Kathy's List

Ordering my grandfather Cecil Carter's death certificate I learned who his parents were and began to call around some local cousins to learn more about them. Then I ordered his dad's death certificate which was a big help in my research. Cecil was my mom's father and she knew nothing about him since she was orphaned at the age of 4. He had told her family stories about being indian , drank too much they say, and even talked about having a great grandfather indian chief, which I have thusfar been unable to locate. His mother had married three times, first to Fenn, then Dasher, and lastly to a Carter so any of them could connect to a tribe or perhaps one of their mothers or even more likely to his mother's lineage way back to 1700s Georgia. There are many new paths to follow to learn the truth.

His parents divorced after having six children between 1893 and 1900 and remarried so the trace became complicated. He might have been adopted but surely took on a new last name. My mother was indian and when I started looking up census records I found Cecil's mother Anna Lou Stone as a child in one record and then I found her Uncle Charles Stone in Alabama and he had named his sons Osceola and Tecumseh, so perhaps I am on the right track, but which tribe? They were all living in former Creek Territory but Cecil said he was Cherokee, perhaps they were mixed blood.

Cecil and his brother Emmett were tall, large men, dark complexion while their brother Frank Jr had smaller facial features and black eyes and black hair. Frank's granddaughter Martha met with me and she was at least 6' tall and copper skinned, lovely lady.

When Cecil was born his mother decided to leave them all and go back to her family in Macon City, Bibb County, Georgia. Cecil was in his father's arms crying so Wiliam told Anna "here you might as well take this one" and she did. Then he told the other children that Cecil was only their "half" sibling. Cecil was found on the 1920 and 1930 census of Fort Bliss in El Paso Texas but apparently he visited his family in Alabama now and then, and they said he was very mean and drank too much. I only found a few of his pictures and aparently a time book for a job he was working in Oak Park before he died in 1939. The only thing I can remember about Oak Park was the hospital on Forest Avenue so maybe he worked there.

Frank Jr even told his children that his sister Carrie was only his half sister and she was the firstborn to Anna and William Fenn so perhaps the kids just did not get along or perhaps she looked more like an indian than the others and was mistreated.

Cecil's father was William Franklin Fenn born in 1855 Tuskegee, Macon County Alabama and Wm's parents were Emeline Harrell and John Fann of Early County Georgia which was also former indian territory. John had served in the Civil War and his father Elijah Fann born 1788 had drawn in the Cherokee Land Lottery of Georgia. Elijah had married Martha Rich and her mother was only known as "Abiah". Elijah's father was Travis Fann of Virginia, possibly an indian trader, who married a lady known only as "Mary". The history of Georgia listed on usgenweb.com has many stories about the indian traders, the tribes, the loss of their lands, and the gold rush of Georgia.

Travis may have been a mixed blood himself, parents were Alecy McCoy and Zachariah Fann of Virginia, and I found some land records on them and their service in the American Revolution and started putting those documents on a webpage to view later or to share with family

Elijah's brother Matthew was probably the first of the Fenn family to move into Alabama buying up several hundred acres of land, employing indians to work the plantation which was fine but illegal in the state of Georgia. Matthew Fenn is mentioned in a book "Early Settlers of Barbour County".

It was on that plantation where William Franklin Fenn became the Farm Manager. Many Fenns may be buried on that old plantation and a recently found descendant of Matthew told me that she had to go to court with the present day owner of that land to protect the graves of her family.

Anna Stone's parents were Mary Ann Hendrick, daughter of Christopher Columbus Hendrick and Augustus Marvin Stone. Augustus was the son of Sarah Daviess and Benjamin Wilburne Stone of Georgia. Ben's parents were Polly Wells of Putnam Georgia and Michael Stone of Maryland - they lived in Captain John Stone's District. Michael and his sons Benjamin and William Stone were in Macon County Alabama on the 1850 census with many returning to Georgia after that but Augustus remained in Alabama until 1900.

