Author Kitty Sutton's Cherokee Ancestry - Just Another Work of Fiction

Kitty Sutton is the author of a series of books she calls "Mysteries from the Trail of Tears." She claims she has uncovered a hidden history of the Cherokee Nation after the Trail of Tears. She also claims she and her family are Cherokee.

From Amazon -

Click to Enlarge

From her Facebook Fan Page -

Click to Enlarge

From Twitter -

Click to Enlarge

From LinkedIn - 

Click to Enlarge

From Interviews - 

     When asked why she writes historical fiction -

Click to Enlarge

     When asked why she writes about the time period -

Click to Enlarge

Despite her claims, Sutton is not Cherokee. She's not registered with any of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes and she has nothing in her genealogy that suggests she has Cherokee, Osage, or any other American Indian ancestors. Another researcher and I traced  Sutton's genealogy and researched every line back to, at least, the time of the Trail of Tears. The family was never living among the Cherokees (or any other tribe) and they were always found listed as white citizens of the United States. 

If I was inclined to do so, I could write as many posts about Sutton's ancestors as I did about US Senator Elizabeth Warren's family. That is not necessary (yet) because Sutton bases her entire claim (for now) on one ancestor, her paternal grandmother, Anna Miller.

March 16, 2013, Sutton made this post on a genealogy message board asking for leads on her grandmother who she "knew" was Native American.

Click to Enlarge

One of the people trying to help her with her query specifically asked Sutton if she was basing her claim on family lore. Sutton said no and that she knew for a fact her family was Native American.

Click to Enlarge

May 26, 2013, Sutton posted a picture of her grandmother to her tree on Ancestry and wrote that the picture showed her grandmother was Native American. 

Click to Enlarge

March 6, 2014, Sutton posted a message on her Ancestry Sutton Family Tree suggesting her paternal grandmother, Anna Miller, was not the child of Nancy Adaline Duncan, based on a marriage date. It appears she then surmised Anna was the child of Charlie Miller and some unknown Cherokee woman.

Click to Enlarge

March 19, 2014, Sutton left a long, angry comment in response to an article about disenfranchised Indians. She basically said she's Cherokee and Osage, but she can't prove it, but despite that, she's still no less Indian. 

Click to Enlarge

By March 24, 2016, Sutton was claiming her Native American grandmother was "adopted out" to a family in Missouri and the family name was lost to time. 

Click to Enlarge

The problem with all this, every last bit of it, is that Kitty Sutton has apparently created a fictional Cherokee ancestor that is as imaginary as the characters in the stories she writes. Her grandmother was not a full blood Cherokee child adopted out (of the Cherokee Nation?) to a white family in Missouri. She was a white baby born in Missouri into a white family that were citizens of the United States. 

Charlie Miller and Nancy Adaline Duncan were married August 4, 1885, in Benton County, Missouri.

Click to Enlarge

Approximately six months later, February 6, 1886, Anna Miller, their daughter was born.  We all know the gestational period for human babies and we can all see the records indicate Nancy likely conceived Anna before she married Charlie. While some might be shocked to find records such as this, we genealogists know this was not a rare occurrence. There's no need for moral judgement. It is what it is. It is not a problem that would indicate a child was "adopted" as Sutton says, but instead a piece of documentation that suggests a child was conceived before marriage.

Anna Miller was found on the following US Censuses:

• 1900 as Mary A. Miller; 14 years old; born Feb 1886 in Missouri; daughter of Charles Miller, a widower; living in Adair, Camden County, Missouri. Race - white.
• 1910 as Anna Kelly; 23 years old; born about 1887 in Missouri; wife of Mell Kelly; living in Lincoln, Pratt County, Kansas. Race - white.
• 1920 as Anna Kelley; 35 years old; born about 1885 in Missouri; wife of Mall Kelley; living in Parsons Ward 4, Labette County, Kansas. Race - white.
• 1930 as Anna Kelley; 43 years old; born about 1887 in Missouri; widowed*; living in Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri. Race - white. (*Mall Kelley was not dead. Either there was a divorce or he abandoned the family between 1920-1930 because he was alive in Texas after 1930.)

Additional information on Anna Miller (who started using the name Bonnie later in life) is found on her death certificate. The informant was Anna's daughter, Verba Kelley. Verba said her mother was white; born February 6, 1886 in Warsaw, Missouri (which is in Benton County); and the daughter of  Charlie Miller and Nancy Adaline Duncan.

