This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: TAYLOR - SMITH - HUGHES - SPRINKLE - HARDIN Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/ABC.2ACE/3848.1.3 Message Board Post: Just because someone is not on the rolls does not mean there is not some basis for Native American heritage. DNA mitrochondrial ancestry might clear some of this up in the future. If your ancestors were settlers on the edge of the frontiers in the 1700's and early 1800's and had mixed in with the local tribes, it could be far back enough that there would be no chance of documentation. Reading early history from this time, there was a lot of confrontation and violence back and forth between the settler's and the Indians. Often prisoners of the Indians, adults and childern were "adopted" into an Indian family. This happened to Daniel Boone. Many of the children, if they were held for years, married into the tribe and were reclaimed by their settler families later. I'm sure these stories survived. My families hail from Smyth, Russell, Washington counties, also North Carolina & Kentucky. My Taylor grandmother was also according to family lore, of part Indian ancestry. Her ancestors I have traced back to North Carolina in the late 1700's. Curiously enough I have a photo of her wearing a cloth headband. Never seen this on photos of any of my other ancestors. But I can't find those connections, much less prove it, as paperwork from that time is scare, and no one could write anyway. But other family "myths" or stories have panned out in the past, so I don't discount my great grandmother's purported heritage. Donna