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Bill,
I was on a Taylor website last night and one of the Taylor women were asking about Angelina Etheridge daughter of Thomas Etheridge and Rebecca. This is my Lurana’s parents and Mary Susan’s grandparents. At an rate she was asking about the Cherokee blood they have been told Angelina was 1/2 Cherokee and they are way out in Arkansas or Missouri somewhere. Angelina was of course born in North Carolina. Angelina was Lurana sister. This family story goes far and wide. Why do they all say Cherokee? Where did my gggggrandfather find this Rebecca he married? Angelina married a Taylor from Edgecombe County Elza Taylor I believe. She stated they had pictures of Angelina and she is indian and we have pictures of Mary Susan and we conclude the same thing. Why can’t we find out anything? All I want to know is what tribe they came from and my guts says it’s not Cherokee. If Angelina and Lurana were half that means Rebecca was a full blood and I’m not covinced Thomas didn’t have some indian blood too…I look in the mirror at my heritage everyday I just want to know. Also all of this is not adding up my mother has told me for years she is a 1/4 and I am an 1/8 and she says it’s sioux for the most part although this is not what my grandmother told me she just said indian to me but mother says sioux is what she was told. In fact Mom was surpised to learn of our connection to the Nottoway but pleased. My mother had (before it began graying in her late 50’s) very dark hair and blue eyes she has olive skin, high cheekbones, shovelshaped incisors and for some reason we get age spots young. My grandmother had jet black hair and gray eyes and all the other above mentioned traits. Grandma Nancy Moore Pridgen was dark dark she could not have been full blooded because her father was only part Nottoway she had to be at least a 1/4 white. From what I am learning it seems to me I am only 1/16 and mixed among tribes. This research is tough been at it a long long time.
Linda
Linda,
Having traced your people back into Nash and Edgecombe Counties, NC, you know that at least those particular people are not likely to have been Cherokee, if in fact that is your Native line. There may be others you haven’t considered.
It’s understandable that someone with ancestors from that time period in Arkansas that the Taylors are refering to, would conclude that the “Indian” was Cherokee…. afterall, who else was there in recent historical time?! The logic hangs together to an ‘easy solution’ but is likely to be incorrect.
Implicitely, you’re also assuming that Rebecca was Native and not Thomas. In the time frame of their marriage, they may both have been mixed race people to various degrees or only one of them, and Thomas is as likely as Rebecca.
It is nearly a given that there is seldom just “One”. Consider the culture of the times.
Bill
Bill,
The Etheridge DNA has been tested and my Caleb was white no doube about that. His son Thomas I feel was mixed. Who was his mother? Sally Thrower or who? I keep going back to the fact one of Caleb’s son was named Ransom. That is a surname was his mother Sally Thrower or a Ransom? One of the Etheridge boys married Sally Thrower but which one? Maybe Robert and than there’s the Nathan Etheridge line…I have no doubt that Mary Susan was an indian so where did it come from? I’m thinking all of her grandparents and of course both parents. I’m thinking Caleb started it all (except my Nottoway) when he married back in the late 1700’s and they continued to marry mix bloods for over 100 years. Bill, my grandmother, great greatmother and great great grandmother were indian I do not doubt that for one moment.
Linda
Linda,
Have you looked into any of Sally Thrower’s lines or the other women the Etherages/Etheridges married over time?
Separate but related issue:
There are DNA Tests and there are DNA Tests.
There are numerous tales on the rootsweb.com DNA links (forget what that’s called exactly), talking about getting wildly different results from different companies promising the same kind of “Ethnic/Racial Identication” tests. Marketing is marketing and Science is Science.
The “Scientific Method” requires that a result be independantly duplicatible. When a result can not be duplicated, it isn’t “Science” and the results can only be thrown out.
Don’t take this personally because I’m only critiqing the current marketing methods of companies offering DNA “ethnic identification” tests.
There are some of these companies offering DNA tests to determine which ‘race’ ones’ ancestors come from (including the “Viking race”, etc) , who do not produce results as reliable as their marketing appears to promise.
