12 Problems with a Pedigree

#52 Ancestors Week 12 — Prompt “12”

 12 Problems with a Pedigree 

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2019 

 I sometimes shudder at the ease with which family trees can be slapped together. Some of them may be correct, but I am overly cautious — knowing how easy for any and all of us to make mistakes, misread documents, or analyze them incorrectly. Plus, I know how difficult (or impossible) it is to fix or correct an error once it has flitted off into the never-never-land of the Internet. 

Many years ago — 21 to be exact — I compiled a pedigree of William Henderson Shoemake (1824-1908), which was focused on his Cherokee heritage. He was the son of John A. “Jack” Shoemake and Elizabeth [—?—] whose maiden name I still have not discovered. 

Problem No. 1: Nicknames. 
In transcribing my notes taken from researching in the Cherokee Nation citizenship applications and cases (FHL films #1,022,106 and #1,492,835), I took a testimony reference to a John (called Balljack) Shoemake to be referring to the John Shoemake (1766-1852) — the lineage on which I was working. That was my error. Now, John Shoemake (1766-1852) had a STEPson named John A., who was called “Jack.” (1803-1854). The STEPson took the Shoemake name, but his biological father was “a white man named [—?—] Jones.” However, the nickname was just “Jack” (not Balljack) and it was a reference to the younger John A. Shoemake — the stepson. 

Problem No. 2. Sorting. 
Be sure to get your Johns (et al) straight, including nicknames, and don’t assume a younger man of the same name is the son of the older one or is the one being discussed. Don’t trust your computer software to do this for you. 

John Shoemake (1766-1852) married (Indian style) to Annie Thorn, date and place are unknown, but evidently it was sometime after 1803 (when John A. “Jack” was born to Annie Thorn) and before 30 May 1818 when John Shoemake (the elder) registered a claim for 640 acres “in the right of his wife” under the Treaty of 1817, which became Reservation #122 and was located in Jackson County, Alabama. John and Annie are shown in the 1830, 1840 censuses as "white", but in the 1850 census in Jackson County, Alabama, they are listed as “mulatto.” Ironically, her son, John A. Shoemake, is listed next to them with his family (and nothing is marked in color column). (1850 Jackson County, Alabama, District 19. Roll: M432_7; Page: 50A; Image: 110.) 

Problem No. 3. Misreading of documents. 
Several have misread the following document and compiled genealogies that mix up the two different lines and some have informed me of “my” error, and posted same online, because they did not read carefully. The information taken from the Cherokee citizenship court about William H. Shoemake and his brother, John W. Shoemake in 1882 should be read carefully. Example: 

"My name is John V. Alberty, my age is about 48 years, I am a Cherokee, and reside in the Cherokee Nation, Going Snake District. According to the statements in the petition, I don't know anything about the claimants. I did know a family of Shoemakes. There was a man named Jim Shoemake. His brother was Tom Shoemake. Jim Shoemake married a woman by the name of Oxendine. They lived on the line there near Dutch Town, Washington County, Arkansas. They lived there till about the year '58 or '59. They then went from there to California or Arizona. I have not seen them since." 

Note that Alberty says he does not know anything about the claimants (the claimants were W. H. Shoemake and John W. Shoemake); then he goes on to say that he did know of a family of Shoemakes in Arkansas (Jim and Tom) and that they went to California or Arizona. That is semi-correct — at least about Jim Shoemake’s family) but these Shoemakes and mine are not related to each other in any way that I have been able to determine after many years of research. Having the same surname, as genealogists are aware, is not proof of any kinship, and even using the same spelling is not proof of a relationship. 

The claimants in this Cherokee citizenship case were the sons of a John A. (called Jack) Shoemake, who took the surname of his STEPFATHER, John Shoemake, a mulatto, who was born in 1766 in South Carolina. They are Cherokee — not via a Shoemake line but via their grandmother, Anna [nee Thorn] who was 1/2 blood. John A.’s biological father was a white man whose surname is said to be JONES. 

The James Shoemake who lived in Washington County, Arkansas at the time of the 1850 census claimed to have been born in South Carolina; had a (presumed) wife named Susan [—?—]; and five children, ranging in ages 3 to 11 born in Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas. This family went to California by 1860 where they are enumerated in Stanislaus County and can be followed through various California censuses, Great Registers and other records. 

Problem No. 4. Beware of others of the same name who might be confused with your person with the resultant entangled trees that might be compiled and posted/published. There are few, if any, perfect pedigrees, and we all can mistakes. 

When John and Annie Shoemake were “dispossessed” of their Reservation #122 in 1846/47, because of a case brought by some claimants in the Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma) the U.S. government commission which made the decision provided the genealogy of Cah-tah-la-tah, a full-blood Cherokee, the purported wife of a John Shoemake, which included the name of their purported child, Nee-ku-ti-hee, who was the mother of six children: Susan, Lizzy, Isle-hoo-wee, Oo-tah-the-kees-ky, Arly, and Sa-wat-chee. The claim was that someone of the same name (John Shoemake) had also been married to another Cherokee by whom he had had a daughter. However, this claim, which turned out to be fraudulent, said the John Shoemake who had a Cherokee wife named Cah-tah-la-tah, was a white man. The John Shoemake of Reservation #122 was mulatto. 

Problem Nos. 5 through 11. Relying on unsubstantiated genealogy, even if the U.S. government created it, is always filled with risks. 

I have unlinked Cah-tah-la-tah as a wife of my John Shoemake, as there is no proof that he ever had any wife other than Annie Thorn. This also unlinks the purported daughter, Nee-ku-ti-hee and her six children (listed above). While initially there were numerous questions about the Reservation #122, the dispossession, and later the return of it to John and Annie and her heirs, the genealogical information the government provided appeared rather straight forward, and at the time there was no way to check or verify the government’s source of the information, which apparently came from the claimants or their lawyer. It is only later after reexamination of the differences of the two men named John Shoemake, when and where they lived, and the most important fact that the original claim proved to be false, that makes me suspect that the genealogical material is inaccurate also. A fraudulent claim to property which was valued at $7,680 in 1847 — that’s about $231,000 in today’s value more or less — raises serious doubt as to the accuracies of the genealogy provided by these claimants. 

Problem No. 12. Go back and re-read all legal documents. You might have overlooked something. 
That is what happened in this case — I was so focused on the genealogy that I overlooked an important date. John Shoemake and Annie claimed their reservation under the Treaty of 1817 and 1819 and the lawsuit brought in 1846 pertaining to land under the Treaty of 1835. 

“The view of this office in the matter resting upon the showing in the papers herewith is that the land claimed and surveyed for Shumake [sic] under the Treaty of 1817 and 1819 is not the identical land for which an award was made under the Treaty of 1835 to certain alleged heirs.” (Letter dated 12 February 1856 by Thomas A. Hendricks, Commissioner, to Honorable Robert McClelland, Secretary of the Interior. General Land Office, National Archives, Washington, DC, Record Group 49, Indian Reservee Files Correspondence — Indians (Cherokee), John Shoemake claim). 

Based on a rough evaluation of the property’s worth and divided by the six heirs in the claim, the amount each might have received would have been about $38,500. Of course, I’m sure the lawyer(s) were paid out of it, but that is a significant sum of money to have had in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory in the late 1840s. I wonder if the heirs actually received any money, and if so, did the U.S. government make them pay it back because of the fraudulent claim? 

So many questions, so little time, and that’s why it is almost impossible to “complete” a pedigree, let alone have a perfect one.