I saw my family surname by chance on Cherokee roles. My father name and some cousins was from a Howard Brackett. Howard Brackett is listed on several Cherokee roles. I also read here that there is a John Quincy Brackett who married a Cherokee.
I can get back only as far as my grandfather and his brother:
E. Hazel Brackett, my grandfather b. 1908
Yates (Wiley?) Brackett his brother b.1903.
I heard that a distant grandmother of mine was a daughter of a Cherokee medicine man. But i can’t confirm it yet.
My family is from the Shelby, NC area.
Any help is welcome. Thanks
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You usually can’t rely on finding a surname of someone on a Cherokee roll and then try to tie it back to your family, that just so happens to have the same surname. There are a number of lineages involved, and these surnames are usually of European origin anyway, so they were acquired in a number of ways. Not every individual with a particular surname will be related. Sometimes, there are even distinct origins for the same spelling of a surname. And this doesn’t just go for Cherokee genealogy. This is the case, across the board. You have to undertake family research in a methodical fashion, starting with yourself and moving back in time and finding out where YOUR ancestors came from, one generation at a time.
Lucky for you, your grandfather’s lineage has quite a bit of extant documentation, which can get you back a number of generations. For example, you can find his death certificate which gives his parents’ names. And then you can find them on the Census records, and a marriage certificate. With the same process, you can be back quite a ways with just a little effort or digging.
Your great grandparents (though your grandfather) were John Hampton Brackett and Matilda Essie Newton.
Your GG grandparents were Robert Landrum Brackett and Elizabeth Hoyle, born 1856 and 1857, respectfully; and John Alexander Newton and Ellen Canipe, born in 1860 and 1861, respectively. They were from Cleveland, NC.
Death Certificate:
Name: Edwin Hazel Brackett
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age: 51
Birth Date: 21 Oct 1907
Birth Place: Cleveland, North Carolina, United States
Death Date: 18 Oct 1959
Death Location: Charlotte, Mecklenburg, North Carolina
Spouse’s Name: Mallie Cabiness
Father’s name: Hampton Brackett
Mother’s name: Essie Newton
Residence: Belmont, Gaston, North Carolina
Marriage Certificate:
Name: Essie Newton
Gender: Female
Race: White
Age: 21
Birth Year: abt 1879
Marriage Date: 7 Oct 1900
Marriage Place: Cleveland, North Carolina, USA
Father: J A Newton
Mother: Ellins Newton
Spouse: J H Brackett
Spouse Gender: Male
Spouse Race: White
Spouse Age: 21
Spouse Father: R L Brackett
Spouse Mother: Elizabeth Brackett
Event Type: Marriage
thanks you so much for your comment.
i found William Bryson Brackett and his wife Sarah Painter Brackett (1833 – 1866) the parents of my gg grandfather. Nothing seems to link me to this mysterious (GG or GGG) )grandmother who was the daughter of a Cherokee medicine man. Maybe it is just a rumor or mistaken info of my cousin. unfortunately he died last year before i could ask him. i am looking for the fathers of Elizabeth Hoyle and Ellen Canipe, my gg grandmothers and Sarah Painter Brackett ggg garndmother,
if i can ask, are you Cherokee.? your email is poetic, morningstar.
Thanks again
PS Elizabeth Hoyle was daughter of WILLIAM BRACKETT and SARAH PANTHER (sometimes written Painter) Sarah’s father was George Panther (Painter), a ni wo di
Member of the Paint Clan?
William Bryson Brackett’s grave can be found here:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=BRA&GSpartial=1&GSbyrel=all&GSst=43&GScntry=4&GSsr=481&GRid=19581321&
Sarah Painter was not Cherokee. She was born in Buncombe County, NC about 1833. Sarah and William were married in said county in 1852.
Sarah’s parents George and Rebecca (Freeman) were married in Rutherford, NC in 1824, according to a Revolutionary War pension file. George was a White colonial citizen and not Cherokee (he came from PA roots) He also stated specifically that he was an Indian fighter for a period of time. Being affiliated with VA militia at that time period, usually meant engaging Cherokees.
http://www.revwarapps.org/w8507.pdf
Rebecca was also White. She received bounty land from her husband’s service, along with his pension.
This Painter family had used different spellings, including Panter, Panther, Painter, etc. And if you want to go real deep and honor this heritage, it should be clearly stated that they were German. They even switched back and forth between the original German spelling Bender. All of these spellings were based on how it was originally pronounced and then perceived by Anglophones.
In German, the B is sharper and crisper, the e is pronounced with a long “ay” sound, and the d is like a cross between t and a d. There is no link to Paint Clan, or any Cherokee family. And the Paint clan affiliation goes through the mother’s line anyway. It was not even a surname common in the Cherokee community. For example, there are only 7 individuals on the Dawes Roll with this last name, and they represent one family unit consisting of a Cherokee woman of 1/32 degree of blood (maiden name Graham) how had married to a non-Cherokee with the surname Painter).
Same goes with alternative spellings. There are only 10 Panters. This represented two families units – a 1/8 blood Cherokee woman (maiden name Adair) married to a non-Cherokee man with this surname and their children. And a 1/8 Cherokee woman (maiden name Tidwell) married to a non-Cherokee spouse with the Panter surname.
There were a couple of Panther families in Indian Territory in the 1900s, but they were full bloods using a translated name and were not related to your German Painter family, with old, eastern seaboard colonial roots that had displaced tribes (and specifically, the Cherokee) as they moved west over the generations.
Elizabeth Hoyle Brackett was also not Cherokee. Her parents were John Hoyle and Mary McNeiley (various spellings). She can be found living with her parents in the 1860 Census, and here is her death cert summary of info:
Name Elizabeth Brackett
Gender Female
Race White
Age 77
Birth Date 9 Feb 1857
Birth Place Lincoln
Death Date 5 Jun 1934
Death Location North Brook, Lincoln, North Carolina
Father’s Name John Hoyle
Mother’s Name Mary Mc Neiley
John and Mary can be found here:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=HOY&GSpartial=1&GSbyrel=all&GSst=29&GScntry=4&GSsr=761&GRid=33721137&
These family lines are traced back quite a way on most lines, and they are old colonial European stock.
The Canipe and Newton family lineage can be found here:
http://forums.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=33347780
No, I’m not Cherokee. I’m just a researcher that focuses on Native American and Cherokee genealogy. This is just a matter of going where the records take you. If the Cherokee ancestry is there, it is there. And it will usually become apparent with some digging. And on the flip side, if there is np Cherokee ancestry in a family tree, this also usually becomes quite clear as well. A lot of American tend to have stories of Cherokee blood that turn out to be inaccurate. This is a matter of family lore and theories being passed along and then internalized. I’m not seeing any ties in these stated lineages. If it is distant, it is well beyond GGG grandparent level. I’d recommend that you just start building a standard family tree and go with a classic genealogical approach. Take the family stories with a grain of salt. This goes for a lot of different kinds of lore too, not just Indian blood claims. A lot of stories get passed along and many are not quite accurate. But, they tend to be accepted as “truth’ by descendants that inherit then. And correcting false trees or ancestral attribution can be harder when there is this psychological component. Just keep digging and go where the records take you.