; and (2) shall not be responsible for the actual research on behalf of the petitioner. 7. Criteria for Federal acknowledgment The criteria for consideration for Federal acknowledgment is, at a minimum, the following: (1) The petitioner has been identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900. Evidence that the group’s character as an Indian entity has from time to time been denied shall not be considered to be conclusive evidence that this criterion has not been met. Evidence to be relied upon in determining a group’s Indian identity may include one or a combination of the following, as well as other evidence of identification by other than the petitioner itself or its members: (A) Identification as an Indian entity by Federal authorities. (B) Relationships with State governments based on identification of the group as Indian. (C) Dealings with a county, parish, or other local government in a relationship based on the group’s Indian identity. (D) Identification as an Indian entity by anthropologists, historians, and/or other scholars. (E) Identification as an Indian entity in newspapers and books. (F) Identification as an Indian entity in relationships with Indian tribes or with national, regional, or State Indian organizations. (2) A predominant portion of the petitioning group comprises a distinct community and has existed as a community from historical times until the present. (A) This criterion may be demonstrated by some combination of the following evidence and/or other evidence that the petitioner meets the definition of community: (i) Significant rates of marriage within the group, and/or, as may be culturally required, patterned out-marriages with other Indian populations. (ii) Significant social relationships connecting individual members. (iii) Significant rates of informal social interaction which exist broadly among the members of a group. (iv) A significant degree of shared or cooperative labor or other economic activity among the membership. (v) Evidence of