The “backstop” is the same thing as asking for a “second opinion” about a medical diagnosis – we’re all heard those stories, too. You need a “second opinion” on any DNA test, too.
From personal experience, it’s all too true that there are “two sides to every (DNA) issue” 🙂 Say what they will, different methods DO produce different results.
Some Testing companies take too many ‘short cuts’ in order to support the entertainment value of their product.
Bill
Sally’s mother was a Malone her grandmother a Wynne her great grandmother a Stith and her great great grandmother a Poythres. Sally was likely white for the most part. This family connects by marriage to the Rolfe’s.(steps) Her father Thomas Thrower I am uncertain of his lineage hard to trace them but I am trying. I have no clue who the wives are here no mention of them in any paperwork. I believe for the most part the Native came from Rebecca and whoever Jordan Etheridge married. Were did you find the marriage bonds for Grandy, Hollowel and Cader? Didn’t Jordan have one there? other than Lucy..she was too young to be Thomas’s mother.
Linda
The marriage bond info came from an index of county records on a database “North Carolina Vital Records” on ancestry.com
Bill
Well said, Bill, about the DNA tests.
These companies remind me a little of the ads I get periodically offering to send me, for a tidy sum, my “ancient, honorable family coat of arms” Yeah, right….
Seems to me that some companies, realizing that people being tested for Native ancestry ususally WANT to prove Native blood, might be tempted to, let’s say, interpret the results in a light most likely to please their customers….
Not saying all of them are unreliable, but “let the buyer beware”
Vance,
Margaret Wood b.1641 Charles City County Va. I got this off rootsweb they don’t list a source…father Abraham Wood…unknown mother.
Linda
Bill,
If I could find who some of those Etheridge men married I’s be glad to look them up LOL. Most of the Etheridge;s say Caleb’s wife was Mary Eizabeth well I can find only 2 Mary Elizabeth in that time frame. One is Elizabeth Highsmith who desends from my Nicholas Sessums LOL and the other is Elizabeth Hobgood. The funny thing about Elizabeth Highsmith is that her mother was Rachel Sessums who father had to prove she was white in Bertie County (this is my Nottoway line well one of them anyway). Rachel wasn’t white she was 1/2 Nottoway through her father and her mother who I am looking into I believe was part Chowan…Nicholas Sessums was her 2nd husband her first husband was Samuel Sizemore so either way Elizabeth Highsmith is related to me but given my family stories Caleb could have easily married her and three generations later a Moore and Etheredge marry joining that Sessums line again. See my Grandpa John Moore’s grandmother was a Robbins from Bertie county and his great grandmother was a Sessums from Bertie County they lived near what is today Winton this is were you can find a whole pocket of Nottoway people…the Meherrins too. And before the Moore left southern Virgina the generation before the Sessums marriage they married into the Branch line. So three generations of Moore men married Nottoway women….then Joab Moore John’s father married a Quaker…than John marries mary Susan Etheridge who is indian so 4 out of 5 generations of Moore men married indian women. I suppose I should be satisfied with knowing I am Cheroenhaka(Nottoway) and be glad they accept me and know I am one of them but Grandpa John and Grandma Mary were both Native….I realy wish I could learn were she belongs. If Elizabeth Highsmith was her grandmother that means she carried Cheroenhaka blood too that knowledge would please me greatly….but then there is the elusive Rebecca LOL…what was her surname Hodges, Taylor, Sessums? LOL I’m getting silly I’m so tired. I should send in a picture of one of my Sessums relations just so you can see what they looked like back in the 1800’s.
Linda
The 1704 quit rent roll mentioned Edward Thrower, John Thrower and Thomas Thrower all in Prince Ga co. In 1720 Brunswick co va formed from Prince Ga co. I ran across two wills because I was looking for a Minerva Thrower..she Married John Tanner, brother of my Eleanor Tanner.
Don’t know if there’s a connection.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~vabrunsw/varecord/t-names.htm#Thrower,JohnB.
Sidenote: Josiah Tanner born in Va., some children born in Va, SC, then Ky. I haven’t researched this long enough to know if some went into NC too..
Sue J
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