How My Journey Began

For as long as I can remember, my paternal Aunt has been the keeper of family information on my dad's side of the family. She's collected and published regular updates to the existing James-Gilmore Family History, affectionately known as the "Red Book". Over the years, it's grown to quite a collection of names (and thankfully, almost all information has proven to be correct). I remember when Ancestry.com first became a "thing" I eagerly set up an account and tried to find records about my paternal grandparents....with no luck. The site was new and simply didn't have a large record collection yet. Discouraged, I gave up and promptly forgot all about researching my family's past for decades.

Years later, about 2013, my mother was contacted by one of her family members working on her paternal side of the family. She was regaled with a story of Native American ancestry in her paternal line. According to the lore, two brothers from France came to America. One married a full blooded Cherokee. They had a son, who married a 1/2 blooded Cherokee wife. Their son (Abijah, my 2nd great grandfather) was 1/2 Cherokee...and so the story went. It made sense to my mother. Her father had jet black hair and an olive complexion. And she had dark hair, even into her later years. The story morphed to include how back in the 1920's marrying someone who was part Native American was considered taboo. Supposedly, my grandmother knew, but swore my grandfather to secrecy, and she would divorce him if he ever told anyone. It was a family secret not even their children were told. At the time, I had no idea just how common and pervasive this type of family story about Native American ancestry was (and continues to be). 

I desperately wanted to be part Native American. How cool would that be?! For years, I searched (and searched... and searched) trying to find the elusive Native American connection. I found others looking for Abijah. Several Ancestry.com user trees perpetuated the story (one even had a link to a famous Cherokee chief as an ancestor). I personally have never located anything more than his name on the death certificate of one of his sons. At the time, I wasn't sure I wanted to pursue DNA testing, but eventually realized it was going to be necessary to put the question to rest once and for all. When my Ancestry.com results came back, there wasn't one speck of Native American in me (or my brother, or my maternal cousins who had tested), nor was there any French DNA on my maternal line. My small percentage of DNA from France was solely from my paternal line. The story was finally proven false! (To be fair, ethnicity results are always changing on all the sites I've uploaded to. Maybe there will be a change in the future, but for now, I believe the story was just that - nothing more than a story.)  Abijah is still a brick wall I continue to try to break through. Though I've found nothing more on his existence, he certainly existed, I just have to find the proof.

Over the years, I've started (and scrapped) probably 20 trees. I made all the typical mistakes (especially trusting other people's trees and blindly accepting hints because the name was right) leading to inaccuracies I could never fully clean up. In January 2020, I deleted all my trees and restarted from scratch. I'm researching all family members related by DNA to my offspring. I record every scrap of information from each record and have discovered some interesting stories (ones I can actually prove). I'm proud to make my tree public on Ancestry.com and hope it helps others in some small way. While the basis for my journey turned out to be nothing more than a myth, my love for genealogy has grown into an obsession. For me, it's not about collecting names, it's about bringing people to life. 

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay