Crowe’s Nest by Elizabeth Powell Crowe

Starting with the Crowe grandmother,  Margaret Arminta Forrester who married Jesse Crowe.

Margaret Arminta Forrester life shows in these records: 

I should note here, that I have not found anything putting the Forresters in Arkansas, although perhaps they were there between censuses…..From the records I could find, we see Arminta was born in Georgia before the Civil War, was in Indiana just across the river from Kentucky in 1870, and married and in Kentucky in 1880. Now Tunnel Hill GA is up in the mountains, near the Trail of Tears. So this is interesting. However, a quick search of the Dawes Rolls of the Cherokee does not turn up Forrester as a surname in that census. So, that is not a deal killer, but it is not something that makes me wonder.

Then, a friend who has much more genealogy experience than I wrote:

Tunnel Hill has a connection to the Cherokee Nation. It’s basically at Dalton, GA. I have been to Cherokee, NC – reminds of me of the song, all the things we made by hand are nowadays made in Japan. I have been to various monuments between Chattanooga and Knoxville. There are several signs on I-75 between Chattanooga and Atlanta but we never stopped, always next trip. They had females in positions of power and the late Wilma Mankiller was the Cherokee Chief. Got to love that name.
I think you need to find a map of the Trail of Tears. IIRC there were several branches, some going into Kentucky. and touching southern Illinois. There were drop offs all the way for whatever reason. Could be mom was born in Tunnel Hill and Arminta was born somewhere in Arkansas but since she didn’t know where they were she adopted Tunnel Hill. Things like that happened. But Arminta was born too late to be on the trail of tears. >I think Jolly sounds like a Cherokee name. The ones [few] I have dealt with had names like that. I don’t know how it all works out but there was a Cherokee who was in central Illinois in the 1830s or 40s who gave testimony on a RW pension app. How did he get there? And my cousin’s multi great grandmother, a Cherokee, came out of Kentucky as I recall. That’s when I discovered there wasn’t A trail of tear but branches. So there has to be more to it than the standard history – round them up, move them out.

So, next I will look more closely at Julia Jolley.<

In 1975, when I first met Thomas Wayne Crowe, he told me his grandmother was “full blooded Cherokee.” In 1978, I married his grandson. In 1982, we had our first child and I really wanted to find out about this. T. W. clammed up on me, and for years I could find out nothing.

This month, Mark’s grandmother, Gladys, died. The family let me have the Bible that always sat on her coffee table. And, below is one Genealogy Page.

So now I have the two grandmothers’ names:
Arminta Foster Crowe, born in Arkansas and Julia Ann Jolly May. One of these women could be of the Cherokee tribe. But which one?

Using FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, and Rootsweb.org it does not take me long to find the parents of both of them. I found census, marriage and death records that helped.

• Arminta’s parents are Margaret Dunn and Jesse Forrester, according to several records, and several sources have her first name as Margaret.

• Julia Ann’s parents are Joseph Jolley and Elizabeth Perkins, who possibly had a first or second name as Frances. Also, I find that Julia Ann was born in Tennessee, according to her death record.

So that is a start. Some very good clues. But a mystery….

I’m going to blog about what I find over the next few days….