> Does anyone know what all information is on the > Guion Miller applications > and where you can send off to get copies ? > Also, are there some of the same > people on the Guion Miller Roll as on the Dawes > Roll and if so, why, if the > Guion Miller Roll was for eastern and the Dawes > was for western ? Hello, Michael! Go to this URL and you will see some applications that are already transcribed: http://www.rootsweb.com/~itgenweb/apps/acontents.htm They are wonderful genealogical resources that include at least three generations and often 4-5, occasionally more. You can view them on film, available from the National Archives. If your local library has microfilm readers you can usually rent them through the library for a very nominal fee. You can also get them sent to the local Family History Center is you have one. If you are fortunate enough to live near a National Archives branch you can view them there. Failing that, you can order copies from the Oklahoma Historical Society, but it is much more expensive that way. The people that received the Guion Miller payout were those whose families had been affected by the Treaty of New Echota in 1835. If they had walked the Trail of Tears or had remained in the East (with a substantial loss of kinship, land, and initially by giving up their Cherokee citizenship, although they never really did - good for them!), then they, or their descendants, were eligible for the payout. Old Settlers - those who had voluntarily removed west - had already been compensated for their losses and removal and were not eligible for Miller. A person could have one parent an Old Settler and one an Emigrant Cherokee and be eligible for both. The Dawes Roll had nothing to do with compensation. It was to allocate the land in the IT until all the members of the various nations had their little piece of it, then the remainder was to be released for white settlement. To qualify, a person had to be physically resident in the IT (although there were some exceptions such as those on US military duty elsewhere, those who were sent by a doctor for health reasons to another part of the country, and a few who were resident when it started but not when it ended or lived in certain portions of AR that were not technically IT, but had been accepted as so for years) between about 1892-1902 and be on certain designated tribal censuses. For those not on the census records, they could petition the nations for readmission and be accepted for Dawes. In the case of the Cherokee, if you left Cherokee Nation for more than 6 months without the express approval or mandate of the Nation, your citizenship was revoked and you had to petition for readmission. Many who fled to TX during the Civil War had never petitioned for readmission and had to do so. This is what caused that lovely file that confuses people so much - the pre-1896 denied cases that are still listed as Dawes Commission applications. Some of them were denied because no one living remembered their families they had been gone so long, so no one could vouch for them. Some of them were denied for political or personal reasons, sadly sometimes in revenge or spite. Most were denied because they were interlopers trying to get in on a good thing and cheat the nations or because they misunderstood what it was all about and thought they could get land. This was an initial step to statehood and was designed to forever erase the nations, making them all Americans and dissolving all tribal affiliations and governments. Large numbers of those on the Dawes Roll were descendants of or participants in the Trail of Tears and are on both rolls. Bob Blankenship cross referenced the Dawes to the Guion Miller in his Dawes Roll Plus and Guion Miller Roll Plus. Sandi Garrett cross referenced the Drennen Roll of 1851 to the Guion Miller Roll in her "Only the Name Remain" series which is available in individual volumes by district in book form, or much less expensively and all volumes on one CD. They only true "final" roll of the Eastern Cherokee is the Baker Roll and it is mainly the NC Cherokee. Clear as mud, huh? Happy time travels! Susan

Susan, Thank you very much for replying to my questions and for the information and link you provided. Michael