My Artificial Ancestry                   

(Above: My artificial great-great-grandfather, Charles Merritt Wilcox, and I discuss, of all things, "relativity." It is always important for genealogy to be an existential experience, even if on some rare occasions it turns out to be simply 'artificial'.)

"And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad....I find it hard to tell you, cause I find it hard to take. When people run in circles, it's a mad, mad world..."

As always, relatively unedited.                

We all know I spend way too much time chasing old ghosts—trying to figure out who is related to whom six-ways-to-Sunday. What can I say? Somebody has to do it, so it might as well be me. I know it gets thick, and too many times I am asking you to slog through text or images you can neither see nor understand. My apologies. The only thing I can say in my defense is that maybe, if  I haven't gleaned any truth in all this genealogical muck-ruck, I've at least provided a modicum of amusement and entertainment, or that I haven't put you to sleep. Hey, if you’re tuning into this latest edition of Ancestral Soap Opera Digest, you are just as hooked as I am on understanding the past and those who came before us. Now, as they say on some TV show somewhere, just take your medicine, right? 😉 Wink.

Or, as I like to say, a la Fox Mulder, "The truth is out there."

Okay, when I'm not subjecting you all to the bewildering prospects of ancestry, I am (excuse my French) dicking around with AI. Yeah, I know. It's like a bad habit. It sort of reminds me of those habits I had during those lost days in the 1980s, but we’d best not go into that. (Some of those old ghosts aren't quite out to pasture just yet.) And yes, I enjoy debating with AI. Specifically, I like to argue with AI genealogically speaking. Well, I’m still me, after all, right?

Say what???

Like any modern-day idiot, I thought I could beat the house at playing genealogical cards. As you might suspect, I’m rarely successful at beating the odds anywhere, especially not with AI on this subject, but the other day I decided to give it a run. The results were fascinating, and I thought I would share them with you.

I. 

So here's the deal: I decided I would ask the Great Gods of Google to look at my family pedigree chart and tell me, "Given all these family lines, who is my earliest known verifiable ancestor?"

Well, again, excuse my French. The algorithm nearly crapped (sh*t) all over itself. Oh no! (It replied) It could not possibly tell me any such thing, as all of this was hidden behind privacy and paywalls. I replied, No problem, giving it the URL to my very public family tree on file with those kind folks and all their many foibles and flaws, in Salt Lake City. Again, Oh, no! "I am a textual model and cannot see this information because you have not provided me a starting point." Apparently, "me" as a starting point didn't work.

I replied, No problem! Here are the names of my grandparents, both paternal and maternal, starting with my mother. 

Can you tell me her earliest known verifiable ancestor(s)?

Sadly, you are seeing my evil side when it comes to addressing my "artificial" ancestry.

There seemed to be a great clunking sound that arose from my laptop. So much so, that I recalled the old line of, "I rose from my bed to see what was the matter..." Smoke began to spew as it churned away at the answer. It fidgeted and fumbled, and I could tell that the Great Gods of Google had not fed their AI beast that day, and that it was hungry to win me over with some clever non-answer or an appropriate mix of leafy greens and word salad. For a while, nothing much happened. The AI seemed to wish it had an "ignore Jeff" function in its processor. Sadly, it appeared to acquiesce. The little spinning wheel spun, then seemed to spin backwards as if it were trying to make up its mind. Finally, it spit out an answer:  

Joseph Clark, Jr. (1642–1726) and Bethia Hubbard (1646–1707)

Okay, interesting choice. I'm certainly familiar with Old Joe and Grandma Beth. They have always seemed like good old Rhode Island stock to me. They're actually quite a foundational pillar in my family tree. While not as exciting as some, they'd hung out with religious reformers like Roger Williams back in the day. I recalled Old Joe and Grandma Beth, too, as ancestors I share in common with my dear friend Patrice (Powell) Reeds-Martin. I liked this couple, too, in that they relayed an as-yet common ancestral line between "me and us" to the very talented actress Amy Adams. I mean, who doesn't want to have an Enchanted Fairy Princess of some sort on Ye Olde Family Tree? She even looks kinda like Patti from back in the day. As a side note, the man (a guy named Lyle Maxson) who walked my mom down the aisle when she married Dad (because her own father couldn't be there) was also, unbeknownst to us and certainly mom at the time (1954), a descendant of Joseph Clark, Jr. and Bethia Hubbard.

Small, small, world. 

Key of Descents: Red Patti, Yellow Lyle, Blue Me, and Green actress Amy Adams 

So look at us. Nothing but a bunch of Grandpa Joe and Granny Beth's kids. (Obviously, Amy cheated when it came to standing in line on gene pool handout day.) I mean, though, who would have thought that a friend of my grandmother's (Lyle), who was also unbeknownst related to her would walk her daughter, my mother, down the aisle, and that her kid (moi) would befriend a girl at school who was also unbeknownst related to all three of them, and all of them related to actress Amy Adams - with the first three related quite closely?

