By “full blooded”, I mean having only native american ancestory, with no European or other ancestors mixed in.
A drop of white makes you not full blooded? Wtf?
Uh, yeah. Go south.
Yes.
Seriously, is that surprising? There aren’t a lot of them, but they do exist.
Yes, lots.
Well, yes, not having 100% of a given heritage means you do not have 100% of that heritage.
Uh no. This is not one drop rule. One drop of “white,” doesn’t make you white. That’s not what anybody has said. What do you think “full blooded” means?
Any chance of some evidence?
To me, it’s very surprising.
Well, one of my husband’s grandmothers was a full-blood Native by your definition, although admittedly she’s passed away some time ago. Still, her family is still mostly full-bloods, last I heard. I don’t think they’d appreciate me posting their personal information on the internet, however.
I also knew a fellow student in college who was full-blooded Sioux. Well, OK, I didn’t personally research his ancestry but I had no reason to doubt him, either.
Some groups, such as the Hopi and Navajo, probably have a higher percentage of folks who are full-bloods under your definition than some others, but such people certainly do exist.
Sorry, most of my evidence is anecdotal. On the other hand, I find it hard to dispute the existence of living, breathing human beings I personally know.
Why?
Because as you get higher in your family tree, your number of ancestors increases exponentially (well, up to a certain point). And plenty of people don’t know all of their ancestors up to ten or more generations ago, despite the fact that you know people who claim to be full-blooded Indian.
I, for one, am white, and don’t know any non-white ancestors in my family tree. But am I full-blooded white? Probably not. It’s quite likely that I have some native ancestry if you go by the one-drop rule. But I’m unaware of it and I am in no way Indian.
Well that’s all well and good, but I don’t know them. And from what you say, you yourself don’t actually know, you are just taking their word. For a group of people who until recently had extremely low literacy rates and were experiencing severe social breakdown, the chances of knowing heritage for the past 400 years with any sort of certainty is slim. It’s not like there are even any written records for Indians for most of that time. Absent genetic evidence, it seems any claims of 100% heritage would have to be based on “Granny told me” rather than any hard evidence.
Heck, most European Americans can’t trace *all *their ancestors back more than five generations, and Europe has really good written records and political stability over that time period. I can’t even imagine how someone *could *know all their Indian heritage back beyond the mid 19th century.
Several reasons.
Firstly, it’s simple mathematics. For the past 250 years, Indians have made up <5% of the population of the Americas. So to retain 100% Indian heritage would require some incredibly deliberate reproductive choices. If people simply married at random the chances of retaining 100% Indian heritage over 10 generation is staggeringly small.
Then we add in resistance genetics. Most Indians had no genetic resistance to most old World diseases, and those who did have resistance only had random resistance to individual diseases. The practical upshot of that is that people of pure Indian blood had a greatly reduced chance of survival over people with some Old World introgression. This is a selective pressure that continued unabated until just 50 years ago. As a result, once Old World heritage enters into the potential gene pool anywhere, it is going to multiply far more rapidly than Native American heritage. So basic evolutionary biology says that individuals with no Old World ancestry will be staggeringly rare
Third is status. Basically, Old World immigrants had more money, more possessions, more power and higher status. Even without any other factors, that ensures that they will infiltrate most bloodlines in just a few generations.
So I really would be surprised if there were any people alive today who were of 100% Native American heritage.
I would guess most people dont know their ancestors beyond 3, occasionally 4 generations.
My great grandfather was born in 1885 (im 38). If a generation is assumed to be 20 years, 10 generations gets me to the mid 1700’s.
Cite? 
A 99% full-blood is not the same as a 100% full-blood and many scholars seem convinced the latter do not exist. A “full-blooded” Amerindian would share no recent ancestors with a “full-blooded” Australian or Eurasiatic, but for example
Whether post-Columbian European genes penetrated to the deepest parts of the Amazonian jungle may be uncertain. This was debated about a year ago at SDMB, with “probably yes” seeming to be a very rough consensus.
For genealogical purposes, a generation generally is considered to be 30 years. It seems that over time, the average person was born when their parents were pretty close to 30. YMMV widely, of course. Mine surely does, with one ancestor born to a 14 year old mom, and another born to a 45 year old mom.
In my husband’s case, they know their ancestry in North America back to the 1740’s, and in Scotland further back yet.
Granted, that is NOT the Native side of the family.
Even so - there are exceptions to every rule. People do not mate entirely at random. While I would be suspicious of claims to 100% Native ancestry in some tribes, there are some, such as the Hopi, which retain sufficient population and were able to remain somewhat autonomous such that I don’t see anything unreasonable with the idea there are genuine full blood individuals still around.
That gives an average age of the mother at birth of 29.5. 
There is a legend in the Menominee Indians (told to me by the last Chief Oshkosh) that when a certain rock in the former reservation is worn completely away by erosion, there will no longer be any full-blooded Menominees left.
The rock is limestone, and weathering fast, but last I heard, still stands. Therefore, I conclude there are still some Menominees.
That’s science as I know it, anyway. 
B’Gosh!
How about some of the tribes in the depths of the Amazonian rain forest? I should have thought that there was a pretty good chance of finding some “full bloods” amongst them: better than amongst any North American groups, anyway. Or don’t they count a “Native Americans” for the purposes of this thread?
When doing serious estimates it’s good to remember that fathers are usually older than mothers. A specific example I once worked out was of Queen Victoria’s husband Albert, who was born in 1819.
His purely patrilineal 23-great grandfather was Dedi of Hessegau, born ca 946, for 35 years per generation.
His purely matrilineal 23-great grandmother was Ilona Arpad, born ca 1241, for 23 years per generation.
This 12-year father-mother differential is an exaggerated example (due to the mating habits of medieval Central European nobles? 
). A 5-year differential may be more typical.
I knew some right-wing Dopers set septimus to Ignore this User, but I didn’t know that Guests had that option.
“Guests” certainly have the option to Ignore. I don’t think I could be here otherwise (not that I’m ignoring septimus, obviously). 
Of course indigenous South Americans are Native Americans, though indeed that is sometimes overlooked in northern-hemispheric discussions.
As to the point, I’d be interested in seeing that thread, which I don’t remember reading. It would be surprising to me if there was evidence, rather than conjecture, supporting that conclusion.