Just because many legends are untrue, doesn’t mean none of them are basically right. As a result, your article is somewhere between false and grossly misleading. Because Cherokees and others did intermarry frequently, it’s logical that some people living today clearly are descendants of pairings that predate any 19th century lists. Logically, in some cases the family lore could just be legend, though this might be quite rare for people with Southern U.S. ancestry. In some cases the tale is just legend but it will happen to coincide with the truth, despite the made-up nature of the claims. In a few cases the family lore does go back to memories that have been passed from one generation to the next. And in some cases families have Cherokee or other tribal ancestry without knowing it. Your statement about “too many” claims doesn’t hold up to scrutiny based on math and history. In fact, there’s a reasonable probability that nearly everyone with family ties primarily to the American South going back to at least the 1700s has at least one ancestor each of European, African and Native American origin.