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I was researching my birth mothers line and I came across my 8th great grandmother Madeline Bird 1720-1780 who was supposedly Saponi. My line of descent is as follow:
Birth Mother’s Family Line: Joshua Richard Davis (Me)- Living Dunnigan- Joyce Darlene Prine- John Wardner Prine- Nancy Jane Dobbins- Elvria J Shock- Sarah Stump- Magdalena Richards- John Richards- Madeline Bird spouse Johann Jacob Reichert
My questions is how do I find out more about her? There are so many family trees on her that are so messed up with information that it is not even funny.
Thank you for your help. Have a great day today.
Joshua
I’m to the point if there are lots of conflicting family trees on a person, that person was likely rumored to have some Native descent that their descendants were trying to disprove.
I have an ancestor who was an Indian trader’s wife, living in one of the last known locations of Saponi refugees, with a last name common at Six Nations, where many of those refugees settled. Three different branches of her descendants had genealogists ‘prove’ she was not. So, she is officially documented as having been born in three different European locations. You can’t get any whiter than that, can you?
At the same time, other branches, shunned by the others, carried the same story, privately, that she was Native.
The consequences of those rumors were dire. People had to get creative, which they did. If it was your children’s futures on the line, you’d likely do so yourself. The ‘fact’ that there is no written documentation and the fact that your DNA does not show ethnic markers for ancestors seven generations past PROVES nothing.
Funny thing is, nobody had to prove anything to get you kicked into that ‘white trash can.’ All they had to do was gossip. So, if we now want to ‘gossip’ to the contrary, it’s fair game. In my family’s case, there were endless schisms between those who ‘gossiped’ one thing, and those who ‘gossiped’ the other. If you can see evidence your family was ending up in that white trash can, that’s a smoking gun, IMO.
Thanks for the reply. It’s just her tree on Ancestry has a lot of incorrect data on it from various of other trees. And I’m trying to sort it out.
By finding what it is true and what is not true. It’s a genealogical nightmare. I’m actually going to hire a genealogist to help me. Through DNA testing I do have indigenous DNA and I’m also enrolled through my birth fathers father’s line in the Delaware/Lenape Nation but that’s a different topic for a different time. As this is for Saponi questions.
Have a great day and thanks again for responding. I do appreciate it.
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