John Champness Austin, I - Was Hannah Native American or not?

There are court documents that say she was a Saponi Indian. I will have to upload all of the documents I have for her from my personal files. I will check with my cousin as well, he had several docs.

Both, of us, have American Indian Heritage in our DNA testing.

John Champness was married one time - we have only found records of this marriage and children with Hannah Austin (Love) - The DNA cousin I have is presenting the court documents to the Indian council to see if they will recognize the Austin lineage. We should know something, I will update her file and her son's when I hear back from him. He's done this before, he is Cherokee Indian from another lineage, so he knows the process.

Thank you for the information Suzan Martin!

Thank you!! I am researching her daughter Mary Sally who married Jacob Webb. Not sure he is my ancestor yet. Ancestry gave a hint that he was the father of Stephen Webb who married Mary Peed. Their son was Jesse Webb who I know for sure is my ancestor. My DNA thru Ancestry did not show Native American.

American Indian rarely appears as there was much intermarriage in the 1600-1700's to European traders and Explorers.

I'm only 4 generations from a 1/2 Cherokee Indian, but discover his grandmother was married to an English fur trader who also used a tribal name.

Was the Fur Trader named McDaniel. I seem to recall McDaniel SURNAME as being Fur Traders. My line comes from Richard Austin, James Austin, and his daughter Mary Austin 1848-1915, Scotts Hill, TN and died in Shady point, OK, 1915.

Suzan Martin: What happened with your cousin's request to the Indian council concerning the Austin line?

I've been so sidetracked with so many projects I haven't even thought about this in awhile - I will write him today! Thank you for reminding me.

:)

He took the information above and subitted to:

ChaplainDBK
Oct 28, 2019

Hi Suzan, I did successfully contact a couple of the Saponi Tribes

"This is not a name known to the Occaneechi Saponi.

We wish you luck with your research."

Vickie Jeffries
Tribal Administrator
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This was a positive letter he received back

"Doug,

Thanks for reaching out. We have heard about an Austin, Love connection, but so far, no one has had good research on the descendants. If you have anything from the 1700’s court records and any heirs that would be a great start. The surnames are not currently connected to our community, but there may be connections through marriages. Thanks in advance for any information.
***Dante" nahyssan@gmail.com

I don't remember off hand which Saponi Tribe Dante was with, but she sounded positive. I did reply to this email again but didn't hear back she appears to be interested in seeing a copy of the court records identifying the Austin brothers as Saponi. Something I don't have access to.

Hope this helps
Doug

A suggestion was made to start a project for the study and research of
Austin Hanna Love Indian Lineage -

This group could follow up with the application process. Step by step - we have one Tribe at least interested in considering her as Saponi and Austin children as American Indian.

Who is interested, if I start the project?

This is a possibility, it just takes follow up with a direct relative committed to following through. I believe our Hanna Austin (Love) and her children have enough court documents that would work. My cousin, Doug who started this is busy with another American Indian Tribe, he sent this in as a favour to assist us. Someone directly kin should pick this up and finish.

Thanks!!

I'm rather late to this discussion. They are a cousin line for me, so I'm just trying to make sure I have the info correct in my Ancestry tree. I've read some of the conflicting info on the Native American wife of John Champness Austin I. I think this is the best info I've seen about that marriage. However, it doesn't give a name for John Sr.'s wife who was Saponi, which is why some people have concluded John Sr. Had more than one wife:

NAME: John's wife was an Indian woman, of the Saponi tribe, of the
Cattaba Nation . MARRIAGE: "Abstract of Minutes of Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan Co., NC, 1753-17 62," by Jo White Linn, p 38. NOTE: The source apparently states that John Austin, Jr's mother was an Indian. MARRIAGE: A recording in the Rowan County (NC) Book, p 72 and dated 19 Apr 1755. Handwritten text was difficult to read (by Liz Austin Carlin), but best effort follows. TEXT: "Whereas John Auston (this would be John Austin, Jr.) and a Saponia Indian and Marry (Mary?) a Susquohanah Indian and Thomas Cattaba applied for a pass to the Catabe Nation being now on their j ourney to conclude a general peace with the Cattabas on behalf of the said nations and also p resented three belts of Wampum to said Court by which the said Treaty is to be concluded.".

MARRIAGE-CHILDREN-INDIAN ANCESTRY: "... John, Jr identified himself as a Saponi at a court hearing in Surry County. Valentine was also identified as an Indian at a court hearing in Surry County. Later, it was discovered the Richard (son) and Joseph was identified by the state of Virginia as Melungeons (Not of pure European blood). Since four of the five known children have been identified as "mixed blood" it is felt that there was only one mother for all the known children."

The 2nd statement indicates one mother for all the children, which would indicate Hannah was the mother of all of them.

There seems to be widespread belief that there was NA in the lines and that it had to have come from a mother's line. Since there is mention of it in records from the 1700s, I tend to lean toward that being the most accurate information available on the matter since it would have been during their lifetime and not misinformation possibly passed down through subsequent generations.