Reply #16: I got out my magnifying glass

[yellerpup]

but I couldn't really make out anything...so sorry. But, I think that it would make sense for folks of Choctaw lineage to gravitate back towards Louisiana. A lot of native mercenaries (Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw & other variations) migrated to the western slope of the Ozarks in several waves. Thos. Jefferson tried to get the Cherokee (& allied Southern tribes) to move west of the Mississippi because he could see the building waves of immigration coming and feared that they would be wiped out completely if they tried to stay and fight for their lands in the east. Sequoyah (so named because he had a club foot) went west to the western slope of the Ozark Mts. at roughtly the same time as the Lewis & Clark expedition . Many more who fought with Andrew Jackson (and found out what a chicken-sh** he was) went to Ark/Missouri area after the battle of 1814 (Battle of New Orleans-- which the native mercenaries won for him) because they knew that he would (and did) sell them out at a moment's notice. The Cherokee Old Settlers arrived in the same area (Indian Territory) in the 1820's. Sorry, I digress... It makes sense to me that if you had Choctaw/Cherokee family who had lived in the Arkansas/Oklahoma area that they might have wanted to get further back down South. You can drive yourself crazy if you try to figure out "going on looks". My grandmother looked 90% Creek with black hair, flat thin nose, high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes but all of her children were blonde. I think the photo could very well have be of your grandparents because you just can't tell by looking. Until the 1850's the boundaries between states on the western edges of the continent didn't matter much, but once they started to face off over the states rights (slavery) debates, the natives who settled in Western Missouri and W. Arkansas were again dispossessed of the farms they had worked to build and driven over the border into Indian Territory. I. T., which became the state of Oklahoma in 1907, was supposed to be the American equivalent of Soweto. The few survivors of the native genocide from all tribes were forced to go there and later, the government advertised after the Civil War trying to get former slaves to go there voluntarily so that all the nation's free undesirables could be found in the same place. If your people could pass for white and save themselves by drifting back toward redbone country, I would not be the least bit surprised that they took that route. My grandfather who was born near Choctaw country in I.T. was named Bee. I have another great grandfather whose name was Weep. The names are another clue if you can find that information. I never met any other white man named either Bee or Weep! Wish I could help. Good thoughts for you, though... :hug:

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