Wurth has claimed Cherokee ancestry thru her Martin family line. All of her Martin family lines are well-documented white people. I did find two different children on Cherokee census Rolls, who have a similar name, hence possibly misreading and believes these children were her ancestors. Wurth has stated herself that her grandmother was Oda Edith Martin sometimes called Ada. Oda's parents according to Wurth AND according to the documents regarding these ancestors that I found, were Edwin Martin and Lucreticia Woodall. The first Cherokee document reads a child born in 1894 named Ada Martin, Not Od Edith Martin but Ada Martin. She is listed with her mother Gracie, Not Lucreticia and she is listed with her siblings Claude, Oscar and Augustus who are Not Oda Edith Martin’s siblings. In addition, Ada Martin on the Roll was living in Oklahoma in 1903, whereas Oda Edith Martin had left Oklahoma by then and was residing with her parents in Kansas by 1900. This is a “similar name” issue. The second Cherokee Roll I have is for an Eva A. Martin, similar but not the same as Oda Edith who is “sometimes “ referred to as Ada. This child is also about the same age as Oda, but Eva A. is listed with her father William, and her siblings John A., Rosa C., and William H. Martin. These are not Oda Edith’s siblings or her father. This is again, a same name or similar name issue, not Wurth’s ancestors.
Wurth has lamented that her 2nd great grandmother Annie James nee Riggs, nee Coffin was born in 1871 o 1872. I found conflicting dates of birth. I found 1866, 1871 and 1872 on documents. The 1900 census for example lists her with her husband Albert Coffin and children as being born in 1866. Other census reports declared 1871 and another 1872. It is the same person on all the census reports, it does not change the genealogy or the fact that Annie James is white. Wurth has also confirmed that Annie James is her ancestor.
Annie over time was obviously known as Annie but sometimes the documents read “Tommie “ or “Annie Tommie”, two documents even read “Trinney” which is a misspelling for sure. The reason for which the censuses and other documents are correct for her is by identifying the other persons in the documents with her which are her children, two different husband’s, her parents and siblings. This is how we know despite the misspelling and/or nickname used or pet name “Tommie or Trinney” in combination with her name Annie or even separate from, we know it is the same woman who is Wurth’s ancestor. Wurth claims the added name or nickname Tommie “never sat well” with her. But again, it’s the other people in those documents that provide proof of who Annie is, it let’s us know it is the same woman. Sometimes ancestors can be complicated, but if one pays attention, almost everything can be worked out and proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Wurth has also recently stated she is Black in addition to having claimed for years Apache, Chickasaw, Cherokee. There are absolutely no records indicating even remotely that any of her ancestors are Black, much less, Cherokee, Chickasaw or Apache. I did find a person, a member on Ancestry dot com that had a person listed as a sibling to someone in Wurth’s family. The parents were white all the other siblings were white. But there was a mortality schedule attached to one of the children. Listing the 12 year old Black child as slave. This mortality schedule was for a slave child “perhaps “, not proven, owned by one of Wurth’s relatives and the Ancestry user accidentally saved that document to her tree. The poor child died of consumption. Could it be that Wurth found the same record and has errantly placed this Black child as her family member? Could be.
I also see that Wurth claims an ancestor named Mahala, a very common white settler name that for some reason a lot of people believe that name is American Indian for some reason. I personally have never known it to be an American Indian name but only thousands of white people’s name. But alas, we don’t go by first names to determine ancestry, we use only factual documentation to determine ancestry. And as far as the Cherokee and Chickasaw Tribes are concerned they don’t use DNA at all.
When we develop a person’s family tree it is our goal to find all of the American Indian ancestors, that’s what we want. We love to see it, we want to see it. But if the documentation is there we cannot invent them.
When attempting to prove a Tribal claim, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, in this case Erika Wurth. Yet she has not ever said exactly who her Chickasaw, Cherokee or Apache or Black ancestors were. She has all the names of her family members. So why hasn’t she ever once said who is American Indian or Black? And she has never produced even 1 document proving the Tribal Citizenship of those ancestors, but yet she knows she is American Indian. I have never encountered in my life so far, any American Indian who claims Tribal ancestry or descendancy who Doesn’t Know who those ancestors are.
