This is an interesting topic...
Apparently Jessica Biel has the same issue.. she was always under the impression she had Native American ancestry but her DNA results, revealed on the show "Who Do You Think You Are?" did not show it.. she was nonplussed to say the least. However, the attached article explains why she was not wrong about her heritage... it is an interesting read.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/dna-ex...a-follow-up-dna-native-heritage-and-lies/amp/
My own DNA results were interesting... paternal family lore alluded to Native American ancestry but I was skeptical, figuring that, if it existed, it would not show in my results since there were no close male relatives still living to be tested for confirmation. Since my many times great grandparents date back to 1730 or so in America and they had 11 children my DNA results have linked with thousands of 5th to 8th cousins living now of which half or more have Native American results.
Another interesting fact: on my matrilineal side I am 1% European Jewish .. this does not show in my sister's results even though we are a close match otherwise. African ancestry is also found in my search through the cousins but it did not show in my sister's tests or mine..
I am considering Haplo "Out of Africa" group testing to connect with ancient migrations
Half your kissin' cousins have NA results? That's so cool, and proves how it works that it's random, after a few generations, whether one has the actual DNA or not. And lack of DNA does not disprove the ancestry stories.
Yes, it is a fascinating topic for me, and I'm almost (well, maybe "almost" is a small exaggeration) as interested in other people's findings (yours, hanyuufan's, even Jessica Biel's!) as I am in mine. They paint such an interconnected picture of all of us.
I followed your link and got fascinated, kept reading till bedtime, forgot to reply to you (both) ... and then several of my kids visited and there goes the past week and a half!
Anyway, this article by the same blogger, plus the others you can read on her site, really explain why DNA may not show up, even when one knows the ancestry story and has documentation. https://dna-explained.com/2017/06/27/ancestral-dna-percentages-how-much-of-them-is-in-you/
It's a fuller explanation, but basically the same as what ancestry.com said .... that in a circle of (me), I got 50% of my dad's DNA, but all of his (6.25% or thereabouts), if he had any) Native DNA could easily have been in the other 50% of his DNA. And so on back. When I finally dug out an enlarged photo of my grandmother when she was young, I could see her Native ancestry in her brown almond-shaped eyes, when her hair was dark. But her hair turned white early, and when I knew her, with granny glasses and all, I never saw it ... and also didn't know to look for it. I only found out about her half-Cherokee grandfather (the one in the photo) who'd died in the Civil War, after she had passed away. Plus his story in her handwriting.
I am annoyed at the WDYTYA professionals who left Jessica Biel thinking her family stories weren't true. Not to mention it gave exactly the wrong impression to viewers who aren't obsessive enough to follow up with their own research. Casting doubt on oral history and family lore is not good.
That's so cool that you have his photo! He's a distant enough ancestor that there's a good chance you didn't inherit a detectable amount of his DNA, but that doesn't make you any less descended from him. You can try the admixture calculators on gedmatch.com. (Take them with an even bigger grain of salt than "professional" DNA tests. They can be really good and really bad at the same time, like the one that correctly guessed my Cossack ancestry down to the correct type of Cossack, but then also said I could be 20% Norwegian. )
Speaking of photos, the most distant I have is my great-great grandmother. We have the same nose!
It's occurred to me that his is the earliest photo I have of any ancestor. And we only have it because in the Civil War, the armies offered (?) to take photographs of every soldier who enlisted.
I knew it must have been his mother who was Cherokee. It was statistically much more likely ... but Also his name was purely English. I should say his first, middle and last names were all purely English, plus he was a Junior! It was only a few years ago that I found his parents' marriage record. It was in a North Carolina county famously in Cherokee country and famous for marriages between white and native people.