52
Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 35
Aug 26th-Sept 1st
#52ancestors
Prompt: Unforgettable
The most unforgettable thing happened in the National
Archives in Fort Worth. This was before
the new building and the research room was small, dark, and cramped. It was
lined with microfilm machines and cabinets of microfilm. All of the previous times that I had been
there, I spent hours searching microfilm.
Before I arrived on this particular day, I had used PERSI to
request a copy of an article from a genealogical society journal. The article
talked about a Indian court case and mentioned my 2nd Great Grandfather and
Great Grandfather McCarley. My
Grandmother had told me that we had Cherokee blood, but I was rather
skeptical. This was the first time that
I found anything that might support her statement.
I dutifully searched the Dawes rolls on microfilm to find the
McCarley file. I didn't find it in the Cherokee Rolls, but in the Chickasaw
rolls. It was there but it was stamped
cancelled. At the time, I didn't know
that there were families that had applied for and received their membership in
the tribes and were placed on the Dawes Roll that were cancelled later.
The McCarley/McDuffy file was not on microfilm. It was an
actual file of papers, lots of papers. The archivist took me to another room
that had several copiers and some big tables. One wall was a window where I
could see staff members working and they could watch what I was doing. They
brought out the file box and I begin to go through it. The more I read the more
excited I got. There was an affidavit of marriage that I had been searching for
over 20 years. Affidavits of birth from the time period before birth
certificates were recorded. There were documents that detailed relatives that I
had never found information on before. Many of the pages had original
signatures and I touched each of them in awe, thinking of my ancestors who sat
down to sign these papers.
I went to the archives that day with about $3.00 in change
because I rarely found more than a few pages that I needed to copy. But I
needed every page of these files so that I could spend the time needed to get
every detail. I even went out to my car and went thought the seats to find more
change. I was able to copy about 128
pages from the files, not every page but almost.
It turns out that the McCarley family had applied for
membership on the basis of Nancy McDuffie, wife of Mitchel Wilburn McCarley
being the granddaughter of Nancy Frasier, a full blood Chickasaw. The U.S.
Government gave them their membership card but 3 years later it went before the
Chickasaw Council. They hired a lawyer and there were three witnesses. Two of
the witnesses were white and testified that Nancy Fraiser was a full blood
Chickasaw and these were her grandchildren. One witness was a full blood
Chickasaw and he testified that she was a full blood Chickasaw from the Big
House Clan, but these were not her grandchildren. The council ruled to cancel their membership
cards. Personally, I feel like the
attorney didn't do a great job of representing them, but the court case
produced records that I would never have had otherwise.
As I copied the pages, I slowly became aware that as people passed
me, they were grinning at me. There was just too much excitement to be
contained. I didn't realize that as I waited for each copy to exit the machine,
I was doing a happy dance.
Mitchel Wilburn (Walter) McCarley (Sept 1846 - Jan 1916)
Nancy R McDuffie (McCarley) (1848 -14 Oct 1899)
Nancy Frasier (?)
Mitchel & Nancy McCarley lived in Indian Territory by
1898 in Love & Carter County. Their
family eventually moved to Stephens County, OK.
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