Two Wrong Smiths

 # Two Wrong Smiths

Twice now I've been handed a Cherokee James Smith as the father of my Mattie Smith, and twice the man's own sworn testimony has said otherwise. So I'm putting it in one place, because these keep spreading through other people's trees and I'd rather not do this a third time.

Our Mattie Smith was born in 1883 and died in 1911. She married Thomas M E Manning. Their daughter Flora Mae Manning was Estelle Connor's mother, and Estelle was Kathy Riddle's mother. That's the line.

Mattie's parents are unknown. They've been unknown a long while.

## The first wrong James Smith

Dawes Cherokee #2265, Illinois District. He applied at Fort Gibson on 30 August 1900, age 44, post office Campbell. His father was Youngpig Smith, his mother Lizzie. His wife was Mary Linder. Two children — Charlie, born about 1882, and Mattie, born about 1885.

A Cherokee Mattie Smith born in the mid-1880s is exactly what we are looking to find, but the Dawes card alone does not tell the whole story. You have to go further and deeper.

The packet doesn't stop at the card, though. On 1 February 1905, at the Cherokee Land Office in Tahlequah, that Mattie testified herself — under the name Mattie Lee. She'd married Lynn Lee on 17 July 1902, and they were still living together.

Our Mattie married a Manning. So that's that one.

## The second wrong James Smith

Field no. 505, also filed as Cherokee 9337, Tahlequah District, post office Moodys. He applied at Peggs on 17 June 1902.

His wife's name, in every document in that file, is Nancy Youngwoulf. It's written that way in the testimony, on the application card, on the enrollment card, and again on her son Tom's 1948 Arkansas death certificate.

Under oath he named three living children: William 19, Tom 14, Lewis 10. All boys. The commissioner then read him two more names off an earlier roll, a daughter Fannie and a son Bird, and he said both had died.

Then this:

> **Q** Are these the only three children you have?
> **A** Yes, sir.

Our Mattie was nineteen years old and alive that summer. She lived another nine years.

## What kills both of them at once

Kathy tested at AncestryDNA. Eleven regions came back, all European, adding to 100 percent with nothing left over — England 57, Celtic and Gaelic 32, the Netherlands 7, Quebec 2, Norway 2.

No Indigenous Americas. Not one percent.

Both of these James Smiths were enrolled full blood, and so were their wives and their children. A full-blood Cherokee great-grandmother would most likely put somewhere around 12.5 percent in Kathy's estimate. It isn't there.

## Why this keeps happening

Smith. That's most of it.

The rest is ThruLines. It builds its hints out of other members' trees, not out of DNA. So once one person attaches the wrong Smith and that tree gets copied around, ThruLines hands the same connection to everybody downstream. The hint looks like evidence. It isn't — it's a summary of what other people have already guessed.

If you've got Mattie Smith attached to either of these families, that's most likely where it came from.

## Where I'm at

Mattie's parents are still unknown. Though now I know what they aren't — not Cherokee, and not either of these households. Kathy's ethnicity says her people were British Isles, most likely English or Scots-Irish.

I'm working a 65 cM match right now that may land me in the right family. That's a different post, assuming it holds.

If you have Mattie Smith and Thomas M E Manning in your tree, or a death record for her in 1911, I'd love to hear from you.