At 12:17 AM 6/26/99 -0400, [email protected] wrote: >Hi there. I am looking for info on a "Bird" Holt who was born in Gilmer Co, >WV about 1874 or so and married Seymore Smarr in the same County in 1893. I >know of two of their children female Ora Smarr and son Hartsell Smarr. >Family story says that Bird was a full blooded Cherokee Indian and that >Seymore "fetched" her from a reservation to be his wife. Other stories are >that her mother was the Indian. Looking for any info on Bird or her family >or on the history of Cherokee Indians in VA or WV and where there >reservations were. Would love to learn more about this family. >Please email me if you have any info or suggestions. It is greatly Kara, There was (is?) a Indian community near Buckhannon known as "Guineas." I've seen someone post on the Melungeon list (Melungeon-L) about them being a branch of the Delaware tribe (the Mannoy, I think) that isn't Federally recognized. There's a brief article about them on http://www.melungeons.org: you may have to do a search on the site to find the article. I have a picture of a Guinea descendant, my gggrandfather, Henry Colerider (b. in Buckhannon), at http://Web.InfoAve.Net/~elwhitaker/mystanc.html. He's the dark gentleman in the center of the small picture. Elizabeth Whitaker