Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

it appears that you are having a problem because you cannot find many records of that time period. records are scarce from that time. choctaw was not a written language until the mid-1800’s. so the choctaw tribe has no records. and the united states let the war department keep records of rations, native records, up until the 1880’s or so. these records are stored at NARA, national archives and record administration, http://www.nara.gov. you might find two different offices concerned with the choctaw: fort worth and atlanta.

there may be non-published records at NARA. i have looked at other tribes’ holdings and they vary extremely in quantity and quality. i would urge you to write to the author of the article, to look at the sources cited in the article. you might continue looking for capt. james stirman standley in the hope that something will refer to a wife. the brashears might have some information also.

http://genealogytrails.com/oka/atoka/standleybio.html
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v010/v010p604.html

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=35774790
Dawes Card Information

tribe last first middle age sex blood card roll misc type
Choctaw Edwards Sarah C 0 F 2565 P
Choctaw Edwards Thomas W 0 M 2565 P
Choctaw Standley James 0 M 2565 P
Choctaw Standley John T 0 M 2565 P
Choctaw Standley Maggie 0 F 2565 P
Choctaw Standley Margaret 0 F 2565 P
Choctaw Standley Gertrude 13 F 1/16 2565 NR ATOKA BB
Choctaw Standley Nannie 15 F 1/16 2565 NR ATOKA BB
Choctaw Standley Lizzie C 54 F IW 2565 NR ATOKA BB
Choctaw Standley James S 58 M 1/8 2565 NR ATOKA BB

i see several mississippi land records that might be his, choctaw and chickasaw scrip land records.

U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865
about James S. Standley
Name: James S. Standley
Side: Confederate
Regiment State/Origin: Mississippi
Regiment Name: 11 Mississippi Infantry
Regiment Name Expanded: 11th Regiment, Mississippi Infantry
Company: K
Rank In: First Lieutenant
Rank In Expanded: First Lieutenant
Rank Out: Captain
Rank Out Expanded: Captain
Film Number: M232 roll 38
Source Information:
National Park Service. U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.
Original data: National Park Service, Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, online <http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/>, acquired 2007.

he may have been in the fort smith criminal files for a liquor violation, jacket 443.
Source Information:
Ancestry.com. Ft. Smith Criminal Case Files, 1866-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1997.
Original data: The National Archives, Southwest Region. Defendant Jacket Files for U.S. District Court, Western, Division of Arkansas, Fort Smith Division, 1866-1900. Forth Worth, TX, USA: National Archives, Southwest Region.
Mississippi Marriages, 1826-1900
about Margaret Todlock
Name: James Jr. Standley
Spouse: Margaret Todlock
Marriage Date: 11 Jun 1840
County: Carroll
State: MS

1860 United States Federal Census
about James S Standley
Name: James S Standley
Age in 1860: 19
Birth Year: abt 1841
Birthplace: Mississippi
Home in 1860: Police District 3, Carroll, Mississippi
Gender: Male
Post Office: Black Hawk
Value of real estate: View image
Household Members:
Name Age
James Standley 41
Margarett Standley 39
James S Standley 19
J T Standley 17
Leeona Standley 13
Wm P Standley 11
Eva Standley 7
Olga Standley 4
Source Citation: Year: 1860; Census Place: Police District 3, Carroll, Mississippi; Roll: M653_578; Page: 934; Image: 428; Family History Library Film: 803578.

they grew cotton and were listed on the slave schedule that year.

genealogists use names, dates, locations, children and spouses to match records. if you have a common surname, you need to give more information rather than less. if you post about women, it is helpful to include the maiden name and the married name and designate which one is the maiden name.

start with what you know, gather documentation, then you can go backward in time. so get your birth certificate, your parents’ birth certificates and marriage license and then you can start on your grandparents. if someone passed away after 1/1/1937, they probably have a social security application on file. if you ask a government for a birth certificate, and they were born before 1929, they might have sumitted a delayed birth certificate. death certificates, cemetery information and obituaries are helpful. you can usually get a copy of an obituary, newspaper mentions such as birth of a child or marriage, through the interlibrary loan program – see your local public library for this. i usually start with the death and work toward the person’s birth. military records and pension records can be helpful. census records can tell you where they were at particular times. the census records up to 1930 are available, although the 1890 census was largely destroyed. the 1940 census will be public information in 2012.

