Ancestry

The Tsalagi or Aniyvwiai (today the Cherokee) people trace back to the Tennessee Valley as early as 12,000 years ago.  Archaeological digs throughout the valley from 1934 to 1942, prior to the construction of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) reservoirs, were undertaken by the University of Tennessee and the University of Alabama.

These digs produced a vast collection of artifacts which are now on display at the Frank H. McClung Museum, Knoxville, Tennessee  (http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu).  From the stone age, into the “hunter-gatherer” age, these were advanced civilizations.  Indications of woven cloth as early as 9000 years ago, their early work in pottery, stone and copper, much of it chronicled in the records of deSoto’s expeditions, are on display at the museum.

By the eighteenth century only the Cherokee and a few Chickasaw remained in Tennessee.  The Creek and Shawnee had moved west.  Soon the remaining “native” Indians, those who had not adapted to the European ways, would be pushed out of their lands and relocated several times, eventually winding up in the Indian Territory, present day Oklahoma.

I am a hyphenated American.  Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, German, Dutch, Welsh, Scotch, Irish and English – American.  (Who knows, I might find more nationalities to add tomorrow….)  The Europeans came to Virginia, to Maine and to the Carolinas, in the mid 1600’s.  They moved to Maryland, then to Tennessee, down to Missouri, into Arkansas, across to Oklahoma, and down into Texas.  The western expansion of the new nation saw our families scattered throughout the United States.  They moved with the railroad construction on the eastern seaboard, they moved along the Oregon Trail to the California gold rush, and they moved on the Trail of Tears into Indian Territory.  Gun smith, farmer, black smith, lawyer, soldier, sailor, statesman, preacher, and even a horse thief have seen their presence in the family.