My opinion only. Blood quantum, how much percent of this or that you are to qualify as this or that is divisive. Created by the US Gov't to eventually say that since no one is X percent at this time, then we all don't exist anymore.

NDN’s are the only people who have to prove their ancestry with a DNA test. No one questions someone when they say they are mixed Irish and Italian, mixed German and British and so forth.

It's not so much in some ways what percentage of genetics one possesses that makes one NDN. Not saying I approve of people without a scrap of NDN ancestry claiming they are NDN. Being NDN IMO is more than just your ancestry - it's how you live your life, whether or not you make the effort to learn your tribal language and customs, help your community, take part in ceremonies, and live your life with a good heart.

In my family, the information was verbally passed from elder to son; grandparent to parent to son.

Unfortunately in my case from what my father said (he felt it important that I know despite the objections of his wife, my mother of European descent), he was told by his parents (both were mix blood NDN & White - grandma was Lenape and grandpa was farther back linked to the Nashua (Nashaway) nation) that there were some in the family who did their best to erase the NDN from the family history by destroying whatever they could get their hands on, including birth, marriage and death records. Or having them altered or burned by one in position to do so sympathetic to removing the NDN - but I digress. Such are my family stories.

It's how one lives their lives, what they do for their NDN community in ways of helping out, learning the language and culture, and working on following the culture, traditions and life-ways that makes one NDN.