Marye said: <snip> "I remember my mother mentioning that we (our family) was not on the Dawes rolls, but on the Miller rolls. I think not enlisting on the Dawes rolls was out pride and of fear of loss of property. " Marye, I think as you trace the family you will reconsider the reasons for not being on the 1902 Dawes Roll. Contrary to "the fear of LOSING property"-- the Dawes Roll was the method used to assigned individual title to the land to the legal tribal members. Until then, title to the land was vested solely to the tribe. The resident/citizens of the tribe could use as much of their tribal land as they needed, and this is where the inequity started! Some of the non-Indians who came into the Nation and married Indian women AND some of the more aggressive mixed-bloods started claiming hundreds upon hundreds of acres - FAR more than they needed. The non-Indians would then import their non-Indian relatives from other states, "rent" land to them for $5. per year. They were creating their own little dynasties in Indian Territory! Soon there was no useable farmland left for the Indians. The Dawes roll ended that! The land was evaluated and graded, then each legal citizen was enrolled and allotted an EQUAL value/amount of land, according to the grade. If it was bottom land, then they would get less land. If it was rocky hill country, then they were given more acreage. The average allotment in the Cherokee Nation was 120 acres for each citizen- man, woman and child. If your family was legal resident/citizens, living on their own "improvements" to the land and were otherwise eligible, CHOOSING not to enroll would mean that the houses that they had built and the land that they had improved would be reassigned to an Indian family, and they would lose all rights to it. I think as you research further you will find that there were other reasons why they were not on the Dawes Roll. Regards Jerri Chasteen ~~~