My grandmother’s grandmother was Mary (Patterson) Whitener. Family legend has it that she was at least part Cherokee. Mary was born in Ellijay, Georgia in 1869 and married William Whitener there in 1883. They lived in Murray County, Georgia in 1900. Sometime between 1904 and 1907, they moved to Oklahoma. According to my grandmother, they moved west to be near Mary’s Native American relatives. They stayed in Oklahoma for over ten years, until Mary’s death in 1920. She is buried in Ward’s Grove Cemetery, in Foyil, Oklahoma. Bill returned to Murray County after her death.
I would love to find documentation proving (or disproving) Mary’s Native American ancestry.
