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 -

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From her Facebook Fan Page -

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From Twitter -

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From LinkedIn - 

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From Interviews - 

     When asked why she writes historical fiction -

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     When asked why she writes about the time period -

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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copyright 2016, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB

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Cherokees Demand Truth from Carolyn Emerson Durvin (aka Little Deer Durvin)

Carolyn Emerson Durvin (aka Little Deer Durvin) claims she is Eastern Band Cherokee.

On her facebook page, as of 5/21/2013, she says,

But she isn't from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. Call them. Ask. I assure you, they have no one by the names Little Deer Durvin, Carolyn Emerson, Carolyn Emerson Durvin, Carolyn Durvin, etc...enrolled. This has been verified more than once by fellow Cherokees.

According to the definition at Merrian-Webster, a fraud is a person who is not what he or she pretends to be.

Carolyn Emerson Durvin (aka Little Deer Durvin) pretends to be Eastern Band Cherokee but she isn't. Therefore, she is a fraud.

This is not one of those cases of one saying, "I'm Cherokee but can't prove it." This is worse because she outright claims to be Eastern Band Cherokee KNOWING she isn't.

In 2010, she was presented a blanket from then Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Chad Smith.

From an article about the blanket dated October 13, 2010, Durvin is described as Eastern Band Cherokee. But, less than one month earlier, in an Ancestry.com message board post, she was looking for help with her "Cherokee ancestry". And two years later, in another message board post, her husband was still trying to help her connect to her "Cherokee ancestors." This means that, as of 2012, Carolyn Emerson Durvin, knew she still had nothing to connect her to the historical Cherokee Nation, but she continued claiming to be Eastern Band Cherokee.

To make matters worse, the woman has engrained herself into the Cherokee Nation At Large communities and fooled at least two of our Principal Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation, Chad Smith and Bill John Baker, by claiming to be Eastern Band. If she would have claimed to be a Cherokee Nation Cherokee, she would have opened herself up to their inquiries about her citizenship. I guess she couldn't risk that, so she went with something she saw as more "safe." Of course her lies started to unfold when, in November 2011, Durvin used words that would make it seem as if she was a citizen of the Cherokee Nation (instead of the Eastern Band) by using the word "our" as in OUR people and OUR new principal chief. I guess Miss Eastern Band Cherokee forgot Bill John Baker was elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, not the Eastern Band!

Check out the pictures of her with our chiefs and current deputy chief. Doesn't it just make you sick?

In another interesting turn, though Carolyn Emerson Durvin claims to be Eastern Band Cherokee, a few months ago, on a Facebook page for Deputy Chief Joe Crittenden, when a real Cherokee asked her, "Are you a citizen of the Cherokee Nation?" instead of claiming to be Eastern Band, or simply saying "no", she said,

"My 6 great grandmother was Elizabeth Pack the daughter of Chief John Lowery. She was on the Trail of Tears. I lived back in North Carolina and Va for the first 13 years of my life until I moved to Ca. with my first husband. I have been in Ca. for over 45 years now. My mother just passed away a little over a year ago. I just received this information about my family after my mother passed. My father's side of the family also has Cherokee heritage. I am working on becoming a citizen of the Cherokee Nation." [emphasis mine.]

 

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While I'm sure Durvin thought that was a good answer, it backfired. You see, we Cherokees are used to the type of answers fakes give when questioned. They beat around the bush and avoid a simple answer of yes or no. Also, we knew she had previously claimed to be Eastern Band Cherokee. If she was already enrolled with them, why dig to try to register with us? She was fumbling for an answer and her lies caught up with her. Also, Elizabeth Pack is well documented and she only had two children. Durvin claims to be Cherokee through Isham Pack, but he was not a child of the Cherokee Elizabeth Pack. After a short debate on the topic of her purported Cherokee ancestry, Durvin deleted all her comments from the page.* 

Durvin isn't registered or enrolled as a Cherokee. She can't even prove she has Cherokee ancestry.  But for some reason, she believes she has the right to get up in Cherokee business, running an At Large group and rubbing elbows with our tribal leaders. She goes into her community and misrepresents herself as Cherokee. She even claims to be an Eastern Band Cherokee storyteller and goes to schools and community groups sharing what she says are our stories and legends! Fakes and wannabes, like Durvin, wiggling their way into our At Large groups is why real Cherokees are now leaving those groups. They are tired of wannabes thinking they know best and that they should be in charge of everything.

