One of the brick walls in my research has been with my Childers ancestry. My family knows very little of our oldest-known Childers ancestor.
Richard died in early 1891 outside of Pryor Creek, Oklahoma. We know nothing of his parents or siblings. My long hunt over the years has taught me quite a bit about the other Childers families in Indian Territory. (See posts elsewhere on this blog).
It would be easy to merge MY ancestor into one of these other families, as the name Richard is common. Ancestry daily waves its green leafy hints urging me to click and add.
But it would be incorrect, as I've no proof. No sources to substantiate such a claim.
The 1890 Indian Territory Census specifically asked whites what year they had first moved into Indian Territory. "Dick Childers" answered and it is recorded as: 1874.
Recently widowed and with a small child, Dick became ill with typhoid. He died within days of his brother-in-law Henry. My Great-Aunt Lois Childers told me this, as she had questioned her father-in-law, Sam, who was the only son of Dick and his wife, Lucy Ackley Childers.
We know Henry Ackley died in early February 1891. Both men were buried at the Alberty Cemetery in what is today Mayes County., Oklahoma. At that time Mayes County was a part of the Cooweescoowee District of Cherokee Nation. I believe Henry and Sam lived in the Hogan Township of Cooweescoowee.
Among the many Childers living in Indian Territory 130 years ago is a family whose home was just over the border from Fort Smith, Arkansas, then known as the gateway to the wild frontier. In what is now Sequoyah County. You've seen both of the True Grit movies, right?
These Childers had a son named Richard. I've been asked many times if my family descends from that Richard Childers from the Sequoyah District, Cherokee Nation. After much research into his family, I do not find similar names or event dates. No connection. That Richard Childers died in 1893--two years after my ancestor--Dick Childers. The two men had wives and children with different names. Again, I find no connection.
As proof, please see the attached pages from a 1905 application for the Dawes allotment regarding this Richard, plus a page from the 1880 Cherokee Census. Click the images within this gallery:
Free links to Cherokee rolls:
https://accessgenealogy.com/native/cherokee-indian-research.htm
and
https://www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/rolls/wallace.html
and
https://www.allthingscherokee.com/articles/
and
http://www.okgenweb.net/~itgenweb/
Ancestry has digitized the applications for the Dawes rolls, both with names of those who were accepted and denied. I enjoy reading these applications as I now live in Creek Nation (Tulsa) and see familiar surnames. The questions and answers in these applications are often wonderfully detailed.
There are others named Richard Childers living in both western Arkansas and Indian Territory in the late 19th century. I've not found any who lived in the Cooweescoowee District of Cherokee Nation, I.T. or whose children associated with relatives of my Dick Childers' in-laws--Sam and Sarah Ackley.
There is a well-known outlaw from Cherokee Nation who has the distinction of being the first man Judge Parker sentenced to hanging in Fort Smith. John Childers' Cherokee mother and sister lived in what is now eastern Oklahoma. Another Richard Childers was a member of Creek Nation and lived in what is today Tulsa County. His ancestors were William Childers (a Scotsman) and Maria Shoe Boots (mixed Cherokee). William Childers was a trusted clerk to Cherokee leader Major Ridge, and moved from Georgia to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) with the Ridge family in 1837.