William and Anna's children were Carrie/Carolyn, Emmett Marvin, William Franklin, Robert Lee known as Uncle Lee, Arthur Lee and Cecil Earl Fenn. Emmett was a very big man who worked for the railroad and he lived in downtown Montgomery near the Union Station. He would stop off in New York to buy his ver large clothing and that is where he died of a heart attack. His nephew Bob Fenn of Millbrook fetched his body back to Montgomery for burial. Bob was the son of Frank Jr and principal of Robinson Springs Elementary School. My mom put me in touch with him once to discuss our family. Bob also put me in touch with his sister Martha. Bob said that he remembered Cecil being close to a Wm Fenn and Mattie Mae Adkins Fenn in Georgia but wasn't sure of the connection. He also told me that they rememberd Grandma Carter sending pictures home and gifts. One picture was of a baseball player, Tige Stone, that they placed in the living room. Tige was the son of Anna's brother and played one season in 1923 for the St Louis Cardinals. Bob siad they had a house fire in Coosada and lost everything though.

Cecil's wife Ellie died in 1935 after birthing William Lawrence, her third child, and Cecil remined drunk until he fell dead in 1939 walking down Columbus Street. The children, my mom and her two brothers, lived with the McClains from then on. Some teased them about being Indian, they were poor and had a rough life. They attended Capital Heights School on Federal Drive. "Billy" stayed in trouble, Cecil was quiet and Annie married at a young age to Donald Robinson for a brief time. Cecil Jr married Christine of North Carolina and spent many years there, having a son named Mark, but also had a brief first marriage to Jean McNeil having one child named Victoria. Cecil's third wife was Jerri in Atlana and she had Michael and Jeffrey Earl Carter, before he left. Billy had no children but married several times and spent most of his life in Oklahoma. Annie met Frank Cochran in 1949 and married.

Cecil Jr died a few months after a rattlesnake bit his leg twice and he refused amputation. Billy died in car accident. Anne had heart bypass surgery in 1980 and several infections including flu and pneumonia before she passed in 1992, being buried close to her brothers in Memorial Cemetery in Montgomery Alabama.

I called around the local cemeteries to find their graves. Emmett was buried by their father William in Greenwood Cemetery in Montgomery. The caretaker showed me the space next to William with no headstone was recorded as the grave of Mat Fenn - lo and behold on the census records, William had a brother named Madison and family had mentioned that William was buried by Uncle Mat. I have taken tons of pictures of tombstones and saved many of the census images on another webpage.

Running out of space quickly I had to start using and abusing other web designers to get my research "out there" and have received tons of emails and packages in my home mail to add new information to this labor of love and have met many new family members. The list is below but I need to say that the parents of Alice McClain Carter was Charles Allen McClain born 1886 Ramer Alabama and Lorena Emma Bozeman born 1892 Dublin Alabama. One cousin who contacted me regarding his research linking to mine regarding Lorena's mother, Alice Stephens being a Cherokee, told me that I was on the right track, saying that our ancestor John Stephens served in the American Revolution and married a full blood indian and migrated to Alabama. Another writes that Lorena's great great Uncle John Bozeman married an indian in Darlington SC and moved to Mississippi in 1823. Then of course we do not know much at all about the widow Sarah Brown that Lorena's great great grandfather Peter Bozeman married in 1786 and had served in the War.

One trip to Dublin revealed the first home that Ethel Bozeman and her husband Jace Gibson built while they and the children lived in a tent. I was there after talking with some of her daughters, Ruby and Peggy, who have now passed on and given directions and stories. Then I found the tombstones of Ethel and Jace in Hills Chapel Cemetery. On the way out I stopped at a small church cemetery where I saw the tombstone of Herman and "OOTCHA" Broadway who were our cousins through Charlie McClain's mother Elizabeth Broadway who was born 1853. Then it seems that Elizabeth's sister Rebecca Broadway was the mother of Jace Gibson.

