Recently
I had been contacted by some Chickasaw LOVE descendants and one in particular
took me to task about my grandmother’s claim to be the daughter of Robert
Howard LOVE . He stated emphatically that it was impossible for Bettie LIGON to
be Robert’s daughter and he had the Dawes Choctaw Freedmen card to prove it. Mr.
COLE the self-described Chickasaw Elder exchanged a few pleasantries with me
and abruptly stopped communicating on the subject; why, I’ll probably never
know.
Fast
forward, the other day I was having a discussion with a research colleague
about this and that and that and this when she asked me if I had my DNA tested
and when was the last time I went online to look at the results. Unfortunately
I had to inform her I had not been to 23andme in quite some time and I hadn’t
been to the Ancestry DNA site in an equally long time.
After
getting off the phone and all of the guilt she was “trying” to lay on me for
not having a GED file loaded and some other stuff that was above my pay grade I
decided to go online and take a look at what was at Ancestry and came across an
email from someone who was classified as a 4th to 6th
distant cousin. This individual wanted to share some information and so I
accepted his offer. After looking at some of the possible matches we had in
common I wrote him back about my first impressions on what his information
revealed.
As
I told him, at first blush the surname BENNETT stuck out and because his
information indicated they lived in Berwyn, Indian Territory of all the names
he had in his family tree, this one might have promise.
Well
I received a response and my new DNA relative gave me a little more background
on the BENNETT and THOMPSON families; how they were “Chickasaws to his
knowledge.” I wasn’t totally convinced this was out connection. It was a start
and after receiving this message I went back and took another look at the
information in his family tree.
Now
I saw the LOVE surname but it was only one and it had question marks after the
name Liddie so I really didn’t pay a great deal of attention to it at the time
initially. I saw another surname JACKSON and of course we all know what a
common name this is! I went back to take a closer look and recalled I wrote an
article about this very family some time ago.
Liddie
or Lidia JACKSON was a claimant on Equity Case 7071 and on her Dawes card you
can plainly see where she was seeking a transfer from the Chickasaw Freedman
Roll to the Chickasaw by Blood roll; the phrase “See Petition to transfer” is prominent
on those who protested being enrolled as Freedmen.
On
the rear of Lydia’s card (Chickasaw Freedman #391) she provided the name of her
father who was listed as Ben LOVE, Chickasaw. I also remembered Lydia’s daughter
Jennie DAVIDSON, (Chickasaw Freedman #390) being the key person seeking a
transfer to the Chickasaw Blood Roll
All
of this attention and people suddenly coming into my life in some way is a
powerful message that illustrates how sometimes things have a way of emerging
to tell the story that people like Lydia JACKSON and Bettie LIGON never had the
opportunity to effectively tell during their life time.
Bettie
protested her enrollment on the Freedmen Roll until her death and I suspect
others like Lydia JACKSON and her daughter Jennie DAVIDSON were determined to
be rightfully recognized as Chickasaw citizens. Here we are more than one
hundred years later and the blood of their fathers may be the one thing that will
ultimately tell their story and justify their final acceptance into the nation
their birth?
I’m
sure anyone who researches LOVE ancestry already understands the connection I
have with my new DNA cousin but for those who haven’t figured it out or may not
understand some of the intricacies of blended families of Indian Territory I
will do my best to explain it.
Simply
put, if it is true that Ben LOVE is the father of Lydia JACKSON and if it is
true that Ben’s half-brother Robert Howard LOVE is the father of Bettie
LIGON, as I suspect, that indicate the
common ancestor for Lydia’s descendants and Bettie’s descendants is Thomas LOVE.
From
everything I can see I have no other connection through marriage or blood that
would indicate any descendants of Lydia JACKSON and I have an ancestor in
common other than Thomas LOVE.
Throughout
my research of Bettie and the claimants of Equity Case 7071 I never made this
connection despite the fact it had been staring me in the face for many years. It
never dawned on me to look at the siblings of Robert Howard LOVE for
confirmation that Bettie was a LOVE.
So
this in my opinion opens up a whole new avenue for research and hopefully
cooperation of those who are descendants of the people on Equity Case 7071. I
would love (no pun intended) to see more of these descendants get DNA tested
and compare their test as well as the records of the Dawes Commission to
establish that our ancestor’s claims were valid and the Dawes Commission as
well as the tribes went to great lengths to deny thousands of people millions
of dollars in land allotments.
One
last thing; when I took a look at the common matches between me and my new DNA
cousin the results indicated there were two other people who had the same or
similar DNA match. One of those individuals I knew as one of my sister’s son
and the other was someone related to my new cousin.
When
I first saw that information it threw me because I couldn’t imagine who this
fourth person was and how they fit into the puzzle. BUT if I’m correct this is
a whole new ballgame!
