This
page is intended as a primer for those interested in
doing genealogy research through the
internet and is dedicated to my mother Billy Jean Watts. It is also
dedicated to all mixed blood people searching for their path. My approach
to understanding my Native American Ancestors and living cousins is done
with great respect. I wish only to honor this heritage and will make every
effort to conduct my creative endeavors in music, art, and the written word in a
way that I hope they approve of. If I make any mistakes I hope they will correct
me with that understanding.
Cash was completely of
British heritage, but he learned this only upon researching his
ancestry. After a chance meeting with former
Falklandlaird,
Major Michael Crichton-Stuart, he traced the Cash family tree to
eleventh century
Fife,
Scotland.[2][3]
He had believed in his
younger days that he was mainly
Irish and partially
Native American (he had been told he was one-quarter
Cherokee). Even after learning he had no Native American ancestry,
Cash's empathy and compassion for Native Americans was unabated. These
feelings were expressed in several of his songs, including Apache
Tears and
The Ballad of Ira Hayes, and on his album,
Bitter Tears.
My own comment on this is
that the tale below of Rosanna Cash marrying William Bicknell and
their offspring marrying into the Asbell Cherokees may have found its
way into family history.
You
and I and We Are All Together…
As
I write these words I am about a third of the way through Johnny Cash’s 1997
autobiography “Cash.” He begins his book by saying “My line comes down
from Queen Ada, the sister of Malcolm IV, descended form King Duff, the first
King of Scotland.”
This
is somewhat significant to me because he and I share the same lineage through
our common ancestors
ROBERT HOWARD2, and
WILLIAM. Robert Howard Cash’s daughter Rosanna
Cash born in the early 1700’s married William Becknell whose offspring later
married into the Asbell and Cherokee Ross lines of my family.
Johnny
Cash would be something like my 12th cousin, removed perhaps a couple
of times (I haven’t yet put the data into Family Tree Maker) so the
significance is not one of relationship but simply ancestry. In many meaningful
ways all of us may well be related to each other in some way in America.
My
wife is my own 10th cousin twice removed, something neither of us
knew when we met by sheer circumstance at a bar called the “Colour Box” in
Pioneer Square in Seattle in the early 90’s. There is some reason to believe
my biological father may have been a 4th cousin twice removed of my mother.
The
reason for this seeming, thankfully distant, inbreeding is that the geographic
locales our ancestors shared were often distant and remote from other places and
due to this geographic confinement many family lines intermarried with each
other again and again, often with first cousins marrying. Three Counties in
Kentucky were the nexus of a good two thirds of my ancestry, both on my
biological father’s and mother’s sides. My mother and father’s ancestors
all lived together in Clark County, Kentucky in the 1800’s so its no surprise
there was intermarriage in the lines.
When
they met randomly in Harrison County, Iowa they had no idea that they quite
possibly shared ancestry.
Which
leads to a theory I have had kicking around in the back of my head for a while.
We
talk much of chemistry between human beings, some unseen, unknown connection
that can lead to interest if not love at first sight. We know that humans like
other animals sense pheromones in each other, however unconsciously. Is it
possible that the biological signals we pick up through the chemistry of
mutually attracted pheromones can sort out how we are alike and therefore
compatible by also sensing shared genes?
I
don’t know that there is any scientific proof for such a theory but it is
fascinating to consider.
UPDATE: There may be some connection - see
here.
Another
pet theory connected to this has to do with the migrations of family’s from
one place to another. My father’s ancestors moved from Kentucky to Callaway
County, Missouri as did my wife’s ancestors. They then both moved to Iowa and
ultimately from there both of our lines (my mothers) moved to Washington State.
My father and his family got close, all the way to Idaho,
These
movements of human families in the American Diaspora seem to have a kind of
rhythm, a genetic dance across time and space for which there is no easily
discernable answer.
This
may all be sheer happenstance of course. It could be as random as chaos theory.
Stuff happens.
But
there are also people who believe our universe and our existence are mere by
products of a big bang that was also just another accident in the cosmic scheme
of things. For those of us who see patterns in nature, in music, in the movement
of our lives through time and space, randomness is not a satisfying answer.
It
has been a long time since the Judeo-Christian Patriarch God I believed in as
child, transformed into a greater, even more powerful and yet gentler entity.
Some may call it pantheism or earth religion or a belief in the great Goddess,
but to me it is all of these things along with even that old bearded male God of
my Childhood. Some call it the great unknowable, the great mystery, “Wakan
Tonka.”
I
don’t call it anything, I don’t believe completely in any specific spiritual
philosophy and certainly not in any form of organized religion. It is there
though and I speak daily to that great mystery. And yes, it speaks back. In
patterns, in circles, in the great movement of stars through the skies and in
the interaction of our own human relationships.
I
simply believe that the power of the universe and its workings, even through our
poor vessels of clay, are not random. There are patterns, patterns, everywhere.
The double helix of DNA just looks too well organized to be random. That
families migrate, come together, share genes and move on, then take the cycle up
again at some future time and place just seems to defy randomness.
I
see a pattern here though I can’t discern its full outline or its purpose. It
will have to remain a half-belief in my heart though in other times and places
with more data that pattern may further reveal itself.
For
the time being it is part of the great mystery and isn’t it a fine thing that
you and I and we are all in this together, perhaps related closely by blood, by
the DNA of Mitochondrial Eve’s or by just sharing the earth, air, water and
fire of this planet that we all share and were born from.
Introduction To
Genealogy
When I began work on
the Edge of Time I had a broad interest in history and culture, but I did not have
knowledge of my own personal family history.
