All census data in the table below was taken directly from the associated U.S. Federal Census, retrieved from Ancestry.com [1]. The information above is a summary of sorts of Clara Bessie Blankenship, referred to as Bessie from here on out. From Part I, we know Mary Bessie Blankenship marries David McBride Thorn in 1901 in West Virginia. Their union produced Annie Thorn, my great grandmother. Based on the compiled census data from 1900 – 1950, we see that the household identified their race to the census taker as “White.” Now, it was not uncommon for individuals who could “pass” as white to use this identifier as the stigma associated with other races was very real at this time. Now, it was time to take a deep dive into the life of Bessie Blankenship Thorn to see if there was any evidence of a strong kinship with a Native American Community that would have led to her passing down the story of being Native American.
Based on the Census data, we found that Bessie was widowed by the 1920 census and shows up in the 1930 census married to George Fleeman. Could this marriage registry have her surname? Well, her race was once again identified as white and she was married to George Fleeman on 2 September 1920 [2]. Unfortunately, her parents were not listed on this document.
As I was perusing the compiled census data, I remembered that her brother had lived with them in 1910. George A. Blankenship would have been born around 1873 according to his age in the 1910 census. I began with the 1880 census on Ancestry.com. Low and behold, there he was living with his father, Thompson Blankenship, which matched the marriage record of Bessie and Davis Thorne and mother, Elizabeth. Now for a surname. Time to find the children of Thompson and Elizabeth Blankenship as most birth and death certificates list parents with their original surnames.
I went back to the 1880 census, looked over the racial information and listed their children. The designated race of everyone in the family was white. Trying to find Native American Heritage in these generations was becoming less and less probable, but I would have been remiss if I did not attempt to look up Robert and his youngest brother at this time, William. The eldest child, Robert Lee Blankenship, was born around 1870 as he is listed as a 10 year old farm laborer in this
census. I did not find anything on Ancestry but decided to change it up some and pulled up Newspapers.com. I searched for Robert Lee Blankenship in Virginia and West Virginia between the years of 1880 and 1950. The first entry I see that is relevant is an article about his death [3]. The Reverend L.D. Candler presided over the service that was held at Rich Creek, W.V. I then took this information and looked up Rev. L.D. Candler via a google search of his name to see if there was any information about him and his religious affiliation. I located information about Rev Candler in a history of the Forest Hill Community of West Virginia, compiled by George Cottle, Sr [4].
He was pastor of the Fairview Baptist Church at Forest Hill, West Virginia. Although many Native Americans converted to Christianity, there was no evidence they were a part of this Church.
At this time, I knew I would like to look for Blankenship as that was her maiden name, but I also wanted to try to find her mother’s maiden name since it was possible the story was a generation removed as communication between my grandmother and her husband’s side of the family ended with her husband’s death and was minimal prior to his death as they had moved away from West Virginia. Further, I also began thinking of other records that included race other than the census. Marriage records, birth certificates, death certificates, social security indexes, and military registration cards came to mind. I began digging for her mother’s maiden name.
Was there a death certificate available? I now knew the date and probably location of his death and went back to Ancestry.com to input that data. A death certificate with an image was available, but the thing every genealogist hates to see, “MAIDEN NAME Not Known” confronted me [5]. I knew his date of birth and death date and father’s name and mother’s first name, so I then did a search of the Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936 – 2007. There he was and there she was, Elizabeth F. Privett. I did want to verify the information, so I ran a search on George Allen Blankenship who was found in the 1910 census living with his sister Clara Bessie and her husband. I first sought out the death record and this time the information was there. His mother’s maiden name was listed as Elizabeth Privett [6]. I further verified the information via his social security record [7] and it read Elizabeth F. Privett.
Map created by Nicole Joseph through the use of google maps and kml4earth
I needed to find out if there were Native American communities, specifically Cherokee, located in the areas where Bessie lived as identity is not always tied to blood. First, I looked for evidence of Cherokee archeological sites and communities in this area of West Virginia. After looking at a number of sites (listed below in references”), I did not find any Cherokee archeological sites in this area, nor did I find any active communities. In an article entitled, “Cherokees” written by John Alexander Williams and published on The West Virginia Encyclopedia online, Williams indicated that Cherokees were not very active in West Virginia and those that were, were generally from the Overhill towns located in Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, South Carolina Foothills and Georgia Blue Ridge. He goes on to state that
…it is curious that a claim of Cherokee ancestry developed among many families in the Mountain State. This may be because after their 19th century ‘‘renaissance,’’ the Cherokees were better known and more widely admired than the other Indian societies—such as Shawnee or Delaware—who are more likely to have participated in genetic exchanges on the Western Virginia frontier. Demographically, it is more probable that claims of Indian blood actually masked African-American ancestry. A third possible explanation comes from the migration of young Cherokee men from their North Carolina reservation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Other southerners, white and black, migrated north to West Virginia lumber and coal camps during this period, and it is possible that Cherokee migrants chose the same paths (Williams 2003).8
I went on to research that area of Virginia and found no evidence of Cherokee habitation at this time. According to an article entitled, Virginia Tribes: Sovereign Nations. Governments. Cultures. Communities. Neighbors. that was published online at Cultural Heritage Partners and written by Ellen Chapman, Cherokee are not recognized as one of the federally recognized tribes in Virginia [9]. The Virginia Secretary of the Commonwealth website gives a timeline in which tribes were officially recognized in the state [10].
