I do know that they copied the land records by hand. As I have a few deeds that are duplicates and are written a little differently. This also goes for a will one of my ancestors left. There is said to be 2 slightly different copies.

I also know they did not always record the land. I have ancestors who buy land and do not enter it in the deed office until years later. They buy it before Indian removal but wait until a few years after Indian removal to record it. FPC in Wilkes county, they left them alone. I have not seen anyone there so far have their land taken even though there are non-white people there. Im sure some of them were scared during the tension of removal.

I do however find it interesting that court officials have ties to the Cherokee.

Also why would you only take the deed records and destroy those and possibly some of the marriages and nothing else.

Then there is Andrew Baird who moved in our neighborhood after we were already there and had dealings with land speculation. He used our Martins to get Daniel Smith to loose his land and pension and called him out as a Tory. Daniel died wile fighting for his pension. Daniels 2 daughters tried to get his pension reinstated with no luck. One of his daughters I know for sure was married to an Indian Helton. The daughters claimed in Daniels Rev War pension they did not know where Daniels other children were but I have a feeling I know where they were but no proof of them. This is all going on around removal. We did have actual enrolled Eastern Band Cherokee Smith/Shells living in Hudson Caldwell which is 5 minutes north of where the Patriarchs of the Martin/Smith/Shells lived. I suspect those Eastern Band Cherokee might have been ours but their apps dont go back far enough to connect and go into mother clan. Our Patriarchs are missing paper to connect closer to the living.

Its seems like more is going on than just the possible burning of "Selective" court records. I do wonder how many other people Andrew Baird might have used and abused to get land.


I know a lot of people cant trace Burke and why many are DNA testing to try and fill in the blanks. Our family has sooooo many people who got mother's surname and fathers unknown. DNA is revealing even more than we have on record.
Many of the men in our area had sweeties on the side. Some we can prove. This may be the case with Lightfoot Williams since they say his wife did not give him any children. Very possible he had a sweetie on the side.

Have you tired DNA testing for your brick walls? Sometimes it does help and sometimes not. Sometimes it reveals your ancestors are "opps" in the family with no record of bastardy bond found. Y-DNA can help find father lines for men born out of wedlock but unfortunately if you have a woman born out of wedlock no way to prove father line if everyone involved is deceased and worse if they fall further back on your tree. In general a lot of male lines in Burke DNA has revealed they are not who they say they are and on top of it no paper.