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Hello everyone. I found your site while researching my great, great grandmother’s line (Whaley/Murphy). She was a Blackfoot. Just recently I discovered that she and her family came from Kent County, Delaware. First thing I thought was, “What kind of Blackfoot comes from Delaware?” A brief scan of the Mitsawokett site gave me the answer; your site gave me the reason. I’m very intrigued by Linda’s Sissipaha/Blackfoot theory and thought I would see if my Delaware folk were traceable to the North Carolina/Virginia area. It seems reasonable to me that my g-g gran would not have insisted upon calling herself Blackfoot if she were something else. Even with the tri-racial element, I think a person choosing to call herself after her Indian ancestors would select the name of a local group, if she were unaware of her original kin, before pulling another name “out of the hat”. Why choose Blackfoot rather than Lenni-Lenape or Nanticoke, for instance? Anyway, I’m really new to all of this (genealogical research as well as being online), so any advice would be greatly appreciated. To tell you the truth, I don’t know where or how to begin. Everything I found out so far I found on Rootsweb. Now what? Thanks…Cedar.
Have you found our posts yet about Blackfoot Town, DE? Use our search button above, if not. I guess the answer to your question is that a Blackfoot Town Blackfoot is the kind of Blackfoot you’d find in DE.
I hope you do stick with this and find out all you can about your family. We will be very interested. Who knows how fruitful it may be?
Hi, Linda. Yes, I did read those posts…very interesting, but I can see now I missed many more posts about the Blackfoot so I will be busy catching up. I’m just wondering how I might trace my g-g gran, Ellen Whaley, and the rest of her kin from where they ended up in DE back to Blackfoot Town and from there farther south. Any suggestions on how to begin??? Thanks…Cedar.
It won’t be that clear cut. The people in Blackfoot Town, at the time it was an Indian village, weren’t on any lists, and wouldn’t be traceable back to Virginia. That’s a time frame of about 1742, just as the tribes were breaking up. They weren’t citizens of the colonies, so they wouldn’t be documented by them.
What you can look for are connections between your family and others with similar stories. Hints of community may appear and that’s where you can feel some satisfaction that you’ve found credence to the family lore.
I guess I assumed that my ancestors came up to Delaware already bearing the Whaley name and then settled in the Blackfoot/Mixed Blood community of later Blackfoot Town. I understand that if they came up as members of a Blackfoot community that formed the original Indian village later known as Blackfoot Town, and did not join into the Whaley clan until later, that there would be no way of tracing them as individuals back to Virginia. I don’t know why I assumed they came up as Whaleys. I guess I was thinking in terms of their already having been assimilated into colonial society in the South by schooling or marriage. However, it is probably more likely that they joined in with the Whaleys in Delaware, especially since I cannot trace Ellen’s people any farther back than her father, James L. Whaley (b. 1792 Kent Co. DE, d. 1874 Jay Co. IN…Whaley Cemetery, Green Twp) and mother, Margaret Murphy (b. 1797 DE, d. 1866 Jay Co. IN) and perhaps her grandfather, John Whaley (b. 1798, Kent Co. DE).
It is strange…almost jarring…to hear you speak of “family lore”. My grandfather had tan skin, black hair and Native American features and described his grandmother as being very dark with long black hair. I’ve grown up knowing her as a (self-described) Blackfoot, but I guess because nothing is documented and her own husband (the local Trustee and Justice of the Peace) conveniently referred to her as “white” in a census our family’s oral traditions would definitely fall into that category.
Do you have a picture of your gr-gr-grandmother? I suppose not. How about a picture of your grandfather?
If your people were part of the Blackfoot Town crew, and it is as we suppose tied to the Tutelo who formed an insurrection with the Seneca against the British in 1742, then they very likely would not have been assimulated. I think I’ve heard of people who’d been to the very early equivalent of “Indian Schools” joining in battles against the colonials, it’s more likely people still living in a tribal way would revolt.
When I was a child I saw a photo of my great grandfather standing by his wagon with a dark woman seated atop it…his mother-in-law??? I don’t know…but I sure would love to get my hands on a picture of Ellen Whaley. Anyway, I do have a picture of “Gramps”…somewhere…a very dapper fellow…a sort of Chief Joseph Euro-style. He did not look like either one of his parents. His mother favored her father. We thought he might have favored his grandmother.