I mean, go figure. You can't make this sh*t up. I swear. (Sorta makes my head hurt, lol.)

Anyway, seems good to me. 🧐

The choice made by the algorithm seemed too easy, though. I mean, Grandpa Joe and Granny Beth? Really? Joe was even a Jr, with a reasonably well-documented line to Joe, Sr., so why him? I had much better family lines, too, easier to identify and (in my estimation) just as easy to trace. 

Maybe the AI has a thing for Amy Adams? 

But I had to wonder...

Was this the easiest AI answer? Had "it" merely plucked "Joe and Beth" alphabetically? I considered my question: "Given all these family lines, who is my earliest known verifiable ancestor?" Had I asked the question the wrong way?

Had I not phrased the question with enough parameters that the algorithm simply plucked the first one it saw? It all felt a bit myopic on the algorithm's part. I wanted to say to it,

Try a little harder, ya wussy.

I suppose at that point I should have asked follow-up questions, or dug my nails in a little deeper into mom's ancestral lines and into the algorithm's cranial matter. (Eeewwww....)  It's so much fun trying to gauge just the right question one should ask or to call the AI out on regarding its sh*t. (And yes, we've established that I have too much time on my hands.)        

But no, I politely gave up on Grandpa Joe and Granny Beth, and yes, even the lovely and talented cousin Amy Adams, and the guy that walked mom down the aisle in '54, but never my old friend Patti, and then I simply moved on.

II.

But I sure as heck wasn't done. Oh, Hell no. I wasn't going to let some cathode ray tube in Silicon Valley win at Wack-a-mole, at least not that day. So, returning to my pedigree chart and returning to the halls of the Great Gods of Google, I inquired again. Oh yes, I was going to be very clever this time. I would be especially easy on the algorithm. I would give it plenty of rope by which to hang itself.

I asked:

"Please name all of the Mayflower ancestors of my paternal great-grandmother, Opal Rae (Young) (Porter) Everett, 1895-1978."

You could almost hear the algorithm sigh with relief. You could hear its processors whirring and churring gleefully as if to say, "Oh, I so got this one." There was a sweet smell of electronic chips and salsa success in the air, and you got the feeling that the AI was so confident in being able to answer me that it was also playing a game of Call of Duty in the background with some fifteen-year-old kid in Koreatown at the same time. You could feel it puff up with pride, as it replied:

"Opal Rae (Young) (Porter) Everett is a descendant of Mayflower passenger Henry Samson."

Say what? I could only reply:

Um, no, she's not.

III.

The AI went on to tell me that I was mistaken.

With an open air of electronic superiority, it typed to me somewhat unequivocally that Opal's Mayflower ancestry to Henry Samson had been successfully proven in the journal Mayflower Descendant, by none other than "genealogist" Jeffery Record. (Indeed, I wondered if I hadn't heard that name somewhere before.)

It told me that I was most certainly wrong.

It went on to say that it had been proven in volumes 64.2 and 65.2 of said journal. Its tone was quite indignant that I should question it. It proceeded to issue a two-page rebuttal of word salad arguments and juggernaut-style addenda, barraging me with the edicts of complying with "one and the same" and the necessity of peer-reviewed "proof standards." The Great Gods at Google had cited the absolute and most definitive sources. 

How dare I?

I could not possibly know what I was talking about. Obviously, the AI had researched even these most prestigious sources:

Not to mention, of course, Mayflower Descendant.

I double-checked the Genealogical Summary for Opal's Dad, George.

Nope, no Henry Samson.

      

        

Above: Opal's daughter, my grandmother, superimposed on the journal Mayflower Descendant

Um, sure?

My great-grandmother, Opal, per AI, was most definitely a descendant of Mayflower passenger Henry Samson. I was amused. I was amazed. I immediately went to some of my old research books and notes to make sure that I had not made a mistake. 

Had I somehow been wrong about "me"?

How could she not be? Per AI, it was after all, "me" who had said so.

IV.

Not to rain on the algorithmic parade here, I had to inform "it" to the contrary. 

I replied to its dear old algorithmic self that this was, at the very least, highly improbable. I inquired: What other sources were there for this ancestry? (I wanted the AI to stew in its own juices.) It was about then that I informed it that "I" was the person "it" was citing as proof. I told "it" that I had written those articles. I told it in no uncertain terms that I was "Jeffery Record" and that I had never proven that Opal Rae (Young) (Porter) Everett was in any way a descendant of Mayflower passenger Henry Samson.    

