Acceptance- when facts contradict Oral history

Grandpa always said he was part Cherokee. His grandma, a Choctaw said he was part Cherokee, so I was always willing to accept that. However, the facts don't seem to add up. I am blogging about this because I run across a lot of people who insist they must be Indian, because their ancestor had an oral history, or even because they applied. So I am going to show you a statement from my family where they did apply and tell you, it is not true. Just because I have this document doesn't change the facts. The information within the document is not the truth. Sometimes we have to take what we find with a grain of salt.

Here is a document I found for Edley Roger's son who applied as a Cherokee Citizen on the Dawes, and then on the Eastern Cherokee.

Sounds great, but Joseph Roger's the father of Edley never lived in Georgia. Edley lived in Georgia, his sister lived in Georgia, but Joseph Roger's did not. Joseph Roger's lived in what is now Lee County, Virginia and was probably born in Montgomery County, Virginia. Around 1805 he moved to Roane County, in the portion that would be Bledsoe County, and eventually Hamilton County. He got a land grant there with his brother in the Sequahatchie Valley. The land grant was recorded after his death.

DNA of  Joseph Roger's descendants show that Joseph is a son of Doswell Rogers by YDNA from Edley Roger's line and by autosomal DNA which links Joseph's descendants to more than one of the descendants of Doswell's other children and also to Thomas Rogers, the brother of Doswell. DNA is also showing a lot of DNA in common with the descendants of Elisha Wallen and Mary Blevins, indicating that most likely the wife of Doswell Rogers was a relative of Elisha Wallen and Mary Blevins (I believe probably a daughter.)

DNA is also showing a lot of DNA in common between Joseph Roger's descendants and the descendants of the Anderson family. This DNA is most likely coming from Susannah, the wife of Joseph, who most likely is the sister of Thomas Shye and the daughter of a female relative of John Anderson who resided in Montgomery County, VA.  Neither of these lines are Cherokee. Though some of the relatives we match claim to be Cherokee, they do so from the Sizemore line, and not from their Jones lineage in common with Susannah.

Since Edley Rogers parents both are showing DNA matches, we have to take what we have found, along with what we know, where they lived and the other documentation we have gathered and form an opinion. Mahala Roger's has an affidavit in this pack too. It says that her son got his Cherokee from her husband and not her. So that rules out that line completely. The papers say that Edley was 1/8 native American and that Joseph was 1/4. Yet, I haven't run across anything that suggests that either Elisha Wallen, Mary Blevins, Addenstone Rogers, or Catherine Doswell were native American. So if none of Joseph's grandparents are native American, how can he be 1/4? The answer is, he can't.

I have something similar on my Hager line. A grandson of Polly Whitley and Steely Hager claims to be native American, through Polly herself, yet we have found her family, and they were from North Carolina. Could there be Cherokee further back, yes, but the Hager who claimed they were Choctaw, claimed that Polly was a full blood, and she wasn't. So once again, just because someone filed a claim, doesn't make it true. In fact, all of his testimony in regards to Polly is false. I know that because irony of all ironies, he claims that her father was John Jones Sr, the white man who married Caty the widow of William Riddle.

I wanted to share this because I get bombarded with people who insist that something is true because of a Dawes file. It isn't always. If I can accept that in regards to my own family, then so can you.