Rachel Roberson has consumed a lot of my genealogical research time. She is supposed to have been Indian, or perhaps part Indian. I’ve wanted to find some answers but now years of research have given me so much information it seems almost impossible to say anything helpful. She was Rachel (Roberson) Horne (1847-1944), my grandmother’s…
Were They Pawnee?
According to a tradition current among some of my cousins, my great great grandmother Rachel (Roberson) Horne (1847-1944) was Pawnee. I don’t think so. Nothing else points in that direction. I asked my grandmother Evelyn (Horn) Miller one year at Powwow about our Indian ancestry. She said she had always assumed they were Pawnee. A…
Were They Melungeon?
Early in my Roberson research, I investigated the possibility my ancestors were Melungeons. Strictly speaking, the term Melungeon applies to a group of families who lived in and around Newmans Ridge in Hawkins County, Tennessee. My Robersons, in contrast, lived at Wallens Ridge in neighboring Lee County, Virginia. “Beginning in the early 1800s, or possibly…
When Grandma Ran Away
Grandma Vivian (Luce) Swanstrom ran away from home when she was 25. Her parents had great ambitions for her, but she had other ideas. They sent her to finishing school in Denver, but she didn’t like it. She came home to the ranch at Big Piney after the first semester, and refused to go back….
Jewish Khazars
Are Ashkenazi Jews descended from the Khazars? It’s a hot question. Many people, both Jews and non-Jews, have thought so, but nowadays it has become anti-Semitic to say it. I’m not exactly sure when it became taboo to question scientific research. At one time, many years ago, I thought Arthur Koestler made a slam-dunk case…