looking for great-grandmother

conservativecave ^ | September 26, 2010 | franksolich

[PROTESTBYPROXY]

My family history went back until the 1600’s.

[WVNan]

I started researching my husband's family and found that someone had already done a lot of the work. Then one of his cousins furnished the rest of it. We now have every family member going back to 1625 in Donegal, Ireland. There was a son in every generation to pass the family name down. Large families too.

My family, however, I've never found anything beyond my great grandparents. They are Scots, so needless to say I refuse to pay Ancestor.com for the use of their not so good research. :o)

[DrC]

“To my amazement, it went back to 410 to King Clovis the Riparian of Cologne whoever he was.”

If you can trace your family line back to royalty, you typically can go back hundreds of years (royalty, after all, being the individuals most likely to have such records). Having traced my family back to some English kings, I then found a book that took my lineage all the way back to Julius Caesar.

[WVNan]

The most fun I've had was finding information about the character that I use in my hobby of re-enacting history. Catherine Carpenter was born in Boston in 1774. She married Benjamin Ulen who was born in Philadelphia in 1760. They met and married in Redstone Settlement called Redstone Old Fort. That is Brownsville, PA now.

I there are any Ulens out there, do I have a story for you.

[AuntB]

This is what research of my family led to.

http://jesusweptanamericanstory.blogspot.com/

[wally_bert]

My cousin did a lot of research a couple years back and got back to 1600s as well. The only real interesting tidbit which isn’t very much is that my dad’s grandmother is related to Betsy Ross.

[Ditter]

I think marrying an Indian back then was considered a no no. My husband has a similar story from his family. When his great aunt was very old and near death she admitted to him that there had been an Indian grandmother. But don’t worry she said, she was a white folks kind of Indian.

[Ditter]

Thanks frank, I enjoyed your history. I think I need to find a willing Mormon, folks who travel across the country in a wagon every other generation, don’t leave many tracks. They leave tracks in the mud but not in the court house records.

[MamaB]

My great grandmother was a Cherokee Indian but that is all we have been able to find out. We did discover that her children had been offered land in OK but they did not take it. All but one lived in MS.

[La Lydia]

Do your great-grandmother’s descendants have the Mongolian mark that native American babies have?

[buschbaby]

"I found my family names (cherokee) on the Indian roll calls."

We too are supposedly Cherokee, I have looked at the rolls. I have come to believe she was adopted and given a European name. All I have are family stories about her looks and that she hid her Indian heritage. I can trace her family name back to when they came to America, same as my great-grandfather. To me this means there has to be an adopted child somewhere for the Indian blood to be introduced. They moved to NW MO when it was still wild, which would have helped her hide. All census forms list her as white. Sadly, I think I'm at a dead end until the Cherokee nation will accept DNA as proof of heritage.

[tiki]

My husband’s great-grandmother was half Native American and although she swore she was French, everyone knew it. What no one knew is that his great-grandfather was some portion Cherokee.

What a long, lost cousin has told us is to look in the records for “Black Dutch” that this is a euphemism for Native American/European. That might have only been in Tennessee though. The last name that we share is definitely Scotch, not Dutch. I know this probably won’t help but it might.

[buschbaby]

"Do your great-grandmother’s descendants have the Mongolian mark that native American babies have?"

I had to look up what a Mongolian mark was, as I was unfamiliar with the term. I'm not sure about my brothers and sister (will soon ask them!), but I do have a mark on my right calf that would probably qualify as such. My children do not appear to have inherited any Indian traits, other then my daughter tans very quickly and never gets sun burnt even though she is blond.

[La Lydia]

The Mongolian mark is at the base of the spine, extending sometimes onto the buttocks, of newborns. It does not appear on legs. They usually fade, so you have to ask someone who knew and saw you and your cousins when you were infants. It is an unmistakable signifier of native American blood.

[fish hawk]

We Indians joke about just about everyone we know is part Cherokee. The thing is that a lot of them really are but back in the old days, some with Indian blood but fairly white complected, hid the fact. It was not cool to be Indian and was put in the “Black” category. Many of those ancestors to the bloodline to the grave with them and in fact this is still going on. My best friend is part Mohawk but has only one old auntie still living. He recently ask her about the bloodline to keep for his children but she refused to talk to him about it. What a shame. This did not happen in my family as I am a living member of the Yurok Tribe of N. Calif. and on the rolls registered. My grand kids are in full knowledge of their blood line. I am doing a family tree of our line but sadly can only go back to my great great grandparents as they were born at home and no papers were filed in those days.

[tiki]

My granddaughter had one of those.

[tiki]

As I said my granddaughter had one but around here we attribute it to Mexican-American descent and it is mostly girls.

[Ptarmigan]

What country are your ancestors from originally? Cool stuff.

[franksolich]

What country are your ancestors from originally?

Without knowing the identity of the father of my grandfather, one has no idea, although a possible last name suggests English.

The mother of my grandfather, her people originally came to America during the 1600s, from Gloucester, England.

[susannah59]

Those of African and Asian ancestry can also have the Mongolian spots, so it does not necessarily signify American Indian ancestry. Also, not everyone of other-than-Caucasian descent has them as babies, so it’s really not helpful.