Interesting stuff about the insurrection. I read about that earlier. If the John Whaley I mentioned is Ellen’s grandfather then perhaps his father or grandfather was a part of all that. Any idea what records I should explore to discover more about her parents’ line?
Oh, here’s an interesting tidbit. Ellen and her brother, Levi, were born 1818 and 1819, respectively, but their parents married in 1820. I’ve wondered if they were married after their own customs first and then married officially to assimilate…or because of their move to Indiana…or perhaps the kids were adopted …or the parents were just hanging loose…or??? By the way, does anyone know of other Blackfoot folk in Jay Co. IN? I think that you all mentioned some farther southwest. My kin must have gone there somewhere between 1821 and 1836 (when Ellen married her husband in Rush Co. there). Jay Co. is right next to Delaware Co., intriguingly. Does this mean anything to anyone? Was there a movement of Blackfoot west at this particular time?
Pose your genealogy questions on the “Share Genealogy” section. They may not get noticed by the right people here. I’m more of a history buff than an genealogist.
A number of us with the Blackfoot ID had family moving along that route around that time. I don’t recall mention of that county name, but try searching on it with our search button.
Thanks for the tip…and for your patience. Didn’t realize this was the wrong area for all this blather. It was kind of you to spend the time with me though.
Cedar:
Several people on this forum had Blackfoot folks who went west, although your county location is a new one to me. I don’t remember hearing that county before. Mine went to Iowa. While some of my folks were in Indiana in 1850, I am not sure that they were the ones carrying the Blackfoot ID.
I did follow two family lines who traveled from near yours in DE to southern Indiana, in Pike and Gibson counties. They are buried in Blackfoot Cemetery in Pike county.
Techteach
I guess you know there was a fairly long thread about the DE “Blackfoot Town,” now Dagsboro. At least Coharie Roy and I have been out to see if there was anything to see (there’s not, much). The latest post on this thread, #98, was by me —
http://www.saponitown.com/forum/showthread.php?p=19993#post19993
I mentioned having picked up what passes for a local history book. It’s anecdotal, based on who lives (or used to live) in the houses one passes on the various streets and roads, in and around Dagsboro. There’s no index. I’ve just looked through it, and of the several hundred names in bold type, I didn’t see either Whaley or Murphy. Doesn’t mean they aren’t there, because there’s a lot of text that isn’t in boldface. There are 123 pages, and two folding maps in pockets, front and rear.
Techteach:
Thanks for the input. Looks like an individual decision to go west for my family…at least for now. Brenda Ferrell Sampsel is right about the journey being just as exciting as the anticipated destination, however. Look what I found…
PappyDick:
Thanks so much. No, I didn’t catch those postings. I am the worst sort of beginner…you know, the hesitant kind. So, I plucked around (didn’t think to use the search button until Linda mentioned it) and found some posts…not all by any means…I can see that now.
It is interesting that Hitchens insisted he was Blackfoot. I found a William Whaley on Rootsweb who married a Mary Elizabeth Hitchens at Laurel PO, Broad Creek Hd., Sussex Co. DE about 1865 (his first wife was a Matthews if that interests anyone). Elsewhere, I found a Menors Sammons m. Sarah Ann Murphy in 1842 in Sussex and an Eliza Ann Sammons married Wm. H. Whaley in Kent in 1848.
Last month I ordered the books, Delaware’s Forgotten Folk as well as the Eastern Shore book from Amazon.com and plan on reading them as well as everything I can on this site…slowly, but surely.
Thanks to all of you again…Cedar.
P.S. I found Henrietta Massey Whaley (Ellen’s aunt or great aunt) married a Tilman (Tilghman?) Knox. Is anyone searching for these names?
As you’ll see when you read Delaware’s Forgotten Folk, Sammons is a common name among the “Moors” of Cheswold, in Kent County, Del. There has been some intermarriage between them and the Nanticokes of Sussex Co., but Sammons is not an old or common name in that community.
Cedar:
If you subscribe to the Mitsawokett yahoogroups, if you do not do so already, you will find many Sammons descendents. Common surname discussed on the list, and if I recall, many moved to Indiana. I don’t pay close attention to Sammons information as it is not one of my names, but I regularly skim most postings, because occasionally there is mention of names that might be mine.
I suggest you subscribe if you have not already done so.
Techteach
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