My extensive research on my 3X great grandmother, Sarah Jane 'Jennie' (Watson) Powers has not turned up any Cherokee lineage. As much as I would like it to be, I just don't find it. Please note the Cherokee Removal or 'Trail of Tears' occurred in 1838-1839. Jennie Watson could not have been part of this point in history as she was born in 1862, or 24 years AFTER that event. I have a copy of her marriage document to William Warren Powers dated 1880 which shows her as 18 years old. Since they were married in June and her birthday is in August she was actually only 17 years old at the time of the marriage, a few months shy of her 18th birthday.
I was also told that Jennie was a full-blooded Cherokee. My documents, however, show her father was Wiley Watson and her mother Phebe Smith, neither of whom appear to be Cherokee. I've gone back several generations beyond Jennie's parents and find English ancestry (among others). If anyone HAS information to dispprove what I'm finding and that places Jennie into the Cherokee background, I would really like to see it.
In my research I have found ANOTHER Sarah Jane 'Jennie' Watson who was apparently was part of that removal, however, not 'our' Jennie Watson.
