Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

before the american revolution, the brits used to ship dangerous irish/scotch jacobites off to the new world. also, since the new world was rich in resources, this wealth drew indentured servants and others. there is a strong representation of irish/scottish people in north america.

natives tended to take surnames of caucasian parents, favorite people, places and things. the surname of the native might not indicate a biological connection.

native genealogy is particularly challenging in that if a family lived on a reservation, they were not in the federal census but were in the infrequent war department census reports. usually, before 1850, names were in transliterated form. native languages were an oral tradition and only became written languages in the mid 1800’s. the war department documents are at NARA http://www.archives.gov.

there are 168 mccurtain names on the dawes roll taken 1896-1906 in indian territory aka/oklahoma. i don’t see a catherine.

you have indicated that you are looking at a record but i don’t know which record you are looking at.

there may be natives with this maiden name, but they might be on rootsweb.com or ancestry.com family trees. rootsweb has messageboards by tribe, location, surname. i would think that you would also want to get on a messageboard of the mccurtain surname because people reading that messageboard might want to take you up on your offer to assist them.

there are some chiefs by this surname:

Chief Green McCurtain (1848 – 1910) – Find A Grave Memorial
www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?GRid=6953427&page=gr
Nov 25, 2002 – Chief Green McCurtain was one of three sons of Cornelius McCurtain and Mahyia Belvin, later called Amy. His mother was a granddaughter of …
Green McCurtain – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_McCurtain
Greenwood “Green” McCurtain (1848–1910) was Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation (1896-1890) and (1902-1910), serving four two-year terms. He was the …
McCURTAIN, JANE AUSTIN (1842-1925)
digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/M/MC019.html
As president of the Choctaw senate, Jackson McCurtain became principal chief of the Choctaw Nation upon Chief Isaac Garvin’s death in February 1880.

Chief Green McCurtain was one of three sons of Cornelius McCurtain and Mahyia Belvin, later called Amy. His mother was a granddaughter of the legendary Sho-Ma-Ka, a captive of the Choctaws after a retributive massacre of her tribe, the Sha-chi-homas, by the Chickasaws and Choctaws in the late 1700s. They migrated to Indian Territory in 1833 in one of the removal caravans known as the Trail of Tears. They settled in Skullyville, and engaged in farming and stock raising. From the time of the adoption of the new constitution of 1860, until the conclusion of the political life of the old Choctaw government, the three sons Green McCurtain, Jackson Frazier McCurtain and Edmund McCurtain were to figure prominently in tribal leadership, serving the Choctaw people through times of great change, with diligence, farsightedness, and unfailing honesty.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?GRid=6953427&page=gr

i am just a volunteer that wants to empower people to learn how to do genealogy.

suzanne hamlet shatto

Hallo Suzanne,

Many thanks for that wonderful posting on the McCurtains and their connection with the Choctaw nation. I had already dipped into it by finding the town Mccurtain in Oklahoma (which looks beautiful) but you have given me more food for research which I will happily follow up.
The Catherine McCurtin I had come upon was on the Geneology page of this website, in the middle of a long list of Mccurtin family info. I dont know where she has disappeared to??
Again, many thanks for your help.
Catherine McCurtin

i am just a volunteer and am not connected with the tribe. if you find that post again, reply to it and that will put the post near the top of the messages on the messageboard.

Hi Catherine, my name is Delores Campbell, my mother was Leevern McCurtain. I have been researching the McCurtain family history for over the last 20 years and have accumlated quite a bit of information. You can contact me at Delcamp1@aol.com so we can exchange information. Look forward to hearing from you