first of all, heritage and tribal enrollment are two different things. many times natives didn’t apply for enrollment because 1) they didn’t qualify, 2) they were philosophically opposed to enrollment, 3) they didn’t have documentation, or 4) they were mississippi choctaw and their ancestor had accepted land or benefits in lieu of tribal enrollment.

the dawes roll was taken 1896-1906, so you should trace your ancestors down to that time period. mostly, they had to be living in oklahoma by that time and agree to live there permanently.

2 ways to search:
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/finalroll.php
this will let you enter partial names to get card#. click on the card# in the card column and you can see other names in that family.
other resources on the left and at the bottom of this webpage. native census records and databases are especially useful.

http://www.okhistory.org/research/dawes/index.php
this will give you card# (family group) and enrollment #. they have some native marriage records too. other oklahoma records listed at left.
if the name is common, you may find too many possible records.

the tribe has an excellent information to help you. it is found under genealogy advocacy.
http://choctawnation.com/services/departments/community-services/

mississippi choctaw and choctaw tribe explained here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choctaw_Trail_of_Tears

http://www.choctaw.org/

jena choctaw tribe in louisiana:
http://www.jenachoctaw.org/

MOWA tribe
http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1368
http://www.uab.edu/uabmagazine/2009/july/losttribe
http://www.native-american-online.org/MOWA-Choctaw.htm
MOWA Band Of Choctaws Wilford Taylor 1080 Red Fox Road Mount Vernon, AL 36560 (251) 829-5500. E-Mail: chieftaylor@mowachoctaw.com

other choctaw tribes: http://www.aaanativearts.com/choctaw-indians/index.html

texas tribes
http://www.native-languages.org/texas.htm
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/texas/index.htm
http://www.texasindians.com/
http://www.texasindians.com/
http://www.lsjunction.com/places/indians.htm

oklahoma tribes:
http://500nations.com/Oklahoma_Tribes.asp
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/oklahoma/index.htm
http://www.cowboy.net/native/tribes.html

some links for the choctaw.
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/choctaw/index.htm
i looked at the land records and those need a lot of work. i have no information about whether or when they will improve some of these categories.

types of records available for native americans:
pages 366-369 in particular although the entire native american chapter is helpful.
The Genealogist’s Companion and Sourcebook:
Guide to the Resources You Need for Unpuzzling Your Past
Emily Anne Croom
you can ask for these particular pages from your local public library. if they don’t have the book, you can get the pages through the interlibrary loan program.
native american records are discussed in pages 352-386.

Tracing ancestors among the Five Civilized Tribes: Southeastern Indians …
By Rachal Mills Lennon
this book could be accessed through the interlibary loan program also.

always find the state archives. some records are online, some records are not. but many times you can find a record not found in other places. you want to see also about newspaper mentions for obituaries, births, marriages in particular.

check courts for probate, civil and criminal cases, marriage records.

if your ancestors lived on a reservation, they might not appear on a federal census because they were not taxed.
http://www.okgenweb.org/~okgarvin/kinard/1860index.htm
1860 census, indian territory.

this book is a good read about the dawes roll and how they implemented it.
The Dawes Commission and the allotment of the Five Civilized Tribes, 1893-1914
By Kent Carter

good advice about native research:
http://jenniferhsrn2.homestead.com/research2.html

if your relatives came from a different geographic location or belonged to a different tribe, try searching google for the state and tribes. you might find a contact for a state-recognized tribe or a federal recognized tribe.

i have collected many resources over the years. if you want to write to me, shamlet76@gmail.com and request the choctaw resource list, i will be glad to send it to you.