Click to Enlarge

The documentation supports the information Verba gave for her mother's death certificate. There is no reason to doubt any of it. The only reason it has come into question is because Kitty Sutton, granddaughter of Anna Miller, has either poorly researched her ancestry or refuses to believe the documentation she's found. Clearly Sutton wants to be Cherokee and she will stop short of nothing to try to convince herself and others that she is Cherokee. That's not the way it works though. No matter how much one might try to twist, misinterpret, or misrepresent records, they can't find what isn't there. This is why Sutton isn't able to prove Cherokee ancestry. She simply isn't Cherokee.

While this may appear to be just another case of wannabeism gone bad, it's more than that. According to Sutton's website, the National Park Service has accepted Sutton's books for their catalog which allows any National Park Gift Shop to order them and sell them. Sutton advertises this as proof that she's discovered an accurate history that has never been revealed until now. To those of us who study the behavior of fake Cherokees, the claim of "hidden history" always sends up a red flag. We know that eventually those fake Cherokees will try to use the idea of undiscovered facts in an effort to authenticate their family as Cherokee. Sutton appears to be doing this in her fourth book. She claims the story line has a strong connection to her family because her grandma was adopted "out" to a white family in Missouri. As bad as that is, it is not the worst of it.

Sutton now promotes herself as a Cherokee historian, of sorts, who has done extensive research on Cherokee history. She travels throughout the Ozarks (southern Missouri and northern Arkansas) to Cherokee historical sites giving presentations on the Trail of Tears because she believes our history has been recorded incorrectly.

Click to Enlarge

If Sutton can't do her own genealogy accurately, how in the world can she be trusted to do any other research correctly? Think about that. When she looks at the documents on her own family, she doesn't see what's there. Instead, she sees what she wants to be there. Now that we know that, any detail that comes from her research of history becomes suspect.

At this point in time, we should consider Sutton's claim of Cherokee (or any other tribe) debunked. Should she "line jump", which is common in false claims, I'll address that when it occurs. As previously stated, her ancestry has been traced in every line dating back to the time of the Trail of Tears. Nothing indicates Indian ancestry. If Sutton respects the Cherokee people, she'll stop claiming to be one of us. If she doesn't, she'll cling to her story as if her life depended on it, continuing to exploit our ancestors for her own personal gain. Only time will tell which direction she'll go.


Those are my thoughts for today.
Thanks for reading. 







*Line jumping is when a fake Cherokee has their false claim debunked in one line of descent so they "jump" to another line in their family and then claim that one is "Cherokee". 

*Census records were found on Ancestry.com. 

*Click on images to enlarge them

copyright 2016, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB

Tweet

Exploiting American Indians? Or Worse?

Most people are probably aware of the billboards in Colorado that say "Turn in your arms. The government will take care of you" because it has been all over the news and social networks.

This is a different version I have seen in the past, circulating on Facebook -

You can read more about the second picture at this LINK.  If nothing else, at least we can verify the four men in that picture are authentic American Indians. 

Who are the men in the top picture? I have searched the web and can't seem to find any background information on the picture. Does anyone know who the people are in the picture?

Compared to other old pictures of American Indians, it seems a little "off". Google old pictures of Indians and look at them. Then look at the top picture and let me know your thoughts. Does it look a little different to you?

In my opinion, it is bad enough that anyone would exploit American Indians to serve their own agenda, but if someone is doing it by using a picture of non-Indians dressed "like" Indians, then that makes it even worse. 

Maybe the men in the top picture are authentic Indians, but at this time, I don't know if they are or not. Exploitation is bad enough, but exploitation through appropriation is worse. If anyone can help identify where the picture came from or who the men are in the picture, it would be greatly appreciated.

Those are my thoughts for today.
Thanks for reading.





*And just so you know, I support Americans' right to own guns.  My concern in this post is not about gun ownership or the right to own guns. I am concerned about people using the painful history of American Indians and exploiting it for their own purposes.

copyright 2013, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB

Tweet

The Bay State Banner's Confusion on Indian Identity and Racism

There are no curse words in Cherokee. My full blood friend told me that is why we learned to do it so well in English. And tonight, I was showing just how proficient I have become at it. In truth, I think I was doing so well, I might have actually made up some new bad words. I was spewing language that would make a sailor blush. Do you wonder what caused such a reaction from me, a woman who usually tries to display a bit of ladylike behavior?

