I just wanted to give you a heads up what I found recently. My children's
gr-grandfather always used to tell the story that he was "one-quarter
American Indian" . I had searched but never found a connection anywhere and
definitely found any non-English names, so I just disregarded it. On
Mother's Day my son and his wife took me to this great restaurant in St
George, Utah (2 hr. drive). On the trip, we talked about a lot of things
but what his 'heritage' was and included American Indian. I said I had
looked but never found anything. I had volunteered at the Fort Worth NARA
when living there and did not find his name on the Dawes Commission Index so
I sort of gave up. Well our conversation spurned me into actions. I
'Googled' and found a free site in Oklahoma. I put in the name of his
father, Harvey D Wilson, thinking it was more unusual and that was as far as
I had . and an EXACT match came up, Cherokee Case #5501. I was so excited
as these are applications to become a member of the tribe so I figured it
had to have some genealogy. I called Fort Worth NARA where they have all
the original Dawes and Fort Smith records. They said to just send them an
email with the information: Name, tribe and case number (that is all there
is on the index) plus my contact/snail mail information. My fear was they
were going to say $75 which is what I was told the NARA in Washington DC
charges for military pension records . and takes several months. Not so,
$15 minimum and when she got into the file she called and said the file had
38 pages and cost would be $28. She took a credit card and a week later my
mailbox . there was the envelope. I started pouring over the documents
which was actually 4 applications of 4 grandchildren of a woman who was
known to be 'Cherokee by blood' ... all dated between Aug - Sep 1896. After
thinking I had a goldmine of names, ages and birthdate and location of the
petitioner, I suddenly realized the Harvey D Wilson I was looking for was
born in 1824 and this one was born in 1848. I was bummed but the idea that
there may be an untapped resource. I do remember when first hearing about
the American Indian rolls, that people would usually cut their percentage of
Indian blood in half due to popular opinion at the time against Indians.
Well, my search did not prove fruitful for me . but, I got to thinking that
the application was about people born in VA/WV and living in Missouri .. how
many 'brick walls' we have in that area. There are census' for tribal
members as they would not be included in the US Federal Census. So, if you
are stuck, you might try checking American Indian rolls to see if one of
your family members are listed. Unfortunately, the Dawes Commission Index
does not have ages/dates of birth but if you do find an ancestor, the
applications are a good place.
Oh, also the location in Oklahoma had marriages . I checked and between 1901
and 1951 there were 288 Oklahoma marriages for WELLS.
Bonita
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----oOOo-(_)-oOOo---- Just Looking for clues ...
Lady Bonita
Nevada, USA