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

suzanne hamlet shatto

Thanks for your reply! I have scoured all of these sites except nara.gov and just can’t come up with anything. I’m thinking Eva probably was pretty close to full blood or at least lived among the Choctaw for quite some time since there is so little info on her. I can find other Cochenours (many different spellings) but they are all male. One is Nicholas and he was a chief so there is info on him out there but no mention of female Cochenours. I think the article was a biography written by Capt Standley’s daughter, Norma Smizer, and I’m not sure how reliable it is, but the Standleys had an Indian newspaper published both in Choctaw and in English. The name of it escapes me for now. I did find a slave named Silvy Robinson who BF later married and had children with. I suspect the slavery issue may be why very little has been written about Capt Standley’s half brothers. I’ll check the nara.gov site for now! Thanks so much for your time!!!!

unfortunately, many women are not mentioned in records. this is rather common, not uncommon, and happened with women of all races. i don’t think this meant that she was more likely native.

you might also try the mississippi state archives.

gl.

I am a descendant of James Standley and Lucy Brashears. through the Smisers. Lucy was definitely Choctaw and the Standleys came to OK from MS where they were wealthy plantation owners, but I do not know much about Eva.

I have some documentation on the family and any information written by Norma Standley Smiser would be very accurate as she was the editor of the newspaper, Indian Citizen, with her father and her husband. Norma was very well educated.

The guidance given to you by Suzanne is outstanding. You can contact me and I would be happy to trade what information I have about the Standleys. Also, I have an acquaintance whose married name is Cohenour and she is from OK – maybe her husband was a relative of yours.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Hi Melody! Thanks for your reply!

The article on the OK Historical Society site is the same style as some interviews of Norma on the Indian Pioneer Papers, which is why I do believe that she’s the author of the OK H.S. article.

I did find on Footnote.com where one of James Sr’s g-sons was applying for Choctaw Citizenship and a witness said that Eva was “Indian” and “went to the swamp”. This would have probably been in the mid 1800s. James Sr is on all the MS censuses but Eva is not on any that I have found. Why would that be???

I’m curious about the Standleys ancestry up-line too if you have any info on that! All I have before James Sr is his father was Abraham Standley and he was the son of Huguenots (according to the OK Historical Society article).

Thanks for any info you would be willing to share!! Of course I would be happy to share anything you would be interested in too!!
Heather

You may also send info concerning Standeys or Cochenours to TemporaryEarthling@gmail.com

just so you know, natives who lived on the reservation were not taxed so they were not generally on the census done every 10 years. but they might have been listed on native census records. try accessgenealogy for those.
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/

some of the census records are transliterated native names. choctaw (or any other native language) was not a written language until the middle of the 1800’s. the choctaw tribe had an oral tradition, as did the others.

Heather and Melody,

I may be able to help with some pieces of your puzzle. I believe the Abraham of your line to be a son of David Standley/Standlee Sr., and to be a common ancestor of ours. This David Sr. was born about 1720. We (a number of distant cousins and I) have documents from a court case arising from some land records from Kaskaskia, IL. In the depositions of this case Abraham is stated to be a son of David, with brothers David Jr., John, and a brother in law Jacob McCarty. I’d be happy to share more if you’d like to contact me at klallman@gmail.com.

We also may be able to help each other with another common family line. My line goes through Onecyphorus Standlee (b. 1768) who traces back to this David Sr. There are so many spellings of that name, I’ll refer to him as Oney. Three of Oney’s Standlee children married three Boren children. The Boren line traces back to a Mary Brashears – perhaps we can find a common link with your Lucy.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Karen

I hope this is helpful. I’ve seen two similar versions of the Captain James Stirman Standley biography.

This one contains more details than the other version out there:

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v010/v010p604.html

Chronicles of Oklahoma
Volume 10, No. 4
December, 1932
NECROLOGY
Page 615

The reason I post this is Eva on Dec. 8, 2010 wrote:

Searching Choctaw connection of James Standley (son of Abraham and b: 22 June 1792) and his second wife Eva Cochenauer (Cochenouer). First wife was Lucy Brashears and they had 3 (?) children, one of which was Capt James Stirman Standley.

That was the line in the “shortened” version. In the version I provided the link to above it has:

G1 Abraham (mid 1700’s)

G2 James Standley Sr(b.1792)(m.Lucy+Eva)

G3 James Standley Jr(b.1819)(m Margaret Tadlock + Margaret Conner)

G4 James S.Standley (b. 1841)(m. Alice Posey + Lizzie Harrison)

I wanted to make sure you had that extra generation in there, in case it helps find the records for Eva you are looking for.

