I have family oral history stating that my great-grandfather was William Downing, who was a renegade Cherokee in Oklahoma Territory. He married Caldonia McLaughlin (1861 Mississippi to 1904 Oklahoma) on February 15, 1885 in Gainesville, Cooke County, Texas. They had been living in Oklahoma, but went just across the state line to Texas to marry. Perhaps it was frowned upon for a white woman to marry Cherokee, but that is only conjecture. Caldonia had been married to John McLaughlin who died of pneumonia and bore him 4 children - Fannie Alice 1877; Louis Alfred 1879; John Thomas 1880; Williams Jacob 1882. So William Downing took on a ready made family of three children. (Louis Alfred died in 1880) After William Downing and Caldonia were married they had 4 children - Ollie 1885; Albert Franklin 1888; Ida James 1891; and Charlotte 1895 (my grandmother). The last William was seen was being chased out of town by a posse for stealing a horse. Albert Franklin later found that William Downing is buried in White Rock Cemetery in South West City, Missouri. I have no other information on him. I don't even have a birth or death date. (It is unknown if they were divorced. She then married John McClure who gave her a baby that died at 4 months old. ) Interesting family history, but unable to document anything on William. Shirley