Over the last
several years I became heavily involved in genealogy research and after a number
of dead ends found that I was beginning to make some headway.
Several family lines
(all on my mother's side) that I had little or no awareness of were:
The
Asbill/Asbell
family, The Cash Family, The Dean Family, The Estes Family,
The Ford Family, The McTeer/Mateer family, The Oliver Family, The Polk/Pollock
Family, The Pollitt Family, The Stiles
Family, The Van
Winkle Family, The Watts
Family.
Each of these families arrived in
the new world somewhere in the mid 1600's, from Ireland, Scotland, England and
Wales, and proceeded to participate in the history of America. In
the case of the Asbells and Van Winkles, the Cherokee and Shawnee had been here all along. I found
over the course of time that there was a good deal of information available on
most of these families. I also found that my white Asbell ancestors are
believed to have been Anusim, Jews forced to convert to Christianity to
enter England. I found that I come from many different tribes that have suffered
much from the course of history. There are many other lines as well, too numerous too
mention, but which I am still researching.
As I said above, I eventually found
information on all of these families as well as some little known ethnology. I
learned that I not only have all of the blood of the British Isles but
also a significant amount of Cherokee and perhaps Shawnee blood through the Asbill and Van
Winkle sides. This
has been very thoroughly documented by the Asbills, as well as a number of
documents from the Commission on Citizenship for the Cherokee Tribe and explains my mother's
jet back hair, olive skin and six foot height.
I am very much the Auburn
haired, light skinned, freckled Celt (I'm proud of that as you can tell
by my web pages) but the bloodlines run deep. My eyes are very dark,
almond shaped and I have very wide cheek bones. One of my daughters has jet black hair and dark eyes while the other is blond
haired and blue eyed. I have always had an attraction to things Native American
which is one of the reasons you hear the tones of a drum named "Spirit
Walker" on certain musical pieces. For my new album I am playing
several different Native American flutes and several musical pieces are inspired
by this ancestry.
I am eternally indebted to
people such as Bryan Lane, Richard Pollitt, Chuck Smith Pollitt, Elora Stiles
Ringleberg, Ed Watts and Delmar Asbill, along with others too numerous to
mention, who gave me tremendous assistance in finding my blood lines.
Where to Start.
When I first started my
research in 1998 or so, there were not a lot of resources available as yet on
the web, although
http://www.cyndislist.com/
was available fairly early on. Cyndi's is still a central clearing house of
Genealogy sites and information.
One of the problems that I
had was in not knowing the spelling of the Pollitt family name. I had a huge
breakthrough when I found a marriage list in 1999, on the Mills County Iowa
Genwebsite at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~iamills/index.htm
The rootsweb sites for States and Counties are an
invaluable resource for internet researchers. Start at
http://www.rootsweb.com
and go from there to your state or county and look
especially on the queries pages for your surnames.
There I
found my Great Grandfather and Grandmothers' marriage listed in 1898. Ross D.
Stiles and Dora A. Pollitt were married and the witness was William Pollitt. Armed
with this I began searching using Family tree Makers site:
When I saw
the hundreds of Pollitt names I had no idea which I was related to. It turned out
to be all of them.
After I
found William Pollitt and Lettie Dean on Bryan's index I was sure that I had
found my first set of bloodlines. I knew that I had a great, great Grandmother
named Dean and my Grandmother's name was also Lettie. I began
communicating with Bryan and several other cousins who helped fill in any
blanks. I was able to give them the history from William and Lettie on down,
since we were a bit of a lost tribe in Iowa.
From that
point on I found that Familytreemaker.com as well as
were among the most helpful sites on the
net. I also found that
http://altavista.com
could be extremely helpful when typing in certain surnames along with
"genealogy" or "Descendents of".
A word of caution: Do not believe
everything you read on the internet about genealogy. Before assuming you are the
rightful King of Scotland based on bulletin board postings making these claims
for your family, try to get verifiable documentation. The best places for these
in the USA are County Courthouses and state or local departments of vital
statistics. Community Libraries are also great sources of information. Be
prepared to do cemetery walking as well, since tombstones have family history
literally "written in stone".
I am happy to have found so many of my
disparate parts and knowing them empowers me to celebrate that blend of Celts
and Englishmen and Cherokees. Much of this will be a part of my next Album.
There was one problem that clouded my progress during all this
research, however. I did not know the name of the man who was my real father. My
surname was inherited from my mother since I was illegitimate, and she in turn
had inherited it from her father although he was not at the time married to my
Grandmother. An old country doctor had put the fathers name on the birth
certificate, even though there was no marriage. Despite this I grew up with the
name Smith, from my step father, just coincidentally a Native American mixed
blood also . The military made me change my name to Watts, a name I had never used,
at 21 years old because it was my legal name. Finally after many seasons of life
I took a name that had meaning for me, much in the tradition of my Native
American Ancestors. My wife, driving home one day, had a vision that I should
rename myself Brendan McCloud. This name seemed to have a number of the elements
of my ancestry, including McCloud, which, while deriving from the Scott's
Mcleod, has a definite Native American ring when spelled in the American
way.
I am pleased to say that I recently discovered on a trip
back to Iowa, made specifically for that reason, that my
real fathers' name and family is Oliver. This may well have been a Border
Reiver's name though they are intermarried with the Collins clan directly from
Ireland. This opens a new line of research that will likely keep me busy for a
number of years.
I hope this page will be of help to those who are looking for
there own bloodlines using the internet as their guide. Good Luck and Good
Hunting!