Elizabeth Broadways' mother was Mary Stephens, a daughter of Benjamin. Elizabeth had married Josiah Marion McClain after the Civil War, but I found no marriage record because he had deserted his first wife Julia King in Georgia and his several children. Julie had filed to joined the Cherokee Rolls and also filed for divorce in 1872. Josiah was wounded in the war and his wife Elizabeth filed for his pension so maybe he had no memory of his other family. Josiah's mother is only known as "Anna" and was married to James McClain and they are buried in Indian Creek Cemetery in GA.

When I had gone to Greenwood Cemetery to find the graves of my husband's grandparents Susie Mae Cooper and James Edgar Brooks Sr., I found his mother Annie Clark Ballard beside them and on my way towards the exit I discovered a Bozeman family plot and pulled over immediately. There close to the gate was Nancy Jane Anderson Bozeman's tombstone, the grandmother of my Lorena. Buried beside her were two of her sons, Meady and Robert, their wives and children.

Uncle Robert is the one who owned a large piece of land near Maxwell AFB and donated a portion to create the Memorial Cemetery where Lorena and her children are buried and my parents. The road is named Bozeman Drive and for many years I just hoped for a connection until recently did I learn the story. He was a contractor and each of his six daughters received a piece of land and street name when they married. Now I can certainly understand Lorena's connection to this place.

The story and others were told to me by a new found cousin Dora Stubbs, the granddaughter of Dora Dillard and Uncle Peter James Bozeman. I met Dora in May 2007 on a road trip back to Dublin with my oldest daughter, where we met many new Bozeman cousins, children of Uncle Bob actually, and the Gibson children, quite an exciting day. We met at Hills Chapel Church which is across the street from Hills Chapel Cemetery. We were led around the block to another road which runs behind the church to an old family cemetery, a small burial ground encased with barbed wire, and many fallen branches and years of neglect.

There we found our great great great grandfather's tombstone of Peter Edward Bozeman born 1834 who had served in the Civil War. Near his was a grave of R L Hill who must have been his cousin and nearby was the most precious tombstone I have ever seen - My Darling ALB - Alice Lorena Stephens Bozeman was Peter's daughter in law, the wife of John Thomas Bozeman. Alice was the great granddaughter of John Stephens and his cherokee wife. There was a small clover type design drawn upon the tombstone and the dates worn very thin. Family says she died a few months after delivering Little John and her husband married again right away to have help with the children.

John Thomas Bozeman is buried at the Hills Chapel Cemetery with his other wife Sarah Ellen Bean, near his brother, Peter James and Dora. Dora Dillard's ancetor Nat Dillard had a large plantation in Dublin beofre moving on to Troy. Ellen Bean told the children she was kin to the hanging Judge Roy Bean.

Dora Stubbs also told me that several years back we could have seen about 50 other tombstones in that old family plot behind the church. When I researched the area I found it was once owned by a John Hill who was most likely the uncle to Peter. Peter's mother was always listed as Martha H. so she was possibly the sister of John Hill. Reading back into Darlington SC I found a John Hill served in the American Revolution. Darlington is where Peter's father william Henry Bozeman married Martha H. - nothing is known about Martha's mother.

Cecil and Alice married about 1931, had Cecil Jr in 1932 , my mother Anne in 1934 and William Lawrence in 1935, with Alice dying immediately after giving birth - Cecil died in 1939 so the children were raised by the McClain grandparents in Montgomery Alabama. Cecil Jr married several times and had several chiclren. Anne married Frankie Cochran in 1951 having me in 1953 in Broken Arrow, Tulsa, Oklahoma. William had no children.

When I started tracing the Cochran lineage I found he had a cousin nmed Powhatan and grandmothers who smoke pipes and made their own medicine, living on the prairie among the indians . One of Frank's many grandfathers had refused land in indian territory, just a family story, but where would I find proof.

