Around 1975 I asked my paternal grandmother, Pearl Reed Cleage, to send me the names of her parents and grandparents . I actually sent her a chart to fill out but instead she sent me back a piece of loose leaf paper with a list of her children and their professions and her parents and grandparents and my grandfather’s parents. I have yet to find anyone with the name of the man she listed as her father. He is not the father listed on anybodies, including her own, marriage license or birth record or death certificate. She has her grandmother listed as a Cherokee Indian but when we did the DNA test with my aunt Gladys several years ago the results came back from Family Tree HVR1 Haplogroup L3e2* which is found in West Africa.
The newspaper clipping on the left includes a photograph of my grandmother Pearl Reed from The Indianapolis Star, Friday May 8 1908. She sang at church and at many community events.
Paternal Maternal DNA line – from the youngest to the farthest back in time fore-mother we can name.
My cousins grandaughters – Lyric
My cousins daughters – Shashu, Jann, Sadya, Lillieanna, Sofia
My cousins – Jan, Anna, Maria
Aunts – Barbara Pearl, Gladys Helen, Anna Cecelia
Pearl Doris Reed 1886 (Lebanon, KY) – 1982 (Reed City, Michigan)
Anna Allen abt 1849 (Kentucky) – 1911 (Indianapolis, IN)
Clara Hoskins abt 1829 (KY) – ? (KY)
This line also includes my grandmother Pearl’s sisters and their descendents.
Aunt Josie’s daughter and her daughter Bessie and any female descendents she has.
Aunt Sarah Busby and her daughters and granddaughters and on down.
Aunt Louise Shoemaker and her daughter, granddaughter, and on down
Aunt Minnie Mullen’s daughters, granddaughters and on down
Remember that your lineage could still be Cherokee Indian, or German, or Japanese or a myriad of other ethnicities. Your mtDNA test only names one lineage out of millions of possible ancestors!
I do realize that there's more then West African in my heritage. I mean I can see that looking in the mirror 😉 But I found it interesting that the test came back that way. Perhaps her great great grandfather was Cherokee or part Native Am. I haven't done the what are you DNA test. Since I can't find Clara or Anna before the 1870 census I strongly suspect they were slaves. Although there are tales of moonshining up in the hills so maybe they were up there free and not being counted. But I doubt it. Open to any new information I find though.
You are so furtunate to have gotten to ask your grandmother this information & also to have all those sepia photos of her. i dont knwo many people who have that many different pictures of a grandmother. Did you find any articles of her in the Detroit newspapers?
I just found one article from the Michigan Free Press. It's posted here http://cleage.blogspot.com/2010/07/two-newspaper-articles-1908-and-1960.html
I'm sure there were other mentions but I haven't found the MIchigan Chronicle online yet 😉
Kristin, I just stumbled upon your website while searching for others with the same Mtdna as my maternal grandfather’s mother. Your blog is Fantastic and you are a tribute to your Ancestors. Well done! I have decided to read it from the beginning.
Regarding this blog post, a thought immediatly came to me. I may be missing something or interperting it wrong but in the handwritten genealogy of your grandmother Pearl I would not expect your Aunt Gladys Mtdna to be Cherokee because… it looks like to me if you follow the arrows Grandmother Pearl was indicating that it is James Allen’s mother who is Cherokee and father is Mulatto. What do you think?
Btw, I am new to DNAgenealogy.. does matching mtdna mean with are DNA cousins?
Susan, I’m glad you enjoyed my blog.
My grandmother was identifying her grandmother, Clara Hoskins as a Cherokee Indian and her partner as mulatto. The arrow pointed to their daughter, Anna.
The matching mtdna doesn’t mean we’re dna cousins. Mtdna goes back to the original mother in our ancestry, through the mother’s, grandmother’s etc. It means that both of our fore mothers in that line, came from that particular group. Did you test with 23 and Me? If you did, we’ll show up on each other’s list of cousins.