with dark hair it seems, and you get a story that they're all or part native american. Don't believe it until you can PROVE it.

I'm not, of course, saying you're not Indian, just be skeptical and do your research