The original Old Settlers were in Arkansas, Alli. Western Arkansas before it was a part of the state. If you look into the Old Settlers you'll see many of them in Western Arkansas before being removed, in the 1830's to Oklahoma. For instance Judge John C. Martin is buried near Fort Smith and is said to be the first supreme court judge in the west. You'll see traces of the group in southeast Missouri. Looking into the history of the 1811 earthquake of the New Madrid fault there are tales of Indians being a tad upset with the aftershocks that occurred for 6 months afterwards. Many moved back east. The reason many aren't recognized as citizens has a whole lot to do with claim payments of the early 1900's. Hundreds to thousands of mixed bloods or descendents of mixed bloods were not nor had they ever lived on Indian land. For 60-70 years they & each generation following had denied their Cherokee heritage for several reasons...most of them for very good reasons. Then, when the payments were finally to be made there was a LOT of them who tried to re-apply for citizenship. Thus the thousands of citizenship applications beginning in 1896. Most of those were denied, which was, obviously the fed's trying to conserve money. In almost any area where the Cherokee Indians resided you'll see their mixed blood descendents and they'll almost always be enumerated as white but, nonetheless, they'll be descendents. It's an extremely complex situation. Every geographical location, time period, and family has its own individual story. No one story will ever be the whole situation...there's no one answer. Most of the Indians who received the Dawes, Miller or Eastern Cherokee payments were descendents of those who resided on Indian land or could prove an ancestor lived on Indian land. Look into the reason for the Siler roll, for instance. Joyce Gaston Reece How come its known that we had Cherokee people in Ark & Missouri, but they are not recognized by anyone unless they ended up in Okla. by a certain time? Alli

Thanks Joyce....... I know that my family (will have to double check) was not on the Siler Rolls.....but I've got a LOT more searching to do. I know that my triple great grandma moved from Tn. (or NC) when she was 11 so that was in 1849 (I think) It'll be an interesting discovery & adventure :) Alli ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joyce Gaston Reece" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, December 03, 2012 3:47 PM Subject: Re: [CherokeeGene] genealogy > The original Old Settlers were in Arkansas, Alli. Western Arkansas before > it was a part of the state. If you look into the Old Settlers you'll see > many of them in Western Arkansas before being removed, in the 1830's to > Oklahoma. For instance Judge John C. Martin is buried near Fort Smith and > is said to be the first supreme court judge in the west. You'll see > traces of the group in southeast Missouri. Looking into the history of > the > 1811 earthquake of the New Madrid fault there are tales of Indians being a > tad upset with the aftershocks that occurred for 6 months afterwards. > Many > moved back east. > > The reason many aren't recognized as citizens has a whole lot to do with > claim payments of the early 1900's. Hundreds to thousands of mixed bloods > or descendents of mixed bloods were not nor had they ever lived on Indian > land. For 60-70 years they & each generation following had denied their > Cherokee heritage for several reasons...most of them for very good > reasons. > Then, when the payments were finally to be made there was a LOT of them > who > tried to re-apply for citizenship. Thus the thousands of citizenship > applications beginning in 1896. Most of those were denied, which was, > obviously the fed's trying to conserve money. In almost any area where > the > Cherokee Indians resided you'll see their mixed blood descendents and > they'll almost always be enumerated as white but, nonetheless, they'll be > descendents. > > It's an extremely complex situation. Every geographical location, time > period, and family has its own individual story. No one story will ever > be > the whole situation...there's no one answer. > > Most of the Indians who received the Dawes, Miller or Eastern Cherokee > payments were descendents of those who resided on Indian land or could > prove > an ancestor lived on Indian land. Look into the reason for the Siler > roll, > for instance. > > > > Joyce Gaston Reece