In an editorial in the Bay State Banner, the writer said,

“Discrimination against Native Americans was also pervasive. It would have been demeaning for a white family to acknowledge any Indian ancestry. That is probably why Warren did it. She wanted to be clear that she was not failing to recognize any of her diverse family. Warren is so competent and talented she did not need special ethnic privileges. It must have been a matter of pride for her to claim her achievements on behalf of her ancestors who may well have been considered to be inferior and were undoubtedly the victims of racial discrimination.”

This writer is exploiting our painful past in an effort to demonize Scott Brown while attempting to portray Elizabeth Warren as a victim. This is absolutely unacceptable. Elizabeth Warren is not a victim, but instead a perpetrator of the continued colonization of the Cherokee people.  While she unapologetically continues to claim a history and ancestry that does not belong to her, she is, by default, saying she can take anything she wants from the Cherokee Nation and its people. 

I want to make one thing very clear here – Warren has NO Cherokee ancestry. She has NO Indian ancestry. None, nada, zilch! This is key, folks. WARREN HAS NO INDIAN ANCESTRY. Do I need to say it again? WARREN HAS NO INDIAN ANCESTRY! There, do you get it? She is not Indian and has no Indian ancestry!

This writer also says, 

“Brown’s crude assault on her ethnic heritage was unconscionable.”

Scott Brown cannot be assaulting Warren’s ethnic heritage because she doesn’t have one! In my humble Cherokee opinion, Brown is asking the questions that need to be asked. Did Elizabeth Warren, a non-minority, fill a spot at Harvard that should have gone to a minority professor? She is not registered with a federally recognized tribe and she has no Indian ancestry, so there is no reason she should have been listed as a Native American for diversity purposes.  Because she was, it brings into question the reason she was hired at Harvard since her public educational background is not in line with the rest of the tenured faculty at the college. Brown bringing this issue to the forefront is not a matter of attacking her heritage, but instead a matter of questioning her integrity. It is appropriate.

Elizabeth Warren, her supporters, and the mainstream media using the history of American Indians to portray Warren as a victim and Brown as a racist, is not appropriate. It is unconscionable that they would think it is acceptable to appropriate the persecuted past of our families and use that past in a way to portray Warren, an ethnic fraud, as a victim. It is outrageous they would attempt to use us and our heritage to claim Brown is a racist when he has, in no way, personally and intentionally, done anything disrespectful toward us or our ancestors.  

American Indians are an invisible minority, often overlooked, and usually silenced by those who stand on a higher platform or who have a louder voice. Cherokees have been trying to draw attention to false claims for years, but no one heard us or cared. When Scott Brown confronted Elizabeth Warren’s ethnic fraud, finally an issue that is important to many tribal members appeared on a nationwide stage. Whether intentional or accidental, Brown confronted one of the biggest threats to tribal sovereignty today – false claims of Indian ancestry.

As the writer of the editorial shows, Warren and her supporters have no respect for the tribal sovereignty of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes. Because Warren has no defense for her ethnic fraud, she and her supporters are trying to turn Brown’s speaking in defense of things that fall under tribal sovereignty into an attack on race.

The irony here is that Warren is the candidate who, though claiming to have American Indian heritage, refuses to speak to or interact in any way with tribally enrolled Indians. It doesn’t matter if it is a small group of Cherokee women; a group of Democratic National Delegates; or a Native journalist. If a person identifies themselves as an Indian, Warren will avoid them.

At the very least, singling out an ethnic community for dismissal is disrespectful. Though plenty of people have found Brown's conduct unnerving, he has spoken directly to Indians in an adult and reasonable way and has addressed issues as they occurred. Warren, on the other hand, has declined to even give a comment to Native media outlets that have asked for one. Highlighting one candidate's missteps while ignoring another candidate's hatefulness is misguided because it means the person is using outrage to whitewash a complex issue. If anyone was actually concerned about racism against Native Americans, they would be talking about all of the offensive things that have occurred in this race, including those committed by Warren, instead of just attacking Brown.

Those are my thoughts for today.
Thanks for reading.

copyright 2012, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB

Tweet