Enough is enough. Ms. Carolyn Emerson Durvin, aka Little Deer Durvin, has gotten on the last nerve of many authentic Cherokees. Either she is Eastern Band Cherokee and can prove it or she is a fraud who has been deceiving a lot of people for a long time.

Cherokees Demand Truth from you, Carolyn Emerson Durvin. Put up or shut up. You want your genealogy? We got your genealogy, and guess what...........

Those are my thoughts for today.
Thanks for reading.





*Several Cherokees made screen prints before the comments were deleted so we could show the inconsistencies in her story. We have been watching her for a while, well aware that she is not what she claims to be.

copyright 2013, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB

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Elizabeth Warren's Mother was so Cherokee...

...that she was listed as white on the 1940 US Census!

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Surprising, isn't it? (Yes, I'm rolling my eyes here.) Of course this is making fun of Ms. Warren's claim that her mother was so Cherokee that her parents had to elope, but it is also making another point.  She also said  "I can’t deny my heritage. I can’t and I won’t. That would be denying who my mother was, who my family was, how we lived, and I won’t do it." Really? She has the nerve to claim her family lived as Native American/Cherokee/Delaware? Are you kidding me? Her family lived as white people and this document as well as all the others clearly indicate that. By claiming to be Cherokee or Indian, she is actually denying her real heritage; who her mother was; and who her family was. She says she won't do it, but by making that statement, she did it.

Ms. Warren's mother is never found as anything but white in documentation.  Pauline Louise Reed, the mother of Ms. Warren, was the child of Harry G. Reed and Bethania "Hannie" Crawford. She was born in Hughes County, Oklahoma, on February 14, 1912. She was found on the 1920 US Census living in Hickory Ridge, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma with her parents and siblings, race listed as white. She was found on the 1930 US Census living in Wetumka, Hughes County, Oklahoma with her parents, race listed as white. She married Don Herring on January 2, 1932 in Hughes County, Oklahoma. She was found on the 1940 US Census living in Wetumka, Hughes County, Oklahoma with her husband and children, race listed as white. She died July 18, 1995.

Now does that look like someone who was "so Cherokee" they had to elope? It is really beyond the time when Ms. Warren either puts up or shuts up. The stories that make no sense need to stop and she needs to either offer evidence to show she is what she claims or she needs to stop claiming it. Enough is enough and many Cherokee people want answers.

Elizabeth Warren, what documentation do you have that shows you can claim to be one of us? We would like to know because we all had to prove our claim of Cherokee ancestry. We had to meet the burden of proof standard set by our tribes. What makes you think you are better than us and therefore, don't have to prove anything to anyone? Inquiring Cherokee minds want to know.

Those are my thoughts for today.
Thanks for reading.

copyright 2012, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB

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We're Still Fighting for Our Identity

Not so long ago, I learned of several threats made toward American Indians or their representatives who were working to protect the truth about our history, culture and identity.

In Tennessee where the state had recognized 6 culture clubs as tribes (this has since been overturned), one of the fake Indians screamed at an authentic Choctaw woman and told her "get off my land!" meaning the woman should leave the state of Tennessee and go back to Oklahoma.

A Cherokee Nation hired lobbyist who was working in Tennessee on the issue of these fake tribes was threatened with “if this was a war party, you’d be shot.”

A radio personality who is a member of a fake tribe in Alabama threatened to take legal action against some Cherokees on facebook because he didn't like what they said. He also threw many insults at them, calling them racist and accusing them of falling for the white man's version of history among other things.

Recently, even I have experienced something similar after debunking a family myth. I am now the target of a smear campaign simply because I made factual statements about the ancestors of a non-Indian who was trying to claim our Cherokee history.

