Cherokee Indian Records And My Siblings' Lineage

 Amy Johnson Crow's prompt for the week of Feb 15-21 is Unusual Source. I'm not sure the sources I'm going to reference are necissarily unusual, but they're definitely unique to a certain subset of the population. I'm going to make sure to show my sources for all the information I provide while I blog about my my half siblings Native American Ancestry. 

Their maternal grandfather was Finis James SMITH, though his name has been shown to be Fine, Fines, Foundation and Finis in various records. 

According to his obiturary which can be found in the Northwest Arkansas Times FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS Monday, December 30, 1974, page two, Finis was born 1 Dec 1925 at Gore, Sequoyah County, Oklahoma. He was the son of George Redbird SMITH and Sarah HOLT.  

Acording to census records for the years 1920, 1930  & 1940 this family resided in the Blackgum community.

Below is an image of the first census he shows up in, 1930, notice his name is Foundation. 



The next record is the 1940 census where his name is now Fine. 



His next record is his WW2 draft registration from 1943. Again his name is given as Fine with no middle name or initial.

Finis served in both World War II and the Korean Conflict.  My step-mom even said he had a bullet wound in his leg from the later. Finding a military record that I know for certain is him, has proven a bit difficult. You'd be surprised how many men had his same name. And most of the records I've found only give a name and rank but not much other identifiable information is included. 

Finis served as a city Marshal for the town of Prairie Grove, Washington County, Arkansas. 



And ran for Washington County Sherriff

Now moving up the tree focusing on his parents.... 

George Redbird SMITH and Sarah HOLT

From George's obituary we learn that he was born Feb 1885 in Muskogee County and that Sarah's maiden name was HOLT. We learn the name of several children and siblings.

 Muskogee Daily Phoenix MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA Monday, March 10, 1958, page 2.

From his WWI draft registration we learn a more specific birth date of 26 Feb 1885, that he is an Indian Citizen and his closest living relative is Redbird SMITH.

From the Oklahoma and Indian Territory, U.S., Indian Censuses and Rolls, 1851-1959, George can be found living with the Redbird family in the year 1886, a year after his birth.

Then again in the Oklahoma and Indian Territory, U.S., Dawes Census Cards for Five Civilized Tribes, 1898-1914 it's stated that Redbird is indeed his father. His mother is Lucy and that Redbird's parents were Pig SMITH and Lizzie was his mother's name. AND there's even parentage information for George's mother Lucy giving us her maiden name of FIELDS.

There is no shortage of infromation that can be found on Redbird SMITH online. I'll provide a few links below:

http://www.keetoowahsociety.org/redbird.htm 
https://accessgenealogy.com/native/red-bird-smith.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbird_Smith

Now going back to Finis: it's time to trace his mother's lineage. His obituary gave us her maiden name of HOLT. The above census records give us her estimated birth year as 1889/90.

Using Fold3 I searched the Eastern Cherokee Applications for her using her married name, as these records weren't submitted until after June 1906. There are several applicants with that name. The correct one is application #13544 Notice her residence is Blackgum.




Looking through the pages of her applications reveals more information comfirming this is indeed the correct Sarah HOLT SMITH. Though I will say it's both aggravagting and neat to find scans of her ancestors Indian names laying on top of her application pages blocking a lot of the information, but keep clicking through and eventually you'll find uncovered pages. 

For example: Page 5



 Followed by page 7 which gives us so much information:



Sarah was born 28 Feb 1889 in Sequoyah District. She's married. Her husband's name is George (application #26335). He is 22.  Her father was Mose HOLT and her mother's name was Polly. Her father was also born in Sequoyah District while her mother was born in the Salina District. It even tells us the death dates of her parents, though further investigation reveals the father's death date is off by a year. 

Page 12 gives us the names of Sarah's siblings as well as the Indian names of her grandparents:



You can also look at her siblings applications: Eliza BIRD (#13673), Jennie VANN (#17012) and Nancy HOLT (#13681) George SMITH signs as a witness in Nancy's applciation (below) as well as Eliza's  



Again using the Oklahoma and Indian Territory, U.S., Dawes Census Cards for Five Civilized Tribes, 1898-1914 we can find a card for Pollie HOLT



Unfortunately, this card doesn't give us the name of Pollie's parents or the parents of her deceased husband, Mose HOLT, though their Indian names were given in the applications of Sarah and her sisters. 

I did find a couple Indian Census/Rolls of this family unit for the years 1883 & 1886

The 1886 census gives us ages, so after this I decided to look into the death of Mose HOLT, as he would've only been about 36. It appears as though he was accidentally shot during a dispute over the next cheif.

Friday, 26 July 1895, The Monticellonian, page 1

Saturday, 27 July, 1895, The Coffeyville Daily Journal

I've also found information for Pollie HOLT(#9285) in the Dawes Packets of 1898. It's composed of the affidavits of Runabout MINK, Johnson MANNING, John BIRD (her son-in-law) and Jesse VANN (her son-in-law) using the translator S.R. WALKINGSTICK. Not too much new information was gleaned about Sarah or Pollie -- it mainly had questions about Eliza BIRD and her son William BARK.

I've also found records for the lands allotted to Sarah and her family.



Sarah lived long enough to bury her husband and all of her children but two; her daughter Tissie and her son Gawexskey. She died at the age of 87 in Vian, Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, Saturday, 19 Nov 1977. She's buried with her husband in Redbird Cemetery

*I do want to  make note that George's headstone seems to have the wrong death year. His obituary was ran in 1958 and the Oklahoma State Vitals Record Index shows a death certificate for him on file with his death date as 7 March 1958. I'm not sure why, but using that index, I cannot find a record for Sarah. I also can't find an obituary for her. 

I hope you've been able to keep up as I piece together the lineage of my half siblings.

Until next time, 
Becky