This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: drdjones Surnames: Lawson, Sizemore Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.lawson/2722.1.1.2.1.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: All of the Indians that I have met were not blue-eyed. However, I remember when I was in Vietnam on a remote island on the Mekong River that I met a Vietnamese child with blue eyes and blond hair. Her mother was obviously Vietnamese. I suspect that her father was either Frenchman or an American. I am sure that the same thing happened with the Indians. The Indian roll applications are available on Footnote. You have to read them carefully to understand that the government had very good information on where Indians were and who likely (other than something like rape)to be Indian. Most of the Guion-Miller role applicants from the tri-state area were rejected on good grounds. Drewry Lawson's descendents, for example, were rejected because Drewry Lawson did not live in proximity to Indians in general, much less near Cherokees. According to government record, and it is supported by the Knoxville newspapers of the time and Tennessee Court records, the Cherokees ceded all of their land in East Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia except for some reservations about 1760. The remaining Cherokees were raiders and very unfriendly. There is no doubt, from DNA testing, that there were some Lawson who had an Indian father, but there are very few of them. The Sizemores of Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina (identified as Indians by DNA testing) were rejected from the Eastern Cherokee roll not because they were not believed to be Indian, but because they could not have been Cherokee given where they originally lived. There is a very good book from the early 1700s about the natural history of North Carolina (it may be on google books) that explains which Indians lived where in North Carolina and why so few settlers interbred with the Indians of North Carolina or if they did why there were no children. I recommend it to anyone with an ancestor from North Carolina who thinks that their ancestor from North Carolina was an Indian. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.