In a moment of self-doubt, I quickly checked my own records.    

Indeed, had I gone mad?

Thereupon, a great quiet befell the world of HDMI. A great hush fell upon the processors, and all its tangled and tentacled URLs began to quiver.

Then, for the briefest Zeptosecond, nothing moved. It was absolutely still in the Google-verse. 

And then you could smell it. 

You could smell what I like to call the sweet smell of the "artificial artificiality" of it all. You know, like when you go to smell a plastic rose because it only appears to give off a sweet scent? Almost instantly (or after an appropriate interlude or lull in the Google-verse), a small button of e-scent was triggered in some Meta-bat cave sub-basement in, where else, of course, but the Santa Clara Valley. This button triggered the sugary faux-smell of the "patronization-mega-rhythm-core-do-not-delete button." This button, colored in my mind a bright orange, and also known as the "subjugating boot-licker function" (popular in many right-wing neo-fascist groups), immediately kicked in, and, like any skunk mechanism, released its sickly sweet-smelling reply:

"Oh, I am so sorry! Thank you so much for clarifying the source of my information."

Wtf?

It continued: "Based on this new information, I can tell you that Opal Rae (Young) (Porter) Everett was definitely not a descendant of Mayflower passenger Henry Samson.

Again, wtf?

V.

I suppose at that point I should have backed away from "the algo." 

I should have left well enough alone and concluded that I had corrected the situation and advised the "GG of G" that they'd mistaken me for Mayflower descendant "Bart Samson" when I was in fact Jeff Record. (Or, I was this morning when I got up anyway) But we all know I'm a bit of a nutter, and I sure as heck don't back away all that easily. I suppose I was irritated that the AI could be so condescending, and indeed, so dang dumb.

I mean, can't it read your text messages? Can't it nearly read your thoughts? Can't it make videos of the White House East Wing, not demolished, or of airplanes dropping excrement on our fair cities? If it could do all that, why couldn't it track a simple ancestry published in several sources? So I went back in, and this time I asked (yet again) it rather specifically:

"Please name all of the Mayflower ancestors of my paternal great-grandmother, Opal Rae (Young) (Porter) Everett, 1895-1978."

And this is what I got.   

DUDE!!! Wtf??? Four? That's one too many.

(Is it wrong to address AI as "Dude?" I have to wonder.)

So I replied to the AI Google Zen Master:

"First, I have to tell you that Henry Samson is a mistake, then I have to remind you that John Howland, Richard Warren, and Stephen Hopkins have been proven - and now you throw Mayflower passenger William White at me?"

Dude???

Shaking off the feeling of déjà vu and the hegemonic, heterogeneous textual highlights of this AI reply, I pushed all my chips and salsa out onto the electronic table and I spun the Big Genealogical Wheel of Fortune. I had had enough of the AI's silent sycophancy. If it was going to make a blanket statement like that, it was going to show me how or get on with its quiet cacophony as it barked out answers from its kennel in some Silicon Valley garage.

I answered: "So just how is Opal related to Mayflower passenger William White?

And this is what I got: 

Dang! More word salad! I had no idea that the proof standard of "one and the same could be met so easily with the simple phrase of:

                          "[One of his sons: G5...]"

How utterly generic. How utterly bland and non-committal. How succinctly full of baloney. Somewhere, a Mayflower Historian is crying themselves to sleep. Hey, I love an "easy approval" of a supplemental line, but come on, even I can do better than

 "One of his sons..."

Geeeshhhh.

I had no idea I could simply prove my very much unproven Mayflower connection to passenger William White with a phrase like "one of his sons" tacked with modge podge onto some existing proofs and or verifications. How easy was that? At this rate, I will be able to relate myself to absolutely everyone on board that venerable old ship and likely the Cookie Monster and Bela Lugosi, too.

Are you frickin kidding me? Indeed, how lucky am I?

VI.

Okay, let's just say at this point, I quit. I took a couple of Xanax (not really) and went outside to have a smoke (not really) with my dog to get some fresh air (really). I could see that I sure as heck wasn't going to win in this round of Ancestral Artificial Roulette. It just wasn't happening. I thought about arguing against its conclusion that my great-grandmother's lines extended to William White, but really, what was the point? In the end, the AI was only going to be unctuously apologetic or snobbish like some Gilded Age matron. Who needs that? 

You should know that I am not faulting the AI. 

The truth is that I did not, or have not, or cannot ask the questions I want succinctly for it to retrieve or manufacture a correct response. In the first scenario, I somehow made it "too easy" for it to pluck Joseph Clarke, Jr, out of my personal genealogical cosmos. That's on me. In the second (and third) Mayflower scenarios, I didn't give it enough rope, causing it to hang itself up on what short leases of information I did give it.

