Kimberly: Let me suggest that you do some reading. Go to this site http://www.cherokeeheritage.org/index.html Open the "Genealogy" link and read the material on these items: "Dawes Roll" "blood quantum" Also go to this site: http://www.powersource.com/cocinc/ancest/whois.htm There are several excellent articles there. One extract, in particular, struck me. "For Whites, blood is a substance that can be either racially pure or racially polluted. Black blood pollutes White blood absolutely, so that, in the logical extreme, one drop of Black blood makes an otherwise White man black. . . . White ideas about "Indian blood" are less formalized and clear-cut. . . . It may take only one drop of Black blood to make a person a Negro, but it takes a lot of Indian blood to make a person a "real" Indian. " From-Karen I. Blu, The Lumbee Problem: The Making of an American Indian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. In the predominate Euro-American (white) culture it was not fashionable or wise to be thought of as being an Indian (whole or part) from about 1720 to 1920. Now days it is most fashionable to "prove" your Indian blood (4/4ths, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8th, 1/16th, 1/32nd or is it 15/32nds, 1/64th, 1/128th). Oil, tobacco, and games (read this as money) seem to be the driving forces behind many efforts to prove one's Indian heritage. Some of this effort is fueled by genealogical curiosity. In hundreds of hours studying census records I have encountered very few indications of folks with the surname PATE who were racially designated as Indians. I am not familiar with an 1830 or 1840 Indian census, It is my impression that from 1790 to 1840 the racial designations were white or black (free or slave). If you really want to wander off into the wilderness, try to sort out and racially classify the triracial families, i.e., White, Indian and Black. One of the more interesting things to occur recently (2000 as I recall) was the attempt by the ruling authorities in the Cherokee Nation to decertify hundreds of tribal members because of their black blood. Care to guess what was behind that move? Joel