Looking for any information on my great grandmother Rebecca Jane Keeney. I was always told that she was full blooded Cherokee. My dad’s name is William Edgar Scarbrough. They are from the Oklahoma area.
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Rebecca Keeney was born in 1874 in AR. She was the daughter or Abraham Keeney (b. 1842 MO) and Lucinda Tidwell (b. 1845 MO). They were White settlers to Oklahoma, coming in sometime in the late 1890s-early 1900s. They were married August 9, 1865 in Texas. They were not tribal citizens. The lines can be traced back a little further on one branch: Lucinda’s parents were William Aaron and Catherine “Katie” (Aken) Tidwell. They were born about 1816 and 1817, respectively.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=52963449
Rebecca married Robert Warren Coughran. His obituary from 1943 mentions he had resided in Checotah for 53 years. This gives a date at which he or his Coughran family (if he came in a family group) moved into the area. This would have been around 1890, when he was in his early 20s, and right around the founding of the town and soon after it had been designated as a railhead by Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad company. This family was also not Indian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checotah,_Oklahoma#mediaviewer/File:Checotah_Oklahoma_Circa_1900.jpg
Rebecca’s obituary:
Coughran Rites Held Thursday
Funeral services were held 2 P.M. Friday in Smith Funeral Chapel in Checotah for Mrs. Rebecca J. Coughran, 98, who died Wednesday in a Muskogee hospital.
Reverent Chester Caldwell officiated. Bural was in Greenlawn Cemetery.
Pallbearers were Herbert Hayes, Paul Wells, Walter Coughran, James Coughran, Pete Wells and Jerry Smith.
Mrs. Coughran was born February 22, 1874 in Arkansas and was a longtime resident of Checotah.
Surviving are four sons, Dee and Virgil of Bakersfield, California, George of Monterey, California, Elbert of Arvin, California; one daughter, Mrs. Emma Boyles of Porterville, California; 49 grandchildren, 144 greatgrandchildren, 84 great-great grandchildren, 14 great-great-great grandchildren and one great-great-great-great children.
-McIntoch County Democrat (August 24, 1972)
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=COU&GSpartial=1&GSbyrel=all&GSst=38&GScntry=4&GSsr=801&GRid=76182983&
Rebecca is found living in Oklahoma in 1910, 1920,1930 and 1940 Census records, residing in the same town of Checotah, OK. Her social security death index and gravestone give her a date of death as August 16, 1972. She is buried in Greenlawn Cemetery, in Checotah, OK. She is not found in any tribal records, always listed as White and was not a tribal member. The Keeney line (Rebecca’s father) is not as well-traced. However, if there is any Cherokee connection along this branch it is not apparent, and would still need to be established. Abraham Keeney being born in MO in the 1840s is not indicative of a Cherokee community affiliation. He is listed as White in records and extant photos shows a decidedly European man (although that can be an arbitrary thing). The other element is that the surname Keeney is not associated with Cherokee Nation. Not one family was enumerated with this name on the main tribal rolls, including Dawes. In other words, this isn’t a full blood Cherokee name at all.
Rebecca was absolutely not a full blood Cherokee, but there is also no indication that she was of any recognized degree of Native American ancestry. She did not have affiliation with a tribe and was never identified as Indian on records during her lifetime. Perhaps you may want to keep digging along her paternal lines further back or verify the Tidwill and associated family lines? There appears to be early AR settlement patterns on some branches, which could possibly intersect with Old Settler roots (that is the best lead in this scenario).