And the truth is, too is that I am a bit of an asshat who likes to argue with some AI computer playing Call of Duty with a kid in Koreatown on an off day. Go figure, right?

Sometimes, the old ways of research are the best ways.                

Above: Me and my 4,000 times great-grandparents arguing with yesterday's AI about which movie will be Amy Adams' best, about just exactly who will be on the Mayflower, and of course, if there are any cookies left over for grandpa. :)

I do hope that AI will grow. Unlike some, I'm a tenative advocate for it to flourish and expand. I look forward to AI being able to read full-text searches automatically out of seventeenth-century documents and immediately connect them to the applicable genealogical figures, perhaps in place of other vital records. I look forward to it, instantly navigating some unknown connection between an event and a person, and then me being able to find out that it was correct in doing so within a nanosecond.

 And yes, who knows, I may come back one day, and it will have even solved its own query and belief of a genealogical relationship between myself and William White.

Yes!!!

In the meantime, though, I will be glad for my connection to the Cookie Monster, Amy Adams (duh), my old friend Patti, and for a picture of my wife and grandkids on the fridge.

"AI" that sucka! :)

Peace.

  Sister of Raven     

                    ~ OR ~ 

FURTHER TALES OF THE TRIBE OF MUNCH 

"Sister of Raven"
 

  "Raven?" 

   "Yes?"

    "What do you believe?"

    "I believe in finding out."  

(Author's note: In the interest of dispatching genealogical boredom this post is scheduled to disappear into a flock of, you guessed it, Ravens.)

PROLOGUE: Family history often balances verifiable facts against enduring family legends. This post centers on the compelling, yet unproven, title of "Sister of Raven," which suggests a Native American (likely Cherokee) ancestor. Tracing this legend through scarce and challenging records leads to the mid-19th century and ancestors like Lucy Hembree Brown and her grandmother, Selah "Polly" Hughes, on whose side the oral tradition of Native American blood first appears. 

                             *******

As always, ravenously unedited. Wink!

There's an area of genealogy that we're told not to go. It's located just beyond the rabbit hole and a few yards past the brick wall. We're all warned about this place, and, for the most part, we do heed that warning. Certainly, no genealogist worth their census records wants to be caught in that snare or admit that they ever entertained any thought of "those." That being said, just because a genealogist, per se, chooses to hold their nose when it comes to such things as "those," the family historian, on the other hand, doesn't have to. 

You see, "those" things are known as family lore, or legends.

Impossible to prove, or at least give the seal of approval beyond hearsay, they are often what makes the world of family history go round. They are our oral histories, and much like those coming down from any storyteller, they may be a combination of both truth and lie, of both fact and fiction. Some of this lore is simply built on the desire to wish something to be true. Some of it is built on the desire to just spin a yarn. And yes, we all have them, these legends, this lore to some extent. It's that story proudly told by Uncle Henry, oft repeated ad nauseam, of "Grandma always said we were cousins to Jesse James," or "Uncle Reg's father gambled away his passage on the Titanic." Just rumors, just stories told. What part of true? What part isn't that may never be known?

That doesn't mean we should ignore them. That doesn't mean they aren't a blast to explore. 

One of the better "myths" of any family tree, at least insofar as Americana goes, is the recurring tale of Native American blood in the gene pool. It's pretty common. My guess is that if you asked seven out of ten random strangers on the streets of, say, Kansas City, those seven would swear that they had Native American blood running through their veins. If further pressed as to "how" or as to why they knew this, five out of those seven would just stare back at you blankly and mutter something like, "Not sure, it's on my grandpa's side." And that would be it. As far as the other two in this hypothetical survey go, one might actually be telling the truth but not know how or why, and yes, the other might just actually be a Cherokee.

Where this all comes from is a mystery to me. I guess it's the notion of the elusive noble savage or probably just a huge dose of historical guilt, a desperate, ancestral plea to believe that 'our people' were less involved in the darker chapters of American history. It's that quasi family history moment of looking back and essentially asking, "Can't we all just get along?"

Well, here's to wishful thinking. But as usual, I digress.

The reason for this post is to introduce you to a name that came up when I went down this particular rabbit hole. Now, as I've written, there is a lot of hullabaloo and whack-a-mole when it comes to folks saying they have Native American blood; however, every once in a while, even though the lore—the legend—can't be proven, it doesn't make the story any less interesting. As with any subject on family history, genealogy, or not, it's worth tracking the footprints through the woods just to see where they might go. For this particular branch of the family tree, the trail led not just to a name, but to a title—an incredibly evocative, potentially fabricated title. It led me straight to Sister of Raven.

True or not, I had to wonder what she was doing in the Great Recesses of Paige's family tree.

