As well, many people claim Cherokee ancestry, but were not actually Cherokee. There were many other nations around Cherokee, and some folks would simply call themselves Cherokee to save a lot of confusion. Thus, a person might have grown up believing they were Cherokee, but their Native American grandfather or great-grandmother would not show up on Cherokee genealogy. This is a strange but very true fact of life for those who know they are descendents of Native Americans, but cannot figure out anything past one name.

However, for those who are Cherokee and know it, and can find proper names for their ancestors, Cherokee genealogy is very complete. There are many books, papers, and websites that are dedicated to showing family trees. If you can trace names properly, you will be able to go back quite a ways into past and find many of your ancestors. For those who can manage it, Cherokee genealogy is a rich mine of information about names and places where your ancestors were born, lived, and died.

If you have time and energy and knowledge that you need, you can trace your ancestry back to men and women living as natives on shores of New World. So give Cherokee genealogy a try figure out that much more about your family.

Now you can attach various aunts and uncles by marriage to their respective spouses with horizontal lines. Extend vertical lines from each horizontal line and extend them out to include each of your cousins. The format will become clear as you are creating a family tree for your particular family.

The structure and format for these trees should be fairly clear. Horizontal lines mean marriage. Vertical lines illustrate descent. Thus, various generations of your family will begin to demarcate themselves and you will be able to see how you are connected to all of them.

Creating a family tree is a fun little way to show depth of your known ancestors and breadth of your extended family. And as you fill in everyone you know, you can ask for more information from family members to find out new names and new people that will extend your family out that much more. And with each successive generation added from your family's history, you will be able to extend your family tree out to third, fourth, fifth cousins and beyond. Just start with who you know and you will soon learn things that you never imagined.