Editing Mashantucket Pequot Tribe (section)

==Tribal membership rules==
The Mashantucket Pequot tribe receives numerous requests from individuals applying for admission as members. They base tribal membership on an individual proving descent, by recognized genealogical documentation, from one or more members of eleven families included on the 1900 U.S. census of the tribe.<ref name="indiangaming.org"/>

Each federally recognized tribe has the authority to set its own membership/citizenship rules. Their descent rules are similar to the [[Cherokee Nation]]'s reliance on proven direct descent from those Cherokee listed in the early 20th-century [[Dawes Rolls]]. CBS News reported in May 2000 that the tribal membership had voted to drop the requirement that tribal applicants have a minimum percentage of Mashantucket Pequot blood.<ref>{{cite news |title=Are Pequots Really Pequots? |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/are-pequots-really-pequots/ |access-date=7 April 2019 |work=www.cbsnews.com |agency=[[CBS News]] |date=23 May 2000 |language=en}}</ref> However, the tribe has since begun to require genetic testing of newborn children whose parents are tribal members, to establish maternity and paternity.<ref>[http://www.racesci.org/racescinow/genetics,race,and%20ancestry/5.html Reprint: Karen Kaplan, "Ancestry in a Drop of Blood"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120216190231/http://www.racesci.org/racescinow/genetics%2Crace%2Cand%20ancestry/5.html |date=2012-02-16 }}, ''Los Angeles Times'', 30 August 2005, RaceSciWebsite, accessed 17 March 2009</ref>