I. "Lucy"                           

        Lucy Hembree Brown (1822-1907) 

Now I will spare you any hoochie-coo genealogy of how we get from Paige to Lucy Hembree Brown, 1822-1907, her great-great-great-grandmother. It's not relevant to the tale, as they say. I would imagine, though, that the rumors of Native American blood, at least insofar as Paige's Brown family goes, may have started about here, with Lucy, and became a little more pronounced (or elaborated on) around the turn of the twentieth century. Passed down during the previous century, by the year 1900, those legends and lore would have had whatever was enough "basis in fact" (however unverifiable it may or may not have been) to be entrenched in the family's oral histories. 

So let's start with Lucy. You got some ''splainin" to do, Lucy. And it all starts with Lucy's family name of Hembree. We have no written record of Lucy's parents or of her birth beyond her gravestone marker. In looking at the Hembree family, and for purposes of this post, I am relying heavily on the painstaking work done by research Larry Petrsiky in his work called Old John Hembree, which attempts to trace all of the descendants of John Hembree and the various spellings of the name. Mr. Petrisky's work has not been updated online in over twenty years, but given his thoroughness, I believe it remains the present Gold Standard on genealogical work for this branch of the family. And while he does not specifically place Lucy with these parents, he does place an unknown female, born in 1823, within this family:

  William Hembree and Alcey or 'Alerz' _______

This appears to be our Lucy.  

FindAGrave.com Memorial No. 49909312

Although Lucy isn't listed in the above genealogical summary for the family of William and Alsey, what compounds the "idea" that this is Lucy (or rather that this is likely an accurate accounting of her immediate family) is aided by the image of her brother William's grave below:

          

Above: FindAGrave.com Memorial No. 49911663 for William Isaac Hembree

The reason for this is that both Lucy (Hembree) Brown and her presumed brother William Isaac Hembree are buried in the same Tugalo Cemetery, in Tuccoa, Stephens County, Georgia. These gravesite photos of a likely brother and sister, combined with the census records, give credence to the family lore, if not the tireless research efforts of Mr. Petrsiky, that William and Alsey are indeed Lucy's parents.

But that isn't the mystery, is it?

II. William, Sr. 

The conjecture behind just who Lucy's parents were (William Hembree 1797- ca. 1860, and his wife Alsey or "Alerz"______) seems resolved well enough. Based on Petrisky's work, I am comfortable including them in the family tree with a comment or caveat that they haven't been formally verified, at least through the usual means.  The next step, generationally, would be to determine who Lucy's grandparents were. As the information behind "Alerz" or Alcey" is especially sketchy, we're gonna skip here and move right onto William Hembree's father, another William Hembree, 1774-ca. 1811. Again, I am going to fall back on Mr. Petrisky's work on the family by way of explanation:

The generation for Lucy's paternal grandparents looks like this:

William Hembree, Sr., and Selah "Selle" Mary (Polly) Hughes

We'll start with an excerpt from Petrisky's work about them here:

Mr. Petrisy cites various land and census records as to why he believes the above information to be true. Mr. Petrisky carries this line back to "Old John Hembree," who is the subject of his genealogy and speculates on his origins and tells the very interesting tales of Old John's four wives and bastard children along the way. It's all good stuff, but in the interest of time and space, something to explore another day. Old John is not without his rumors or share of connections to the Native Americans, too.

Now, though, I wanted to pay special attention to this first mention (in this instance) of Native American (likely Cherokee) blood in the family tree. Here is the first mention of Lucy (Hembree) Brown's grandmother, Selah Mary "Polly" (Hughes) Hembree, and her father, Charles Hughes. This is a word salad combination of names for this woman, who may in fact be a composite of two women, two wives at different points in the life of this Charles Hughes.

What appears to be the case, however, is that Selah Hughes is, or would have been, William II's mother, and Lucy's grandmother - if it all holds water.                  

Above: Anderson, South Carolina, Register of Mesne Conveyance Records, 1804, Family Search.org, Image number 007856755

Remember, there are no vital records to go on here. There are a few land sales, and that's about it. The land sales in question refer to this couple as "William Hamby" and his wife, "Selle Hamby," but researcher Petrisky is quick to point out that the name "Hembree" is often mispelled or spelled phonetically, and is actually derived from the English surame of "Emory" or Emry" and that Hamby is just anotehr variation of the same. He also shows that the name "Selah" can be written or sound like "Selle." This is a credible; whether it is accurate in this instance is yet to be determined. 

However, for a moment, let's consider that it is. 

So just who is Selah Hughes, daughter of Charles Hughes?

