All Things Cherokee

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Yeagers & Brights, Are They Cherokee

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I am stuck, my great grandmother Ellen Yeager Jones said she was Cherokee, everything I can find has her & the rest of the family listed as white. Years came from NC, Virginia & KY. A few of the Yeagers died in OK. I did find where my great great grandparents, Joseph E. Bright & Nancy Bright was in OK in 1910. Joseph E. was buried in Lincoln OK in 1925, Nancy died in 1914, doesn’t say where.

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  1. This was posted July 2015:

    http://www.allthingscherokee.com/queries/ellen-brightyeager-jones/

    “Searching for Cherokee birth info for great grandmother Ellen (Bright) Yeager Jones who lived in Barbourville, KY. She was married to Sam Jones. Ellen died in the 1960’s. She was a mid-wife in the community, attending to children births and animal births. Old family members said she was full-blooded Cherokee and came from the reservation (“rez”) in Oklahoma. Thanks for your help. :0)”

    These were White settlers to Oklahoma that came in sometime after 1880 and before 1900. They moved into Lincoln County just as tribal lands were being allotted to individual Indians. This process involved giving a small parcel to an Indian head of household, and after the process of enumeration/enrollment and land assignment, the unallotted tribal national territory (which represented a large percentage of total land) was deemed surplus, and opened to White Americans. This was the last great land rush in the contiguous United States.

    Your ancestors were not tribal members. They were on the standard Census schedule, not the Indian schedule.

    Here are links to get you back a few generations, from a previous response:

    Ellen was not from the Cherokee reservation, or Cherokee Nation to be more specific, although her parents moved to Oklahoma during the Land Rush days in the late 1800s (after Ellen had already married and settled down in Kentucky). She was born in 1874 in KY to White parents, Joseph and Nancy (Bright) Yeager. They were both born in Kentucky, 1851 and 1854 respectively. Joseph and Nancy married in Knox County, Kentucky, in 1870.

    Joseph can be found living with his parents John and Mary Yeager in the 1860 Census, still living in Knox County, Kentucky.

    Here is there grave site:

    http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=91773031&ref=acom

    In 1850 John and Mary (Miller) Yeager was living in Laurel, Kentucky. This couple was married in 1845 (Laurel County).

    http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=92846087&ref=acom

    This family was not Cherokee.

    Nancy Bright was born in 1854 in Knox, Kentucky. Her parents were listed as John Bright and Susan Broughton. She can be found living with her parents and siblings in the 1860 Census. John and Susan were married in Clay County, Kentucky, in 1830. Here are her parent’s grave sites:

    http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=15405355

    This lineage also does not appear to be Cherokee. They were White settlers.

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