The Native American Family Member

I think most people like to have a Native American tucked into their very white family tree.  I have read articles warning of family stories of the family's "Native American Princess".  Don't believe all of the stories your older family members tell you.  Make sure to research the facts.  When I did my tree, I did just that.  I knew a story that my great aunt told me about an Indian Princess that married an early Camden, Maine settler and tucked it away in my brain for future reference.  Six "Greats" into my Mother's side of the family tree and there it was!  It was true!  (Well, I don't know about the Indian Princess part, but...) There was no story to go with it or anything, but I found the records and added her name to my family tree.  My great aunt did not have access to internet genealogy sites that harbored the false "Indian Princess" scams in family tree pages.  She was remembering this information from word of mouth.  Someone in her family told her this.  There was no need to make it up.

Since this information was given to me from my seventy-something great aunt (whose mother was a Richards) I would not have to worry about my Indian Princess ancestor being fake.  Well, perhaps she wasn't a princess.  I am not really sure.  That isn't what mattered most to me.  I just wanted to have my family tree in order.  Aunt Glad wanted to help me with that.

Then, today, I was checking out a page on the Maine Genealogy Network and there was a site about researching Native American relatives.  I clicked on the section about the "fake" indian relatives.  Not me!  Down the page, I saw the name "Big Thunder".  My heart kind of sunk.  That was supposed to be the name of my Great great great great great Grandmother's father.  She couldn't be a fake!  If she was then who did my great 6x Grandfather really marry?  I'm here so he had to have married someone!  I did a careful research of my family tree.  How could this happen?

Well, I read the article regarding "Big Thunder" and it seemed my heart would sink further til the very end where it gave some examples of some possible facts regarding a "Big Thunder" character.  The last example was of a "Little Fawn" marrying a man named Dodipher Richards.  Little Fawn was also called "Sarah Tarratine", a little factoid I discovered in my research and not something that came up in the Big Thunder scam.  And of course, Little Fawn and Dodipher settled in the Camden, Maine area and had many children, as they did way back then.  There were little Dodiphers and Sarahs running all around in the large Richards' family (Dodipher's brothers etc. lived fairly near).

My advise is DO YOUR RESEARCH!  Write down your sources.  Are they reliable?  Census records (not available for the time period of Dodipher and Little Fawn). Birth and Death records.  Verify family stories with facts.  Why the heck people would try to deceive others by posting fake family trees is beyond me.

Anyway, here is the source that I read all this information from.
http://www.nedoba.org/gene_fake.html


UPDATE!  June 7th, 2013  [Sarah "Little Fawn" Richards]

On Maine Genealogy Network I requested information regarding my Native American relative and her husband, Dodipher Richards, asking for any kind of  proof that Sarah was a Native American, or something with her real last  name on it, because maybe her name wasn't "Little Fawn".  I knew that the Richards part of my family is very large, generations producing many children, and many still living in the area.  Today,  someone posted information about that section of the Richards' family.  Here is what he posted:

Permalink Reply by Ben McMullin 5 minutes ago

Hello there,

My 3rd great-grandfather, Mormon pioneer Willard Glover McMullin (b.1823, North Haven, Maine) married Martha Richards (b.1814, Searsmont, Maine).  Martha's parents were Josiah Richards (b.1785, Maine) and Ruth Richards (b.1789, Lincolnville, Maine).  I have Josiah listed as the son of Dodipher and Sarah Little Fawn, while Ruth is listed as a grand-daughter of Dodipher and Sarah (fancy that).  

Back to Willard and Martha...they arrived in Utah in 1848, and were sent to help establish the community of Harrisburg, Utah, in the late 1850s. From what I've read about Martha, she was an expert basket maker/weaver and was given a name by local Native American groups that translated to "Golden Woman", due to them always being welcomed at her door.  I've seen her photo, she had a dark complexion and straight, black hair.  If Sarah Little Fawn was both Martha's grandmother and great-grandmother, it makes sense she would have been an expert basket maker/weaver and a friend to the local Native American groups.

I was very happy to get information to help confirm Sarah Richard's Native American ancestry.