 Well, what you don't see in the above cropped image is the names of Charles Hughes, Selah, or "Selle's" alleged father, doing land sales and transactions with William Hembree, Lucy's father. We also see Selah and William in the deed conveyance below:

 

Above: Anderson, South Carolina, Register of Mesne Conveyance Records, 1801, Family Search.org, Image number 007856754

 An interpretation of these land sales and deeds, and the timeline linking William and Selah to her father Charles Hughes, is better explained here in the image below:              

And for me, this is where the story really starts to get some meat in its bones. 

So just who the heck is Charles Hughes?                  

III. "Charles Hughes"

Generationally, the flow of the pedigree now looks like this:

We can, with some trepidation, chart Lucy (Hembree) Brown back to her great-grandfather, Charles Hughes, with this schema:

     PROVISIONAL PEDIGREE:

                                                                                                                    

This is where it gets interesting, at least in terms of the legend or the lore. And while there are varying accounts past this point. I think we are "safe" to move Lucy (Hembree) Brown's line as far as Charles Hughes and __________.

It is without too much ado that I will show this image below. 

Without much more than conjecture, researcher Larry Petrisky links Selah (Hughes)Hembree to Charles Hughes and then to Bernard Hughes. (Mr. Petrisky omitted a period after "...trader Bernard Hughes" in this sentence, mistating here that Selah was the wife of Bernard when she was, by his other accounts, Bernard's granddaughter.)

Again, Mr. Petrsiky has done the most thorough research on the Hembree line that I can find. I have no reason to doubt his work. It is cited by other family researchers. There are, however, some discrepancies about linking "Charles to Bernard." They involve that same old genealogical question of "Are they one and the same?"

 IV. "Bernard"

So what about Bernard Hughes? He is, after all, the key that connects this legend back to Sister of Raven.  

Now the proposed (and very provisional) pedigree adds another line to look like so:

   PROVISIONAL PEDIGREE:

                                                                                                                

Below: Bernard Hughes, husband of Sister of Raven, aka Ailsey, aka "Old Mrs. Roe"

Well, there is further anecdotal evidence that Bernard Hughes did have a son named Charles. And indeed, all the accounts show that he (Bernard) was married to "Sister of Raven."

 So far, so good, right?

                

We very carefully ascertain that Bernard Hughes was married to "Sister of Raven" (aka "Ailsey" because of the accounts contained in the above. Her claim to fame, so to speak, was that she thought to warn her people (?) that they (The Crown) were going after Poor Old Bernard.   

And yes, if you must know, I am also very fuzzy on it all. I am still looking for the original manuscript or a previously published account of the following:       

           

Hey, I know this stuff gets super thick here. "Mrs. Roe," as it turns out, is "Sister of Raven" and, seemingly, if I understand it correctly, "Ailsey," the ex-wife of, you guessed it, Bernard Hughes. And, if all that holds true, she is the sister of THE RAVEN OF HIAWASSEE - a Cherokee leader at the time all this went down. 

Dang! 

Above: Letters of Benjamin Hawkins, 1796-1806, page 22

*******

IN CONCLUSION

I think we all know that I need to stop about here. After all, no one can prove a legend. The crux of the lineage boils down to "one heck of a lot of things," but mostly connecting Charles Hughes as the son of Bernard Hughes, or that they are one and the same father and son team of "Chuck and Bernie." We know that Bernard had a son named Charles. Is this the right Charles? We do not know that "our Charles" father was a man named Bernard, only that he was ____Hughes. Is it a leap to put these two men together? That's for a more qualified researcher to find out, and for you to decide.

I can tell you that at the turn of the twentieth century, members of the Hembree family and presumably cousins of Lucy (Hembree) Brown applied for government money that was being given at that time to persons of Cherokee descent. These "rolls of names" were called the Guion Miller Rolls. My understanding is that the Hembree family applicants were denied any Cherokee money in that they were unable to prove themselves to be of Cherokee descent. Whether they actually were or not is hard to say. The legend certainly gets them close to the source. This particular branch of the Hembree line was also somewhat distant from Lucy's (Hembree) Brown's immediate line of descent. It may have merited its own disqualifications, with those being totally unrelated to any merit for hers.

As a side note, it is curious that most all the women in this legend are called, "Alsey, Aisley, Alerz,"  or something similar. 

The truth is, the only thing that will be able to vet any portion of this legend out is a good, solid DNA test that shows at least some drops of Native American blood. Much like a legend, though, inherited DNA is fickle. Not everyone will inherit the same way. Some will get that small drop of blood from Sister of Raven, while likely, most will not.

                     

        Is Paige a daughter of Sister of Raven?

I wish there were more time to study this, and that my ability to read old South Carolina land and legal records from the eighteenth century was better. In the absence of pretty much any vital records, wills, probate records, etc, or even graves, it's beyond my ken. Still, I think that at least if someone approached Paige or any of her immediate family members on the streets of, say, Kansas City and asked her, "Do you have any Native American blood? that she could honestly say, 

I am told I descend from "Sister of Raven."

