Category talk:American people of Cherokee descent

This category is within the scope of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Native Americans, Indigenous peoples in Canada, and related indigenous peoples of North America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Indigenous peoples of North AmericaWikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North AmericaTemplate:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North AmericaIndigenous peoples of North America articles

United States

This category is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions.

United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles

So, do we remove all the false claimants from the category, or change it to "people who claim to have Cherokee heritage"? I'd say the former, but it's going to take some work. See also this list for needed cleanup: List of people of self-identified Cherokee ancestry. - CorbieV^☊☼ 14:15, 14 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you can find verifiable, published sources that all these people have no Cherokee ancestry, you have highly impressive research skills. Basically this category and the list are holding pens for everyone and their dog that claim to be Cherokee. If you eliminated either, they would start getting added to Category:Cherokee people. Plus it's educational for the public to see just how ubiquitous and tenuous these claims are. Yuchitown (talk) 00:33, 16 July 2015 (UTC)Yuchitown[reply]

Good points. Do you think we could swing putting "self-identified" in the cat name somewhere? - CorbieV^☊☼ 16:00, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I gather there is a Wiki-wide standard for category names (*Nationality* people of *Ethnic* descent) which bumps into problems with the Native American categories since "of descent" is code for unenrolled. Since the terminology "American people of Cherokee descent" is so standard, maybe just clarify in the category description? Yuchitown (talk) 19:03, 17 July 2015 (UTC)Yuchitown[reply]

Revisting Renaming[edit]

I am again raising the proposal that we harmonise this category name with List of people of self-identified Cherokee ancestry. "Descent" and "heritage" still has to be proven. People can have legitimate ancestry without fully meeting enrollment criteria, and that is a different thing from non-Natives who completely fabricate a Native identity. Proposing we change the name of this cat to American people of self-identified Cherokee ancestry. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 19:06, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:CorbieVreccan What about Category:American people of unverified Cherokee descent, Category:American people of unverified Native American descent, etc? Could that work? Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 19:32, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Stable categories we currently have include:

I propose we keep this "Cherokee descent" category only for those who have proven descent. That will be a small list as the Cherokee Nation, and some others, enroll proven descendants. So for the self-identified, I think

Category:American people who self-identify as being of Cherokee descent

as a sub-cat of self-identified Native American would best fit the format. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 21:21, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]