I’ve added the following to my notes on Lucy Brashears. Can anyone point me to any sourcing to verify this?

I have not independently confirmed the following is true.

Other family researchers have identified her mother as HOTIOKIA JANE APUKSHUNNUBBEE. One such family researcher who’s online information reflects this is Joy Fitzer-Moore. I have sent email to her at (littlemama40 @ msn.com) requesting additional sourcing.

http://www.gencircles.com/users/joyfitzer-moore/24/data/52

HOTIOKIA JANE APUKSHUNNUBBEE
Birth: 1775 in OKLA FALAYA,CHOCTAW NATION,MISSISSIPPI
Death:
Sex: F
Father: CHIEF APUKSHUNNUBBEE b. About 1740 in OLD CHOCTAW NATION,MISSISSIPPI
Mother: ABU-TO-NA (APUKSHUNNUBBEE)

Nickname: DAUGHTER OF TABOCA
Changed: 27 Aug 2004 07:58:44

Spouse and Children:

ROBERT TURNER BRASHEARS (Husband) b. 18 May 1764 in BLANDENSBORGH,PRINCE GEORGES CO.,MARYLAND
Marriage: 1787 in NATCHEZ TRACE,CHOTAW NATION EAST
Children:

BENJAMIN BRASHEARS b. About 1801 EVA ILLI-APO-TUBBE BRASHEARS b. 1789 LUCY BRASHEARS b. 1792 ELIZABETH BRASHEARS b. 1795 LEWIS BRASHEARS b. 1797 SARAH BRASHEARS b. About 1791 in OKLA FALAYA,CHOCTAW NATION,MISSISSIPPI

If the above turns out to be accurate, then the following would be relevant.

At Fold3.com a search for APUKSHUNNUBBEE lead to an article titled:
Choctaw Removal from the Southwest in early 1800’s
Published in the CENNTENIAL EDITION – March 23, 2005 The JennaTimes Olla-Tullos-Urania Signal
Page 23G

Within the article was the following paragraph:

Some further note of the 1825 treaty negotiations provides some insights in to the nature and extent of the Choctaw relations with the United States government by 1824. Negotiations, from the point of view of the Choctaw delegation, were necessary not only for determining the sale of the Arkansas land, but also for settling past claims promised by the government. Part of the Treaty of Doak’s Stand was a $6,000 annuity which had not materialized. Also, payment was due combatants who had supported Andrew Jackson in the Pensacola campaign in 1817. Choctaw delgates who journeyed to Washington in 1824 included the three district chiefs, tushmataha, Apukshunubbee, and Moshulatubbee. Unfortunately the death of Apukshunubbee occurred enroute to Washington, and Pushmataha died in Washington before negotiations were completed. Although the delegates left with such favorable treaty terms that Herman J Viola (1981) describes the delegation as “confident that it had skinned the government” (p. 29) the government’s removal plans were not thwarted.

most of the native documentation does not exist for this time period, however there is more documentation on “famous” families than others.

traditional sources:
trading books and logs – maybe at state historical societies or the archives http://www.archives.gov and they may not be real accessible. you should visit the archives office that handles the southeast native reservations. that might be morrow, GA. the information might not be microfilmed and you might have to get a researcher card for access.

county land records, vital records, court records. might also be at the state archives or state historical society.

native census records – also at the NARA office that has the southeast native records. however, many of these have been posted on accessgenealogy.com under native databases and native census records.

local historical books – access through your local public library interlibrary loan program. some books might be at the state historical society or state archives and there might be a fee for research.

journals – access through your local public library interlibrary loan program. some scholarly writers might have written articles.

newspapers – access through your local public library interlibrary loan program. some newspapers might be at the state historical society or the state archives.

you need to understand that native languages were an oral tradition, not a written one. the native languages only became a written language in the mid 1800’s. so the native tribes don’t have earlier records. the war department was in charge of maintaining records during this period and this was because the natives might have been a threat or a responsibility. they were not keeping records so that we could use them for genealogical purposes.

you should continue to try to contact people who have these people in your family tree. some of them might have discovered sources.

gl.