My dad talked about Luella sitting in the field for hours filling her apron with roots and herbs. He said her long black hair touched the floor when she sat down. She had told her children that she was one quarter Cherokee. They talked about Luella's mother, Lattie, cooking skunk meat; that it was the best tasting meat ever. I cannot begin to imagine how she caught the little critter.

Lattie was a beautiful petite dark featured lady from Kentucky and her mother Mary Catherine Crigler Little was positively gorgeous in the photos with a long dark braid hanging over her shoulder. Lattie's father, John Wright Little, was another handsome dark featured man, even so described in his civil war pension papers. His grandmother was Catherine G. Weatherford out of Charlotte VA as so written in the internet's Virginia history records. Those records state that her father was Charles Weatherford and I find only one Charles on census during that particular time. His mother is recorded as Mary Half Blood and he ended up in Alabama married to Sehoy. His father Martin Weatherford was a wealthy plantation owner with slaves in Georgia, a very outspoken Loyalist who was kicked out of the State and resided in the Bahamas where he married a second time and this wife also named a son Charles.

The Criglers came from Germanny, residing in Virginia 1700s in a colony called Germanna so we should focus our research on the many wives of those men wo eventually migrated into Kentucky in 1800 with the Carpenters, Duvals, Simmon,s Wells, and Roby families. Many had served in the War and received Land Grants.

I find it so ironic that grandpa John Wright Little left Kentucky when his wife died and took a homestead in Little Rock Arkansas. He is buried on some unknown mountatntop there. He was a cherokee, a blacksmith and a farmer. My dad's sister Bernice has a few pieces of his work. Bernice was a twin to Eunice and their mother also had another set of twin boys who did not survive. Twins are quite common in that lineage; I have discovered several.

I have found several in my lineage who served in the Civil War and in the American Revolution, learned that much of our Alabama families lost everything during the Civil War and then many more served in the other wars of our nation and collected quite a bit of documentation within this maize of genealogy pages.

I went back into researching a grandmother of Lorena, a Lavinia Jane Sellers, and found one of her cousins had married a Schrimpshire, and another Schrimpshire had married an indian Chief Dennis Bushyhead. Others tracing the Sellers, Anderson, Brack, Doty lineage through the Carolinas into Alabama are also claiming indian blood. My husband's Brooks, Ballard, Bond, Baxter, Smith, Craig, Connelly lineage of 1800 Tennessee resided in Indian Territory there long before the Trail of Tears and the Tennessee website has an exciting history uploaded to enjoy at usgenweb.com - Enjoy reading about Sequoyah and Nancy Ward and Joe Vann during this same time in history along with Rogers, Starr and Ross, they all lived so close together.

Lorena's husband's line came out of Virginia in 1750 when a Charles McClain married Elizabeth Moon and moved to Spartanburg South Carolina, mixed with Stone, Lynch, Wood, Hildebrand and many other interesting names who migrated into Georgia's Indian Territory about 1800.

This journey will never be complete; I just try to follow their path, gather the census records, marriage licenses, land records, and military records, maps, attempting to piece our history together. One difficult item is they used nicknames quite often, even on the documents. Anna Stone's son William Franklin Fenn Jr. was called Will on his WWI registration; her nephew William Arthur Stone was called Tige ; Anna's son, Cecil liked to go by Earl or even Nick, his mother was called Annie, his son William was Billy or even Larry and then my mother was named Annie but she preferred Anne when she became Mrs. Cochran. One photo of Frank Cochran's mother Luella has Rue written on it but I would think Lue, not Rue and they called my dad Bud. Lorena was called Rena even on a census record in 1900 but I could not find her anywhere in 1920 or 1930. Annie Ballard Brooks called one son Bubba and one daughter Sissy. Bubba was my husband's father and Sissy is the one helping me trace their lineage, sharing many beautiful photos.