This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Cowden, Clark, Coe Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/nFQ.2ACEB/227.1.2 Message Board Post: Dee - I've been poking around the Cowden stuff again, still hitting brick walls. However, I found your Mar 2005 reply to Mary Lew regarding Native American blood in this line. I don't know if this will help or simply confuse the issue, but my grandmother Lillian Clark Coe, who was a great-granddaughter of Loami Cowden, also claimed there was Indian blood in her family. We all have the high cheekbones and the grooved incisors, which I understand are markers for Native American blood. My grandmother had dark hair and a rounded face which also indicate a Native American heritage. However, we've never been able to prove or disprove any of this, other than the fact that Charley the Hermit played Indian in the postcard you found of him. This is all strictly oral history for us. However, I've pretty much got the rest of my grandmother's line documented, with not a Native American in sight. This line is the most likely source of the oral tradition. Charley was the brother of my great-great grandmother, Mary Ann Cowden Clark. My father once said he thought the Indian blood came through "Uncle Charley"- but he didn't know how Charley was connected to us. Thanks to you and several others on this board, I've been able to connect some of the dots here. Also, Rick Clawson (Charley's line) dug through his grandmother's photos and discovered a photo of an Indian woman whose features are almost startlingly like those of my father, Gerald Coe, Lillian's son. There's no name with the photo, but she sure LOOKS like a relative! Let me toss out a theory here and see if it takes us anywhere: I've been looking for Heber Cowden, b. Princeton MA 1765, soldier in the Rev. War, shows up in Albany NY in 1790 Census. He apparently headed west with a pack of brothers, uncles, & cousins who decided there was land to be had in NY after the war. We've made the supposition, based on the fact that there was a Heber Cowden in Chaut. Co who was brother to Loami, that Heber was their father. The name is unusual enough to merit investigation - which we've all done with no results. Bear with me here. Suppose, just suppose, that Heber went into NY State and met up with an Indian woman by whom he had children. NY was wild enough at that point that Heber could simply have assimilated into the local Indian culture. It would explain the fact that Heber disappears off the radar after 1790, and is never heard from again, nor is his wife mentioned anywhere that we've found. Heber Jr. shows up in Niagara Co. in 1820, and Loami is in Middlesex Co. in that same Census. I'm just tossing out ideas here. I've been in touch with Herkimer Co. NY to try to track somebody - anybody who's a Cowden, and was told the county didn't start keeping birth records until 1900. According to some of the information gleaned from members of this board, Loami was b. in Rome, N, which is in Herkimer Co. Arrrrgghghhh! Are there any other Cowden cousins out there who might have a lead on this? And - does anybody know of a Native American genealogist in NY who might be able to help us with any of this? Marti