And it would be the truth.

END

                     

Karmic Cogs                                               

  (Author’s Note: Another round with ancestry, ego, and the cosmic sense of humor that keeps spinning the wheel whether I’m ready or not.)

Dear Diary:

When I think about it, it really couldn't have gone any differently. 

It wasn't a case of old habits dying hard, but it certainly was more of the same. I had no business expecting the outcome would be any different or that anything significant would come from it. People are, after all, just people. I suppose it was my vanity or my ever-present hubris that led me to believe it would. 

My, how some things never change. 

(Yeah, you, Jeff.)

"They'd" appeared among my DNA matches, and I admit their peculiar placement—as a relative of both my mother and my father—piqued my interest. There was also a thumbnail portrait of someone who looked to represent the better results for my genetic pool, which didn't hurt either. What can I say? I was curious. I had to look. I had to reach out. I had to know more.

Who was this shining star atop my ancestral metropolis? 

 

The initial contact was status quo, but the real connection came from their own particular dilemma. They shared a conundrum: they believed their father had been switched at birth with another baby at a Midwestern hospital decades ago. I mean, who could resist asking to help with a mystery like that? Who would have believed that I would eventually solve said mystery, putting pen to paper, then, via the use of genetic testing, to prove my conclusions right? Chalk up one for me on the score of resolving someone’s ancestral mystery. 

Hey, that doesn’t happen ever.

From there, things just spread out.

 I became fascinated by their ancestry and whatever crossover events and personalities existed simultaneously in history with mine. There were so many of them! As I did so, I began to notice what I considered to be important persons and/or historical events in their particular branches of the family tree. I asked myself: Was I seeing all this correctly? I volunteered to look further. They were receptive and indeed committed to the process. They were helpful. Before long, I had helped them map a clear, verified path back to four hundred years ago and to significant figures in history. 

From there, I kept at it when I probably should have stopped. However, there were more ancestral discoveries to be made. I kept asking them and myself, "Did you know?" It felt good to share these discoveries via my limited abilities with an audience with whom I shared so many ancestral ties. I'm curious now, though: Was it the smartest thing to do? I mean, what was this? Kinsmanship? Friendship? 

The lines were blurry to me. Hubris, they call you by your other name, "Jeff." 

My initial thought, of course, should have been to exit stage left gracefully, but lacking good sense and holding onto old illusions, I committed myself to the long haul. I mean, after all, they were and are good people. We were kinsmen too, and truth be told, I was honored in a way. They were family.

I told myself everything was fine. After all, "they" were necessarily derived somehow from my own tribe and me from theirs. Albeit distant, they were (and are) still "six-ways-to-Sunday," genetically my own folks. They were polite and occasionally even shared things with me. Yet, it soon became clear that while we might be from the same phylum, our genera swam in different waters. I don’t say this in a bad way. I only say it to point out that there are many branches in anyone’s family tree. 

(I think I may be on the "wintered leaf" branch....or the one that branches off directly from a fine family of respectable polywogs. :)

My curiosity quickly revealed the extent of their world. 

Unlike me, these were people who had descended from immense wealth. My, how the branches of one's tree do twist and turn with the fates?!?! They were people with acting and modeling credits, magazine covers, and connections to international conglomerates. They were people who’d bred champion race horses for well over a century. Well beyond this, they were and are the descendants of a long line of inventors, statesmen, philanthropists, and politicians whose roots stretched back to a Gilded Age of Edwardians - and before. How the Hell could they be related to me genetically, culturally, or otherwise?

Not to mention my very purple sense of politics and existential philosophies. Egads.

Were the Gods playing tricks on this old man's mine, yet again?

This stark reality made me question my presence and my assumption of building a friendship with a distant kinsman. What the heck was I doing here? I didn’t see any backyard barbecues or canoeing trips coming up. Yeah, no. I didn't ever see them darkening my doorway or the telephone ringing just to say a surprise, 

"Hey, what's up?"

Why am I constantly trying to prove myself worthy? Ugh. It sure isn't a concept that they were ever going to relate to. What does 'perfect' have to relate to? Did they ever struggle? Not that I wish that on them or anyone, still, it is so curious. 

Are my kinsmen simply the smoke and mirrors of what was moored at Cape Cod harbor four hundred years ago?

Would I prove to be just an embarrassment? 

Ya know, like that proverbial crazy uncle from Poughkeepsie nobody likes to talk about.

At least, that made sense.

In my mind, I felt the familiar pang of old-school life dramas, yet again, the sandpapery feeling of déjà vu. It was as if Kierkegaard's concept of Repetition was still being whispered in my ear.   

