Auxiliary lines are FABULOUS!

[fudge stripe cookays]

I have been looking for the widow of one of my Civil War vets ever since I started this project! Never could figure out what happened to her.

Finally got smart a few weeks ago, and checked the Wisconsin Historical Society's online database. Her SISTER'S death was there (unrelated line), and the sister's obituary gave me her new married name! Woohoo!

I have now made so much progress on the sister's related line (we had three families intermarry like crazy), I may release a smaller book of just family tree data from these lines. Yay!

So, like they say, if you can't find someone by going in the front door, try a window.

:bounce:

[yellerpup]

1. Congratulations!

I found family alliances/intermarriages within my Cherokee lines were really hard to untangle. I think I have done it, but it is so hard to be perfectly sure. My gg-grandfather was orphaned by the end of the Civil War at age 7 and did not know a lot of details about his family (he was raised by his sister & her husband), but I found his great uncle's testimony before the Dawe's Commission and he had tons of information that I was able to trace. I'm happy that you got a break and a breakthrough!

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. Interesting about the Cherokee lines.

Have you been able to find any Indian records? I know reprehensor's mom found a lot in Canada. They call them scrip records up there; not sure what they have down here. He is full blood Metis on his mom's side. It's fascinating to read that family history, because his ancestors were pretty much trappers and traders that the white men hired to get them through the wilds of Alberta. Then they were given about $25 for their land, beaten by Catholic schoolteachers, and treated like crud by the Canadian government. Plus there was that whole Louis Riel thing. Supposedly, one of his grandfathers was a bud of Riel's.

Gail Morin wrote a huge compendium of Metis families, and his is all in there. Would there be anything like that to help you? Check already published family histories for any of the names that might have married into your core family too. I've had AMAZING finds in Horton and Weaver genealogies where they married my Smiths.

:hi:

[yellerpup]

3. The documentation begins when the Tsalagi (Cherokee)

begin making trading alliances with Europeans or start getting married to them. I've found leases gone bad, permission slips for non-Cherokee to travel through or go to work on farms within the Cherokee Nation, newspaper accounts of births, deaths, arrests & marriages (Cherokee Phoenix, Arkansas Gazette), Civil War rosters, but the paper that opened a clear path to the family tree was the Dawes Commission testimony taken in 1903 from Jesse Bear Burgess, who proudly named his progenitors (both their English and Tsalagi names) back to his gg-grandmother/father. Jessee was trying to prove that he was the rightful heir of all these deceased persons who were entitled to both land grant and cash. At first, I didn't fully trust his account because he seemed to be very greedy, but the more I checked into the references he made the more information and confirmation I was able to find. My gg-grandfather (Jesse Bear's great-nephew) was orphaned at 7 and raised by his sister and her husband had very little to offer the Dawe's Commission since he didn't even know the name of his mother, only that she was "white". Still, the Dawes Commission allowed my gg-grandfather all his benefits while Jesse Bear was denied any recognition or compensation at all and he was fully half-blood. Jesse was more demanding and I think more threatening and accusatory, too. I can't blame him because all the people he named were dead and dispossessed--I think a person would be a little bitter... Attitudes on both sides appear to have changed history because the Bureau of Indian Affairs refused to recognize him as a member of the tribe. I have also read transcripts of hearings in TN when Indian Commissioners denied children recognition of an degree of indian blood because they were illegitimate even though they were also known to be the blood relatives of a Cherokee. I assume this happened with other tribes, but my research has been very narrow and targeted because I was looking for specifics. Also, the journals and records of the Moravian missionaries are meticulous and very helpful. I know nothing about the Canadian tribes, although I have seen Shawnee genealogy charts that include Metis. I did not know they were a tribe, I was reading it as mestisos. One of my Tsalagi ancestors was one-quarter French/Shawnee.

I am originally from Oklahoma. My first husband was a Smith and he was Miami/Cherokee-White.

If you recommend Gail Morin, I will research her. I've admired your work in this forum for some time. :hi:

[fudge stripe cookays]

4. I don't think technically Metis is a tribe.

It's a designation of the first peoples folks who aren't Inuit-- the English and French interbreeding with the natives who were already there.

So, in more negative terms, they're the Canadian equivalents of "half breeds." For instance, reprehensor's about 8th great grandpappy was Iroquois in Quebec. Later in, some others in the tree in Alberta were Cree. I actually had descendants on my mom's side in and around Montreal in the 16 and 1700s, and one of them was scalped by the natives.

We have a joke that his ancestors were scalping my ancestors, but only because my ancestors were oppressing his ancestors first! :P

Thanks for the compliment! You guys have all given me some great ideas as well. I LOVE this forum.

Your Indian hunt would have made me scratch my head in frustration. My people have been difficult to find in their own ways, but I wouldn't even know where to start with more exotic lineage like that!

[yellerpup]

5. Finding lines of indians in this country is not that difficult.

The government started keeping records (census) of them in 1777. Considering what happened to the natives here, I would assume that it was so the government could find them and dispossess (or kill) them at any time. I know that sounds cynical, but you can't study the history of what happened to the indigenous people here without coming to the conclusion that these records were not being kept so the government could help them. As for the scalping--the Europeans often employed natives as mercenaries and paid a bounty per "head". The best way to prove how many you'd killed was to take the scalp and turn it in for payment. Thanks for clearing up the question I had about Metis!