Recent Research

Hello all!  I've been busy filling in some blanks in my family tree that is growing ever larger!

http://sarabellepapp.com/images/mid_LargeTree.jpg

I have tons of new links as I do more research from home, and not at the LDS Family Research Center (where I have been called to work).  I will add more as I get them.  I will also have to redue the family trees I have posted to this blog as I have made corrections and added new information.  I would like to see how far I can go!

Dover, New Hampshire- I have many ancestors from Dover.

I found this painting interesting because very rarely have I scene the Pilgrims hit Plymouth Rock in the winter.  Imagine  being so hungry, cold and tired from a long hard journey and landing in wintertime in northern New England.  There is another painting I came across where the Pilgrims are climbing up on shore from the rock, looking haggard, sick and beaten... one man carrying who I would presume to be his wife in his arms.  The photo above, though very cold looking, looks almost like they just got back from a vacation cruise or something.

http://fineartamerica.com/

I have traced my family (my mother's side) all the way up the coastline of northeastern United States from Massachusetts to Maine.  The early settlers of many towns along the coast were quite often my ancestors!  My mother has a great bloodline with strong northern New England roots that go deep into this granite ridden soil.  I only wish she could have as much pride in this as I do.  

I have often found myself lost in my mind while reading about my ancestors about a world of ship's captains, primitive cabins, horses and buggies, "Indians", and old dirt roads closed in by trees on either side.  I wonder what roads here today that were developed back then as dirt paths and trails.  I wonder what it looked like before they took dynamite and blew the rock up out of the way of a road improvement. I wonder if the old road went up over the rock or around.  I wonder which roads were added later when highways began to cut through towns.  I think of one area where the road twirls around a pond and up a hill that had a name.  I can easily imagine that road as a narrow(er) dirt road.  It can be a treacherous road (legend says it's haunted) and I am sure that flattening that hill improved the safety of travel there.  

Old Wooden Highway, Nequasset, Maine.  Photo url said it was Woolwich, ME.

Anyway, I have found names repeat themselves on either side of my mother's family, and in different areas of the Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine states (that used to be just Massachusetts) as they built towns all up the coastline. In my mind I see captains of large ships, schooners with tall masts blowing their way along the coastline, and I see hard working fishermen pulling up their bounty from a boat in stormy cold, chill waters at sea.  I also see women who seem to pop out the children like a sort of popcorn popper, having many babies, but often losing many as well to illnesses that we now are a lot safer from.  Influenza and Small Pox killed whole families and even villages!  We have come a long way.  

Lake George, Liberty, Maine Waldo County-
Trees now block this view, but this is a view of the area some of my ancestors walked.

One woman gave birth as the Mayflower began to make port, but it was a stillborn.  No doubt a stillborn due to the long journey from England and the poor diet upon the ship, and illneses that ran rampant in the confines of the old ship.  There are stories of  Indians and battles against Indians, but also Indians and battles with Indians.  In Camden, Maine the early settlers managed to chase the British back to sea more than once.  Also in Camden, Maine one of my ancestors married a Tarratine Indian woman (I use the term Indian because that is the term they used back then, with full knowledge that the politically correct term is "Native American").  I was thrilled this week when I finally discovered more about this woman and her parents.  The mother's name was left as its Indian name, and the girl was given the name Sarah, still listed as Little Fawn (as it was the English meaning to her Indian name) and her "maiden" name was listed as Tarratine... the name of the tribe she was from (along the Maine- New Hampshire border).  When listing last names for her parents, I listed them also as "Tarratine".  My ancestor, Dodipher and Little Fawn had many children, who went on to have many children.  It was this man, Dodipher, and his wife, Little Fawn that would create the link between my great- grandmother's family (on my mother's father's side, Richards) and my great- grandfather's family (also my mother's father's side- Berry).

rememberingletters.wordpress.com

This is actually in New York (Yup, I've got family from here), but it is a basic picture of what life was like for my early ancestors of Northern New England.  (Another reason for high child mortality rates... take a look at the size of that fireplace!)

Get excited about family research!  Look for the stories and the history lessons you missed out on in school!