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©2004-2008 Coastal Carolina Indian Center. All
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Researching
Indian Ancestry One of the number one questions Coastal Carolina
Indian Center gets via e-mail is how to find Indian ancestors, or how to
determine the tribe of certain ancestors who were said to be Indian. This
article was written to help people get started on finding those answers.
by Sara Whitford
If you are embarking on a search for Indian ancestors, there are several tips to
consider:
- Very rarely in the southeastern states will you ever see Indian people
actually listed as Indian after the early colonial period. They are
occasionally listed in census records as Free People of Color or Other Free.
Often they are classified as white, black or mulatto.
- Because of the wars between the Indian communities and the colonists in
the early colonial period, those Indians who chose to remain in areas that
had been ravaged by war often tried to hide their identities, or just blend
in with the population at large, for survival sake. It was typical that
these families intermarried with other families like there own so that there
still remained a strong indigenous bloodline, while the culture and language
were in some cases almost completely lost.
Many of these families also moved together, so let's say that in 1760
several Indian families are living in one county, as more white settlers
came in, these same families would feel the urge to move usually slightly
south or west to stay ahead of the colonial expansion, so perhaps by 1780 or
1790, these same families are not showing up much in the original county,
but all the same names show up one or more counties south or west.
- A very good clue for starting in researching Indian ancestry (or an
ancestor who is "rumored" as being Indian in your family tree) is to try to
focus on that person's line. Go back as far as you can and do not be
discouraged if you don't find anyone specifically named as Indian. Make a
list of all the related surnames you can find, and try to keep in mind the
surnames you see witnessing deeds, wills, etc for these individuals. What
families do your family surnames marry into? Try to keep a list of these
other surnames because this will be key to establishing connections to known
Indian families.
- Investigate what tribes were living in the area at any given time. If
the history has it that the tribe no longer existed in a particular area
after such-and-such a time, know that this only means that the tribe no
longer existed as a force to be reckoned with. The people, were in most
cases, still living in the area, perhaps only in a quieter fashion (for
survival's sake). Try to learn what you can about when the tribe WAS known
to live in the area. Try to find out what names were associated with that
tribe when they WERE still vibrant in the area. Perhaps there were deeds or
court records where Indian people in a given area are named. You'll start
seeing trends with certain surnames showing up as related to a tribe at an
early point in history, and these same names are still living in the same
area later, but usually identified as "colored", "other free", or in many
cases, even just white or black. The relationships with these families stay
very interconnected. Obviously, when dealing with some very common surnames
such as Smith, Johnson, Jones, etc, this can be a little misleading, but at
that point, you can start looking at given names of children and you'll see
evidence tying people to either the native branches or the non-native
branches of that surname. Please note: Just because someone has a surname
that was a known surname for Indian people in a particular area does NOT
guarantee that the individual was Indian. There are a number of other
variables that will need to come together to establish proof, or at least a
likelihood that the individual was, in fact, Indian.
Researching Indian ancestry is not an exact science. In fact, more often
than not, it has to do with uncovering what is referred to as a
"preponderance of evidence" that certain individuals were Indian, or at
least were dealing a great deal with families with known Indian surnames.
In eastern North Carolina, one fantastic example of uncovering Indian
surnames comes from researching the reservation that was established at Lake
Mattamuskeet in 1727 (in the period following the Tuscarora War).
There are a number of families that are identified as being Indian on this
reservation including (but not limited to): Squires, Longtom, Mackey,
Barber, Brooks and Russell. These families are VERY interconnected with
other families at Mattamuskeet that may or may not be Indian, themselves,
such as Gibbs, Spencer, Prescott, Brinson, Delamar, etc.. You'll find at
some point that individuals once specifically identified as Indian are no
longer referred to in official documents as Indian, but are identified as
other races, or not described by race at all.
You'll also see that a lot of these families move together to other
counties. For example, there were a large number of Squires, Brinsons,
Delamars, Prescotts, etc, who begin showing up along the Bay River in what
is known today as Pamlico County in the same period that the reservation
starts being sold off in large pieces.
These same families also have many interactions with other families
identified on early census records as "Other Free" or "Free People of Color"
such as the Mackelroys. There were Prescotts living on the Mattamuskeet
reservation during the reservation period, and they had intermarried with
the Russell family, who were known to be Indian. You start finding enough
bits and pieces of information like this and a very clear picture starts to
emerge.
It's a lot like detective work, solving a mystery. Sometimes frustrating,
sometimes very time consuming and tedious, but whenever answers are
uncovered, always very rewarding.
©2007 by Sara Whitford. All Rights Reserved.(Return to Research Databases)
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