What do these threats and actions all have in common? They show the extreme attitude of non-Indians toward Indians when we don't allow them to lay claim to our history and our identity. These types of attacks are unacceptable. We, as American Indians, have a right to stand up and defend our true history against anyone who would try to bastardize it to claim it as their own. We have a right to speak the truth, whether non-Indians want to hear it or not. And we have a right to be angry when non-Indians, despite all the evidence, still romanticize that they might be Indian.

If someone has a problem when we speak the truth, then that is their problem, not ours. Perhaps the simple fact that that some non-Indians become so emotionally out of control over the very fact they are challenged reveals something about them. Could it be they are unable to take pride in their true ancestors so they have to invent some claim to one they can be proud of? Could it be they have no sense of culture or heritage so they want to claim that of someone else? Or could it be they just want to be Indian so badly, they will just never accept being told they aren't? I really have no idea, but one thing is for sure, we are still fighting for our very identity and this fight doesn't look like it will end any time soon.

Those are my thoughts for the day.
Thank you for reading.

CC
The Granddaughter

Revised post from June 27, 2010.

copyright 2011, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB

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Don't Pay a Fee to "Become" Cherokee!

Recently, I stumbled upon a website that seemed to offer a lot of things to people who believe they descend from a Cherokee but can't prove it. The name of the site and the words used on the site were obviously selected in order to dupe a person who was not very knowledgeable about Cherokee history, genealogy or tribal enrollment. The site led people to believe that for a fee, they would be a registered Cherokee and would be eligible for services like housing and medical care. This was so disturbing, I feel I would be doing my readers an injustice if I didn't say something about it and other sites who will prey on those who desperately want to be enrolled as a Cherokee.

I have said it before and I will say it again, if you are truly Cherokee and meet eligibility requirements, you will NEVER be asked to pay for ANYTHING to be enrolled or registered! There are no processing fees, enrollment fees, application fees, membership fees, etc.....NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!!! If you are trying to become a member of a Cherokee "tribe" and you have to pay a fee to do it, then IT IS NOT AN AUTHENTIC TRIBE! If you are trying to to get registered and you have to pay a fee, then YOU ARE NOT REALLY GETTING REGISTERED OR ENROLLED in an authentic tribe! These so called "tribes" and groups will accept anyone, as long as the payment clears.

There are THREE federally recognized Cherokee Tribes - the Cherokee Nation, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. These are the ONLY legitimate Cherokee tribes. With them, there is no charge for an enrollment number or a registration number. So, if you are looking for an "elusive Cherokee ancestor" or are desperate to become a tribal member, remember this - our Cherokee heritage is not for sale. No matter how much you might want it, you cannot buy it. You either get it for free at birth or you don't get it. And that is just the way it is.

Those are my thoughts for today.
Thanks for reading.

CC
The Granddaughter

copyright 2010, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB

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Cherokees Take a Stand Against Frauds

Cherokees are taking a stand against fraudulent artists, performers, musicians, etc...

ONE VOICE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE !!!

You can help!

• Document all the frauds you find and notify the Cherokee Nation
• Write the Cherokee Federal delegation in Oklahoma and the Arizona Senators
• BCC the Washington, DC office
• Write Chief Chad Smith

When you write, write as an individual Indian and be specific. Include all arts--performing, music, etc.. Provide examples of those who fraudulently call themselves American Indian/Native American. Include your name, address and contact information for follow up contact.

Contact information:

Cherokee Elected Officials
(in the first box, select elected officials and in the second box, select the person you wish to contact)

Oklahoma's Federal Delegation

Washington DC office - cnwo@cherokee.org

Arizona Senators -
Jon Kyl
John McCain

If you think this does not affect you, think again. When someone impersonates you, it does affect you. It is time to stand up against those people who fraudulently represent themselves as Cherokee (and/or Native American) artists, musicians, performers, etc...

Those are my thoughts for today.
Thank you for listening.

CC
The Granddaughter
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