Birds were possibly Indian traders or connected to the Indian trade in the southeast, as the name is listed in the surname index of a three volume set of Indian Affairs journals, located at http://members.aol.com/rarebk Once at the site, go to Booklists, then Native American Genealogy, and scroll down to the Cherokee Ancestry CD. There you will see a link to the surnames. This site also has an on-line tutorial that shows how to do Native American Genealogy research (the 1835 Cherokee census is within that) and explains the rolls in detail, also some CD's that look to have lots of resource material, and a surname index to Starr's "Old Cherokee Families and their Genealogy." There is more, but too much to list here. Steve ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.