I don't care about benefits!!! I'd just love to know my Indian heritage. Until I began genealogy research the Trail of Tears was a sad story about someone else, in another time, with no relevance to me. I didn't care about history (an attitude common to the young). Now, with recent study, I realize my great-grandmother was probably in the Trail of Tears (or her parents were). It's a trail that dead-ends, because no one living remembers (or ever knew) enough to make the connections. My mother and her sister are 80 and 84, respectively, and they think we are Cherokee, but they don't know how much or even for sure from which ancestor. It just wasn't popular to be Indian in my parents' youth. The Indian blood probably came through my great-grandmother, Mary J. Renfro, who may or may not have been married to my great-grandfather Whaley. What's certain is that they had a son, Jesse Monroe WHALEY, in Arkansas in 1877. Jesse died as a young father, in 1924. Pretty much whatever he knew died with him. He was once offered Indian land but didn't take it; we don't know if that was in Arkansas prior to 1919 or in Oklahoma the 5 years he lived here before he died. According to oral history he refused the land because his half brother George Gordon wasn't offered any. Nothing documents Jesse's life except the census and a gravestone and the fact that he did have a wife and children; by the same token, nothing documents Mary Renfro's life except the 1880 census and a marriage license to W.H. Gordon. This gap in our family history has a lot to say about the plight of Indians in American history. Maybe Mary RENFRO wasn't "important" enough to have history preserved about her? I could tell another story, about the same dearth of information from my dad 's line, where we also have Indian blood (SLIMP name and/or CRONISTER), probably Cherokee. There are just no details to find the Indian heritage of any of these people. Judging from family photos, I'd say a full-blood Indian relative is no more than 3-4 generations ago on each side. Shame on our American history...and isn't it funny that we now presume to be the world's policemen on human rights. Bev Graham > > > ==== OKGEN Mailing List ==== > Accidentally unsubscribed from the OKGenWeb list? Simply resubscribe. A > full mailbox, computer error, or spam may cause you to be unsubscribed. > mailto:[email protected] >