I am 1/8 Cherokee and I can only comment on the male members of my own family. My brothers do not have very much facial hair. If they grow a beard it is mustache and chin only. Pictures of male relatives on my Cherokee side show no beards. My oldest brother had blond hair when he was born. It turned darker as he aged. I have one sister that has jet black hair. The rest of us are somewhere in between. Eye color ranges from Green, to Brown, and to an almost Black. A round face is very prevalent in my family. When I look at old pictures of Cherokees I see that same roundness in the face. - Chris -----Original Message----- From: Roberta L. Doman [mailto:bobette@foxinternet.net] Sent: Thursday, June 10, 1999 9:31 AM To: Indian-Territory-Roots-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: question of heritage I have a "stupid" question I am sure. But here it goes...my aunt gave me a picture of my grandfather's father-in-law who was supposed to be Cherokee. Looking at it, has a very full beard..did the American Indian have hair on the face? Also my uncle (same family line) said that his grandfather had American Indian in him, yet he had fair skin, light hair and blue eyes. When I asked my uncle how he could look so white and not Indian, he only asked me, "what is an Indian supposed to look like? Do we all look like our nationalities are supposed to look?" He has a point here, yet most of us are a mixture of more than one nationality, and ggrandfathers father-in-law was supposed to be full Cherokee(with a beard) and in ggrandfather's case (blond hair, blue eyes) at least half. See I told you it was a silly question, but I am curious to what you all have to say about this. It's the face hair that is more confusing to me than what an Indian is supposed to look like in the case of John T. ....I was always under the understanding that the American Indian had a smooth face and very little if any facial hair.... Thanks bob bobette@foxinternet.net