Obtained from: https://www.commonwealth.virginia.gov/virginia-indians/
The evidence above does not, by any means, guarantee that Cherokee were not residing in this area or closely surrounding areas as official recognition is not the end all be all. In fact, there are still groups petitioning for official recognition to this day. The Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribe of Virginia out of Henrico, Virginia petitioned the legislature for state recognition within the commonwealth of Virginia under Bill HJ559, which ultimately failed in committee [11]. Is there a true kinship or biological connection? I don’t know but if official recognition of three tribes happened just 13 years ago, it is not implausible that other tribes will come forward successfully in the future.
Now, it was finally time to go through the Dawes Rolls, which was a list of members eligible for membership in one the following five tribes: Cherokee, Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Seminoles, which made them privy to land. These rolls were compiled between 1898 and 1914 [12]. The two names I would be searching for in the Dawes Rolls were Blankenship and Privett.
No matches for Privett. Blankenship name linked to Choctaw but no indication of any relation to Bessie. No matches to Cherokee[13]. Based upon the preponderance of evidence, it does not appear there is a biological or kinship link between Bessie and the Cherokee.
End Notes
[1]Ancestry.com. Year: 1900; Census Place: Beaver Pond, Mercer, West Virginia; Roll: 1766; Page: 15; Enumeration District: 0076. Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls. & Ancestry.com. 1910 Census Place: East River, Mercer, West Virginia; Roll: T624_1689; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 0129; FHL microfilm: 1375702. 1910 United States Federal Census. Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com Operations Inc 2006. Provo, UT. & Ancestry.com Year: 1920; Census Place: Narrows, Giles, Virginia; Roll: T625_1890; Page: 30A; Enumeration District: 31; Image: 404. Ancestry.com Year: 1930; Census Place: Pearisburg, Giles, Virginia; Roll: 2444; Page: 17A; Enumeration District: 0005; Image: 380.0; FHL microfilm: 2342178 & Ancestry.com Year: 1940; Census Place: Pearisburg, Giles, Virginia; Roll: T627_4264; Page: 16A; Enumeration District: 36-5 Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census Ancestry.com Operations, Inc 2012. Provo, UT. & National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Narrows, Giles, Virginia; Roll: 3024; Page: 60; Enumeration District: 36-6.1950 United States Federal Census. Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 2022. Lehi, UT.
[2] Ancestry.com. Virginia, U.S., Marriage Registers, 1853-1935 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2022.Original data: Virginia, Marriage Registers, 1853–1935. Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
[3] Newspapers by Ancestry. State Deaths; Robert Lee Blankenship. The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, Virginia) · 1 Jul 1937, Thu · Page 2 Accessed: Aug 22, 2023.
[4] Cottle, George Sr. History of Forest Hill Community. West Virginia Archives and History. West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History https://archive.wvculture.org/history/agrext/forehill.html: accessed 22 August 2023.
[5] Ancestry.com. Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2014 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Virginia Department of Health; Richmond, Virginia; Virginia Deaths, 1912-2014. – Robert Lee Blankenship
[6] Ancestry.com. Virginia, U.S., Death Records, 1912-2014 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Virginia, Deaths, 1912–2014. Virginia Department of Health, Richmond, Virginia. – George Allen Blankenship
[7] Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007. - George Allen Blankenship
[8] Williams, John Alexander "Cherokees." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 07 February 2023. Web. 24 August 2023.
[9] Chapman, Ellen. Virginia Tribes: Sovereign Nations. Governments. Cultures. Communities. Neighbors [Online]. Cultural Heritage Partners. 16. January 2023. Accessed 24 August 2023. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/b3871a76ad4c4038b141e8765606f6b7
[10] Secretary of the Commonwealth. Virginia Indians [online]. Accessed 24 August 2023. https://www.commonwealth.virginia.gov/virginia-indians/
[11] Richmond Sunlight. Commonwealth of Virgiania House Joint Resolution No. 559. Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribe of Virginia; General Assembly to extend state Recognition (HJ559) [Online]. 17 January 2023. https://www.richmondsunlight.com/bill/2023/hj559/
[12] National Archives. Native American Heritage: Dawes Rolls [Online Article]. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed 24 August 2023. https://www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/dawes/tutorial/intro.html
[13] Oklahoma Historical Society. Dawes Rolls: The Final Rolls [database on-line]. https://www.okhistory.org/research/dawes
References:
- Sites explored while reviewing Cherokee Communities -
Chapman, Ellen. Virginia Tribes: Sovereign Nations. Governments. Cultures. Communities. Neighbors [Online]. Cultural Heritage Partners. 16. January 2023. Accessed 24 August 2023. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/b3871a76ad4c4038b141e8765606f6b7
Cherokee Nation. The History of the Cherokee Nation [Online]. 8 August 2023. Accessed 25 August 2023. https://www.cherokee.org/about-the-nation/history/
National Archives. Native American Heritage: Dawes Rolls [Online Article]. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed 24 August 2023. https://www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/dawes/tutorial/intro.html
Richmond Sunlight. Commonwealth of Virgiania House Joint Resolution No. 559. Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribe of Virginia; General Assembly to extend state Recognition (HJ559) [Online]. 17 January 2023. https://www.richmondsunlight.com/bill/2023/hj559/
Secretary of the Commonwealth. Virginia Indians [online]. Accessed 24 August 2023. https://www.commonwealth.virginia.gov/virginia-indians/
Sturtevant, William C, and U.S Geological Survey. National atlas. Indian tribes, cultures & languages: United States. Reston, Va.: Interior, Geological Survey, 1967. Map. Accessed 24 August 2023. https://www.loc.gov/item/95682185/.
Williams, John Alexander "Cherokees." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 07 February 2023. Web. 24 August 2023.
コメント