My Metis Ancestry

This is one of my ancestors, Rebecca Hall.  She was 1/2 Cherokee.She married a French fur trapper, with the surname of Forseur, Americanized to Forshee.

I have put down some notations over their pictures!

Their daughter Margeruite (Margaret), then married William Taylor.  He trapped for furs and also had a small farm.

They accumulated quite a bit of land, and would often tell their neighbors that they were "dark Dutch" or "Black Irish". The photo below,is a creek that is on their land.  It is still in the family.

Their daughter, Rebecca, grew to womanhood, and married James, the young man on the far left side of this photo.

James' father had fought in the civil war, Union side.  He lost a leg.  He served in the "Indian company".  After the war, when he went to a neighboring state to work in a fruit harvest, the family was told that he had been hung.  No one knows why. And when inquiries were made by his wife, she found out that the doctor who signed his death certificate died the same day as her husband.  The family was never told of where to find the grave.  His wife later had two other children, and not much is known about her second husband, except that he took a fever and passed, while away from home.  When my great, great grandmother died, in her thirties, the township wouldn't allow her to be buried in the town's cemetary.  She had been married to an Indian.  Her brother buried her on his farm.  Today, the farm has passed into strangers hands.  Her grave and that of her daughter-in-law, Rebecca, are still there.  Unfortunately, the new owners won't allow the family access to the property, even though at the time of the sale, it was agreed that we should still be allowed to care for the gravesites.  My grandmother, two years ago, at the age of 85 , she  tried to visit, and the new owners loosed  their large dogs on her. I have never even seen the sites, except in photo's.  Sorry I don't have the photo's in my possession.

James kept a diary and wrote about his mother's death. . When his mother lay  ill, and dying.  He evidently watched and  he wrote, " at about 7 o'clock, it was a dreary, gloomy and lonely, rainy evening. They seemed to think her better and her daughter stepped out after her darling mother had clasped her arms lovingly about her neck and gave her two last farewell kiss and about 8 she was met at the hall door with the sad news related which pierced her lonely sad heart.. Like a thousand arrows she threw herself down the stair steps and wept bitterly..."

James and Rebecca had a large family. One of their daughters is my grandmother, pictured to the left with my grandfather. My grandmother has told me that the family tried not to talk about their Native heritage much to outsiders. "People have queer thoughts about you, if you've got Indian blood".  The family did however, pass the knowledge down to blood kin.. Some of these ancestors are on various rolls.  Others aren't.  Grandmother says that they commonly told people that they were just Dark Dutch, and that since they lived in the Acadia mountain range, found it easy to avoid, strangers when they wanted too.

My family is currently trying to research my grandfather's side of the family.  Sadly he and all of his siblings are long gone.  And worse,(this is not a joke), there seems to be some sort of feud that is going on between what is left of his family and my grandmother.  It is said that GrGrandma Troque's father was born in Louisiana, and that his family came down from Canada, and before that France.  It is also said that her mother was Creek Indian.  Now  GrGrandpa Skiles originated from Illinois.  It is said that his surname was spelt SCALES but that his family, upon moving south, changed the spelling. He was believed to have been 1/4 Cherokee. I'll let you all know as I learn more!

Then there is me...I will be updating with more photo's and such as I can get my hands on them from my mother! <G> So Please check back again! Take care and God Bless! Tayreza catfarmer@juno.com

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Another view of that creek...I'm going to have to paint this one of these days!