Family History Writing Challenge Day 2- Mattie, an Old Scroll, and a Research Revolution

                                                         

                                                       

Mattie Womack

         

                         My grandmother sparked my interest in genealogy when I was a young child. Until she came to live with us in her final years, I only saw her for a week each year when we visited her home in Oklahoma. Even in that brief time, passing the family heritage on was important to her- and I was her youngest grandchild/last hope! She would have me recite the birth order of she and her eight siblings- Emma, Dona, Leona, Mattie (my grandmother), Edgar, Ora, Maude, Holly, Lillian. There were occasional stories of her life in East Texas in the 1880’s. But what really caught my interest was the story of her grandfather, “Injun Abe.”

The facts were sparse; he was a Choctaw Indian, he had moved the family from Rankin County, Mississippi to Apple Springs, Texas on ox drawn wagons, and there he started the plantation that my grandmother grew up on. My grandmother was proud of her Choctaw heritage; in her final years, when her memory was fading, she carried a piece of paper in her purse with the handwritten phrase “I am (percentage unfortunately forgotten by me!) Choctaw Indian.” The pride in our heritage was passed down through our family; but with no accompanying knowledge of the culture or the connection, other than the legend of “Injun Abe.”

                      My grandmother’s maiden name was Womack, as was her grandfather “Injun Abe’s.” That sounded Indian to me! When I began doing real research, in the 1980’s (a hundred years after the birth of my grandmother in 1881) I was living in New Orleans, Louisiana and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and genealogical research moved at a very different pace than it does now in our web enabled 21st century. My father shared with me one tangible piece of information- a copy of a family tree, laboriously written in tiny script, and rolled up on six pages of frail old paper.  Its origins were again, vague, but I have found through the years that it was amazingly accurate. It described many branches of the Womack family in great detail- but our branch was noted as a connection that was of uncertain connection to the other branches. The mystery of Injun Abe continued! 

A local Louisiana library surprisingly had a great deal of information on the Womack’s (I had no idea that I was living in the midst of their homeland) and I found out first of all that this was an English-not an Indian- name.  I began inquiries in the old way- writing letters to possible connections and waiting (sometimes months) for replies with clues or brick walls. This brief chance for exploration came to an abrupt halt with a move overseas. My research was at a standstill.

Twenty years later, I returned to a new world of genealogical research- the internet era. Now I had the time and the means (i.e. a computer and high speed internet connection) to dive into the mystery of “Injun Abe.” I did so with relish. This is what I now know of “Injun Abe,” my great-great grandfather.

The old family tree scroll- one of six pages