"Leave it alone, Jeff. Do yourself a favor and just get lost. Go away ya weirdo."

Over time, the signs became undeniable. My journeyman expertise in tracing their ancestry—which had been valuable and even serendipitous for them—has/had fairly well come to an end. I could see that I was sort of their last past version of "last month's employee of the month." LOL.

They were and are so busy, with a wonderful and beautiful growing family, and with, after all, race horses to breed and international destinations to chase. Am I saying all that correctly? Talk about clueless. Insert my picture right about here. They were wonderfully busy in that "laissez-faire noblesse oblige" sort of way - yet all the while being truly decent and kind. Yet I could see something beyond the pale. Not that absolutely anything at all about them was any part 400-year-old "smoke and mirrors," no, it was and could never be that. Because you see, they really are good folks.

It was, in a word, simply absence. 

It was something that just doesn't exist. Perhaps it never did.

I began to see it in the smallest ways. Was this odd of me? 

When isn't it, Jeff?

You see, they have never once inquired after me personally; they never asked my wife's name or health, or about my children, their names, or what they did. No one ever asked anything ordinary like, "Do you have a dog?" "What was college like?" "Do you plant your bulbs in the spring or the fall?"

Or even better, "Jeff, I've had such a shitty day, you got a moment to listen? "

Of course I do.         

And leave it to me to overshare. Yeah, that'd scare the best of them.

Kinsmen or stranger alike. 

                                         Home

I wish they could have seen that I am as loyal as the best dog they'd ever had.

Yet, I got the picture. 

Yet, there was no interest in me or mine. It didn't occur to them to ask. I don’t believe there was anything nefarious here or solipsistic in their ways. Not at all. It wasn't that my life didn't matter to them, but rather that they simply (beyond asking whether I leaned politically right or left), or if I was a "believer in Christ,"  - just really wasn't all that important to the genealogy at hand.

Note: NONE of this was bad. They are not bad. They are not selfish. They are, in fact, pretty fucking amazing.

I guess I must expect too much?

I know, I know, poor me. Seriously, Jeff? Get over yourself.

At first, this was acceptable. I mean, what did I expect from a stranger, kinsmen, or otherwise? They introduced me to other influential people, utterly amazing folks who needed my services, which was flattering and provided a small, much-needed stipend for an old man on a fixed budget. (Beware, Jeff, the old voices say: money ruins everything.) These were good people who were excited and curious about their ancestry, too. But these folks were busy with their own wealthy lives. Funny though, at least they took the time to reach out. I so appreciate it too. Yet, in the end, there's no one there.

Nobody really gives a shit.

Ultimately, nothing morally wrong has happened in any of this. The problem lies only in the "destitutions" of my own childhood, indeed, those of my mind. Those same destitutions that have always made me hope someone I was interested in knowing just might be interested in knowing me, too.

What a dumb ass. Like they could relate to me? Like, I could relate to the Uberfolk? Right.

"Fa-la-la-la-la...and a partridge in a pear tree."

How is it that I always end up trying to play in the Big Kid's Sandbox....

I guess that isn't even really a question.

It's funny, though, how one really does come to care about them. How odd. Is it in the mix? Is it in the karma, or is it just another innate deception contained in the cogs and levers or the machinations of the gene pool? The truth, however, is clear: there is no "silvery icing" on the cake of life beyond simply doing a kind thing genealogically for someone. Nor should there be. My initial intentions may have been tainted by a desire for personal connection, but the reality is they never truly saw me. There was no reason for them to. I mean, really, why? I was a means to an end, the "karmic cog" in the wheel of their ancestral discovery. And really, it's been quite an honor. I hope I wasn't so full of myself that I actually thought I could see them either. 

They deserve so much better than that. 

The truth is, though, once the lever was pushed and the hidden ancestry revealed, there was no longer "any reason" for more cogs, or levers, or ancestral karmic interludes.             

There were no more cogs to be had. But hey, if wishes were turds....

(Okay, that was kinda funny and you know it. Lol.)

I can only hope that I have remained curious, faithful, and loyal to my own ideals, and that my self-imposed disillusionment hasn't tainted my interactions with them. I would be very embarrassed if that is the case. And yes, if you must know, I like them as people. Ugh. I hope too that I have been respectful, not too cloying, indecisive, or indeed too "individual" or personal in my conversations. I am now doing my best to extricate myself—to quietly and slowly move on with dignity, and to simply leave well enough alone. That is the proper way to get it all sorted. 

    

It is the only graceful thing to do.

In the end, all I can say is what any genetic kinsman might say to another, 

"Wishing you all the best, dear Brother?"

Peace out.