Note to Ms Warren - the Cherokees just denied it was ever yours in the first place, and no one can “take away” what you never had.
By the way, a “white” family’s tale of a belief in a dead ancestors “native” American ancsestry, does not a tribal heritage make.
We have had such a tale in my family, which we all heard as kids, but my father’s response to it was to call us “mutts” and tell us such considerations were not important.
True tribal heritage is a life long experience, not something someone invents from a DNA test. And, without that tribal-family experience, there is no claim the individual has TODAY to being “native American” in the sense of a continuing living part of the people’s settling North American long before the European colonists.
My wife’s family had something similar. Great Great Grandfather on one side of her family was married and had 4 children, wife dies shortly after birth of last child, he then quickly marries Native American woman, he dies not too long after that, 2nd wife raises baby as her own child and everyone assumes it is her child, so family believes it has some Native American bloodline. This was in isolated Nebraska/Kansas border homestead country so not a lot of other people to know the real story. Was only recently thru various genealogical records were they able to figure out true story, no DNA test involved.